Skye news

We fell in love with the Isle of Skye at first sight. I defy anyone not to. As soon as you begin the drive or walk across the Skye Road Bridge, you get the distinct impression that you are heading out of the known world. This is a wild place of strange, craggy mountains, panoramic towering coastlines and simply no-one there. The skies are vast and lead the eye far out to sea … where there is virtually nothing between you and the Arctic. I would highly recommend coming here for a real sense of wilderness and the truly great outdoors.

Uig (pronounced with an ‘h’ – just make a vague vomiting noise and you’ll be pretty close) is near the northernmost tip of Skye and is home to a tiny ferry port and little else. We based ourselves here where we could watch the wild seas, hear the seals and also wave at the ferries destined for the Outer Hebrides. It wasn’t a picture-postcard gorgeous place by any means, it felt like the edge of the world and was pretty bleak and functional. The one pub we tried was almost silent, deadly expensive and pretty mediocre. The seashore was rocky and barren and the buildings looked battered. But we were happy here. The kids made themselves at home as always – Jenna adopting the owner’s dogs, Rhys commandeering the field for rugby and football practice and Rowan investigating the facilities and giving her practised verdict on them all. We explored the tiny capital of Portree and drove all over the island, watching birds of prey, hunting for fossils and gazing at the Old Man of Storr, an extremely precarious rock stack high in the hills. Old man he may be, but I hope he doesn’t go keeling over any time soon. Skye has big old mountains and some of the richest jurassic rocks for those who, like me, are secretly spoddy rock hounds. Those who care may be excited to know that not only did Rowan and I found heaps of oolitic limestone, but also large intact sections of the worm itself, not just in cross section! I can almost FEEL you all jumping off your chairs at this news. I have the wee 65 million-year-old petrified creatures next to me as I write.

The roads were tiny, pot holed and dotted with careless sheep and we saw hardly a soul as we explored. This was a very special place and we were very happy that there were so few visitors present. Of course, one Dutch couple did decide to park right next to us in our campsite-cum-car park (there only being about 10 other spaces they had taken which would NOT have spoilt my view of the ocean). I was somewhat bemused when, at my usual window station taking the air (aka having a fag) the bloke parked up, flung open his door and proceeded to urinate liberally and noisily all over the corn field next to me. Is this some strange Dutch custom? “Ah! We have arrived. I ignore any peasants nearby. I shall now christen this new land with the righteous flow from my loins. I claim this heathen place!” Luckily they stayed just the one night giving me my much nicer view back. Alas Joe had to remark on the waist-high corn in front of Rowan, making very erudite but possibly inappropriate comparisons with Children of the Corn and M. Knight Shymalan’s Signs. Rowan, quite understandably, then refused to go out to the toilet unaccompanied!