We had a (soon to be standard) early morning and caught the ferry over to Armadale in the Sleat area of Skye. We spent some time in the harbor area talking to other hikers and imaging the almost certain fairy-tale lives of the other passengers on the ferry. We also were given some nuggets of knowledge about transportation in Skye by a photographer and his little shop. (I used to have his card, but I seem to have misplaced it... I'm sure it's around here somewhere...) Eventually, and apparently luckily, our bus showed up. From the harbor we got the bus all the way up to Broadford. From there, our first day of real hiking began.
Images from the bus ride to Broadford
Another one
In Broadford
We headed south out of Broadford towards Torrin. We had a clear, but very windy, day. It was difficult to talk when we were walking in to the wind. The first real mountains that welcomed us were Beinn na Caillich and Beinn Dearg. They were a dominating feature for almost the whole hike. Before we headed towards the coast, we stopped off at Cill Chriosd. It was pretty. After that little side trip we continued south until we hit the ruined settlements of Boreraig and Suisnish. Both of these settlements' populations were forcibly removed as part of the Highland clearances in 1853 by the Macdonald clan. This was to make way for sheep, since they were more profitable than people. While walking in between the two ruins I might have accidentally steered us up a pretty steep sheep trail instead of the nice coastline... Oh well, it looked like the trail when we started... After a few leaps of faith and some bushwhacking we made it back down.
Merrie in Broadford with Beinn na Caillich and Beinn Dearg behind
Me looking like an absolute twat with Loch Eishort and Sleat behind
Boreraig
More Boreraig
We liked Boreraig
More Loch Eishort
After the two settlements, we started heading back North with Loch Slapin to our left. The trail had turned into a gravel road by this point and the hiking was pretty straightforward. Along the way there was a nice bench dedicated to a man and his dog. They apparently had the right idea because the view was pretty stunning. We had a very deserving rest there for a while. Eventually we hit Kilbride. It was annoying having to circle around for an extra mile or two because of a quarry which we didn't see on the map, but it was all ok, until we got to Torrin.
Now, until this time, we were under the illusion that towns that looked like the size of Torrin on our map, would have things like... stores, or gas stations, or restaurants. Nopes. There was a telephone booth and one "cafe" that had a very small window of opening times. Looking back, there are around 35 structures individually marked on the map. They were all house or barns. That's not very many. After this sad revelation (since most "towns" on our maps were Torrin's size or smaller) it began to rain. So, we headed on to a boggy, marshy hillside and looked for a descent campsite for a half hour. We never found one, but we camped there anyway...
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