Europe 1975: A Throwback Memory

I've been travelling independently for well over half a century. From my earliest trips, I have scattered memories of incidents here and there. This week, I got hit out of left field by a memory from my first independent trip to Europe in 1975, thanks to Instagram's random selection of stories that the software thinks might interest me. That picture so intrigued me that I promptly went digging for more. Here's the photo that IG turned up for my consideration -- a rather unusual sight by anyone's standards.

Let's face it, it isn't every day that you see a passenger train charging across the apron at an airport terminal. The location was the airport at Le Touquet - Paris-Plage in northern France, right on the coast of the English Channel south of the ferry ports at Calais and Boulogne. The scene was the transfer point between two legs of an unusual rail-air hybrid service that used to connect Paris and London three times a day -- "The Silver Arrow."

Since this was 1975, there was of course no Channel Tunnel to speed up rail travel between the two capitals. The available options were using rail at each end to connect with the ferries across the Channel from Calais and Boulogne, or to fly from Paris (Orly or Le Bourget) to London (Heathrow or Gatwick). The all-air option was fearfully expensive, while the traditional ferry crossing would take 5 hours or more (including train times) and laid you open to the notoriously rough seas of the English Channel, one of the most seasick-prone sea crossings on the planet.

I'd just spent four weeks touring on the continent, and would soon be heading back to England for my flight home when I saw an ad (while browsing a bookstore) for the Silver Arrow. I had a vague memory of having heard of it earlier, but wasn't aware of the details. However, the price was right and I booked it with no hesitation, having had my own baptism by rough water when crossing the North Sea from England to Norway several weeks earlier (that ranks as one of the most miserable travel experiences of my entire life).

The journey began at the Gare du Nord, the same station in Paris where Eurostar expresses now depart for London via the tunnel. The train, shown in the first photo at the top, ran express to Le Touquet with only a single stop in the northern city of Amiens. As we approached Le Touquet, the diesel train left the main line on a branch. This ran north-westwards into the airport property, crossed two active taxiways, and then curved around to west and ran right across the apron into a station platform attached to the end of the small airport terminal. The track across the airport has been paved over now, but you can still see traces of the route today on aerial photographs marked here with several "silver" arrows!

As we were rolling into the airport, I was seated on the right-hand side of the train, and so completely missed a grandstand close-up view of the aircraft as we rolled in.

 

Considering that this train would go no further than the airport before returning to Paris, it was far bigger than any possible need. The plane only seated fifty people; the train probably had space for three times that number. And indeed, the train had loaded up with the inbound passengers and departed back to Paris before we'd even boarded the flight.

Check in went very quickly, and so did the security check. And then we walked out to the plane. Ah, the good old days!

The name of the airline was British Island Airways, one of a sizable collection of independent airlines in the British Isles which flew smaller turboprop aircraft like this one in and out of smaller airports at various cities beyond the big metropolitan centres of the United Kingdom. The aircraft was a real rarity, one of a number of aircraft types produced in the 1950s and 1960s by the British civil aviation sector which saw only limited service with non-British airlines. This one is the Handley Page Herald. It was one of several different types built at the same time by various British manufacturers, all seating around 50 passengers, and all powered by the ubiquitous Rolls-Royce Dart turboprop engine. The Herald struggled to make sales, and only 50 of these aircraft were completed.

Oddly enough, one Canadian airline operated the Herald around the same time period. Eastern Provincial Airways, the regional airline of the Maritime provinces, operated this type into a number of smaller airports from their main hub at Halifax.   

The two pictures shown so far were of BIA's final colour scheme, so they must have been taken a few years later on, perhaps on one of the final runs of the Silver Arrow. Here's one more picture which dates from an earlier year and shows the colour scheme as it appeared on my flight. 

 

Attribution:

Ken Fielding/https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenfielding

 

Once we were all aboard and seated (and the plane was not full), the engines were fired up with that memorable plaintive whining tone unique to the Dart engines, and we taxied quickly out to the runway. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the flight to London Gatwick airport took only 35 minutes, a great advance over the 90-minutes-plus that a ferry would take from Calais to Dover. We flew at a fairly low altitude and had a great view.

Why Gatwick? London Gatwick had a feature that was nearly unique in 1975, although it's now seen as more or less essential in Europe and much of the rest of the world. This airport had direct rail access to the city with a station on the main line from Brighton up to London Victoria. Once we deplaned at Gatwick, it was a quick walk through the terminal, across the footbridge over the tracks, and down to the platforms. Our ticket included travel on the premium-priced Gatwick Express service which ran into London nonstop in a matter of 35 minutes.  

I was saddened a few years later to find out that the Silver Arrow was no more. It wasn't the Channel Tunnel that caused the demise of this unique service -- that still lay years in the future. It was something completely different in the world of ferries.

 

 Photo credit: Andrew Berridge, CC BY-SA 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons  

 

  

Photo Credit: Bachcell, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

 

These monsters, the SRN-4 hovercraft, could carry 450 passengers and 100 cars at a time, "flying" across the waters of the English Channel a short distance above the waves, and (most significant) were capable of crossing in wave height conditions up to 3.5 metres (11.5 feet). The hovercraft service was already in existence in 1975, and I admit it was a tough choice, but the unusual aircraft won out over the exotic hovercraft. I never did get a chance to cross the Channel in this way. Pity.

 

Spring Nostalgia Trip # 10: Tìr na h-Òigridh, The Magical Land of Youth

From the first view, it's plainly apparent that we're no longer anywhere near the metropolitan crowds and noises of Glasgow -- or any other major city.

 

Instead, the faithful Caledonian MacBrayne ferry has brought me once again to one of the most peaceful and magical places I know -- the island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland's island outposts against the open Atlantic Ocean.

Barra is special, in ways that I can't readily pin down and catalogue. All I know is that this whole Scottish footnote to my transatlantic cruise began a few months back when I wrote and published a series of blogs about my last trip to the Outer Hebrides, from 2007. By the time I'd finished that series, I knew in my heart of hearts that I absolutely needed to see Barra again.

Why Barra in particular? I suspect this was just because both of my previous visits have been one night only, and I wanted very much to be able to give Barra a little more time.

What I didn't want to do, though, was to go through all the hassle of renting a car. That meant travel by train and (of course) by ferry. I could have come by air from Glasgow. Barra's airport is famous, even notorious, around the world as the only scheduled airline service airport on a beach. The plane, a Canadian-built DeHavilland Twin Otter has to land at low tide, kicking up a huge plume of spray every time. 

 

Twin Otter on final approach to land at Barra Airport. Photo taken by James Gray, 1988

 

The air service has been operated by, or under the names of, many different airlines through the years. It is currently operated by Loganair. It would have cost me far more to get to Barra by air, and I've flown on too many Twin Otters to consider this a thrill ride.

 

Here's how I got to Barra (red for rail, blue for sea):

The trains run from Glasgow Queen Street Station to Oban three times a day. The train which makes the direct connection leaves Glasgow at 0821, arriving in Oban at 1127. The railway builders ended the line right on the waterfront, and the ferry terminal is right beside the train station. It takes just 2 minutes to walk from one to the other -- less than the walking distances in many major airports.

But be warned. The train to Oban is a 2-car, diesel-engine unit. It's not very big, and there can be a lot of traffic. You need to reserve your seat at no extra charge. I had forgotten about this, because it's been years since I did any serious train travel in the UK. You do it when you buy your ticket. What I don't know, and it's too late for me to figure it out this trip, is how to get the seat reservations when you're using a rail pass on ScotRail. But however you do it, DO IT. On my return trip, the train was over 80% reserved, and pulled out of Oban with people already standing in the aisles. Thanks to a kind younger gentleman, I was able to land one of the few unreserved seats. My well-worked feet were grateful. Standing up for the entire run of over 3 hours to Glasgow is not something I would want to do.

There's some incredible scenery along this route through the Highlands -- on both sides. I remembered to ride on one side on the way out and the other on the way back. But ScotRail doesn't do a terrific job on washing the trains. The grime on the window ruined most of my pictures from the outbound trip. On the return, the window had a few small parts which were dirt-free. Here are a few pix from the return to Glasgow. The River Awe, which drains Loch Awe into Loch Etive and the ocean.

Masses of lilacs on the station at Arrochar and Tarbet, a narrow neck of land between Loch Lomond and Loch Long. "Tarbet" or "Tarbert" (from Gaelic) is a common place name in the Highlands and Islands, and denotes a narrow strip of land or isthmus between two bodies of water.

 

 Views of the mountains as the train climbs the long grade above the eastern shore of Loch Long.

The ferry from Oban to Barra cost £17 each way for a walk-on passage. This would also be the fare for any extra passengers in a motor vehicle, which is charged as a car-and-driver fare. Although the ship was still relatively empty this early in the season, you would definitely require a reservation to cross with a vehicle during the peak period from mid-June to September. 

 

You should certainly want to be on deck as the ferry sails out of Oban Harbour. Oban is itself a place which will repay a visit of a day or three, and has many good choices of places to stay, from bigger hotels facing the harbour to smaller inns and bed and breakfast places farther uphill.

Wait a second. What is that "thing" up on top of the hill? Closer look.

McCaig's Tower seems to have been intended as a giant-sized replica of a Roman arena. Whatever his final intentions were, it never got finished. Today it's a park, and the grounds inside and around the structure are nicely tended and manicured. In Victorian times, this kind of replica of a classical building or at least a building inspired by a classical model was known as a "folly." If nothing else, McCaig's Folly was definitely committed on a grand scale.

As the ship slowly pulls away, you can see that Oban is a ferry port of considerable importance. One of the two main berths is reserved for the frequent shuttle to and from Craignure on the nearby Isle of Mull. It's one of Calmac's busiest routes and uses two sizable ferries in summer. There is a smaller berth with a slipway used by the double-ender which serves the nearby island of Lismore. Oban is definitely the busiest port for numbers of vehicles and passengers on the Caledonian MacBrayne system, which serves all of the western islands.

The first leg of the trip can show some spectacular scenery when the weather cooperates. On this day it didn't, alas. I did get a few good pictures on the return trip, including this zoom-lens shot of Mull's "capital," the fishing town of Tobermory with its famous multi-coloured row of houses along the waterfront. 

 

The ferry will pass the end of the Isle of Mull about 90-100 minutes after leaving Oban. The remainder of the nearly five hour crossing is in open water, the sea passage known in Scotland as the Minch. It's at this point that you reap the benefits of one of Caledonian MacBrayne's biggest and fastest ships being put on this route. But you can still get bounced around, so it's best to travel prepared.

Just before 6:00 pm, the ferry glides past a series of rocky islets and into the circular harbour of Castlebay, the principal port of Barra. The reason for the name is completely obvious from the first picture at the top of the post. Once ashore, I just had to hike up the steep hill from the ferry dock to get this view of the ferry, the MV Isle of Lewis, secured at the pier for the night. 

 

 

A short distance further uphill brought me to the Castlebay Hotel. It's a classic old Scottish hotel, family operated, with a full restaurant at breakfast and in the evenings, a bar with music which also serves light lunches in a separate building on the right, and some of the friendliest staff I've ever encountered in my travels. I've stayed here on all three of my visits to Barra.

 

One last stiff hike up all those steps. There is a separate handicapped entrance via a rear driveway.

The hotel's restaurant is popular, and with good reason, among the locals and the guests of the nearby B&Bs. It's essential to have a reservation for dinner, and making them in advance, by phone or email, is a good idea. One thing's for sure -- bring a big appetite. I had soup as a starter one night, no starter the next night. The main courses were monumental enough -- like this plate of tail-on breaded and fried scampi with chips and salad, and tartar sauce served on the half shell.

The second night I had an equally enormous Scottish take on Pad Thai, and it was terrific too.

 

Even more monumental was the breakfast, included in the room rate. You are invited to help yourself to the buffet of cold cereals, oatmeal, fruit, and toast while your cooked breakfast is being prepared in the kitchen. And when it arrives, if you ordered the Full Scottish Breakfast, there are no less than ten (10) separate items on the plate.

 

The complete list: eggs as you choose, bacon, banger sausage, Lorne sausage (the square one), black pudding, fried potato cake, potato scone, grilled tomato, grilled mushrooms, and baked beans. I couldn't finish either of those meals!

 

As the photo on arrival suggests, Castlebay is really just a village. It's gotten a bit bigger and more populous since my last visit, mainly because it is the ferry port. Apart from that detail, though, Barra's population is spread out in a wide range of small settlements all around the island. There are small inns or B&Bs in several other parts of the island as well. 

The next island south of Barra is called Vatersay, and it is now physically linked to Barra by a causeway for the road. In many ways, the two islands function as a single unit, although there's also a bit of stubborn insistence on the differences. The total population of both islands together is approximately 1300 people.

Well, now that I'm here and without a vehicle, that means that my walking tours would be confined to roaming around the Castlebay area. That was fine with me. I only had one full day on Barra anyway, since I arrived by ferry in time to get dinner on Wednesday night and had to be back on the ferry by 6:30 am on Friday morning. For those who wish to stay longer, there are some scheduled bus services around Barra, and even to Vatersay, with small mini-buses.

 

My first walk in the morning was to climb the hills west of the harbour, up to the Barra and Vatersay War Memorial. That gave me a good hike -- about an hour outbound, 50 minutes back -- and a good bit of a climb as well, since the walk ends with a 500-metre long hill at 12% grade.

 

As I set out, I got a good view along the main street of Castlebay, westwards from my hotel, which shows several other hotels and B&Bs among the other houses.

 

 

The halfway point of the walk is the point where you turn off the main island road, which is actually classified as a principal highway. It's the A888. The road to the Vatersay causeway is unclassified. Here's the intersection.

Notice right away how the Scots Gaelic comes before the English on the direction sign. It's not just a token gesture -- about 60% of the population of Barra and Vatersay speak Gaelic. Next, notice the blue sign regarding the Hebridean Way cycling route. At this point, "North" will take you around Barra on the A888 to the ferry landing at Ard Mhor where the smaller Calmac ferry sails several times a day to Eriskay, giving access to the more northerly islands of the Hebrides chain. The road to Vatersay is, of course, "South" because Vatersay is the most southerly inhabited island of the Hebrides.

Next, look carefully at the road and you'll see that this is the point at which the road narrows down to just one lane. These "single-track roads" are regular features of driving in the Hebrides, and indeed all over the Highlands. But, you may ask, what happens if someone comes the other way? This picture taken as I walked south on the Vatersay road gives the answer.

The "Passing Place" sign is always a white square, although it doesn't always have text on it, and in many places it can be tilted 45 degrees to make it into a diamond shape. It's at a spot where the road gets a bit wider. You can see the next "Passing Place" sign a bit farther down the road -- usually a matter of several hundred feet. The rule is simple. Between here and the next passing place, a driver has the right of way. Another driver, arriving at the further white sign, must pull over and wait. It's a social custom to give a friendly little "thank-you" wave to the driver who has waited for you.

 

Another intriguing feature on this road, which is common to roads all over the Highlands and Islands, is shown here.

 

Sheep and cattle are allowed to range and feed freely over large areas of grazing land, rather than being confined in fenced pastures. It's the villages that are fenced in! The grids are used to keep the animals from wandering into villages and helping themselves to the residents' kitchen gardens or prize rose bushes. The side gate can be opened whenever it is desired to bring the animals in for any reason. Walking across the grids is a slightly tricky manoeuvre, and a necessity for cyclists.

The road became two lanes again at the long, steep hill leading up to the memorial -- for safety reasons, I would assume. Here's a picture looking down the last leg of the hill to give you an idea of the grade.

If you look at all my photographs of the roads, there are almost no vehicles visible in any of them. One of the most striking things about Barra, and a real stress reliever as well, is the near-total absence of vehicle traffic in any reasonable sense of the word. There's one rush hour per day, and it's at 6:00 pm when the ferry arrives from Oban and unloads. Otherwise, the stillness is what you notice. When a car does come along, you can usually hear it long before you see it. There's a lot of peace to be had by finding places we can go, where that endless noise that rules our everyday lives actually gets switched off.

 

Then I reached the crest of the climb and the war memorial. It's a three-sided column with stylized pieces stretching out from the top corners, which -- depending on the angle you view them -- could be birds, or they could be antlers.

 

I'm showing just one side so you can see how the names are organized by individual communities, and with the initials to identify the branch of service of each one. Many of the names, especially in World War Two, were identified as "MN" -- Merchant Navy. It's not surprising that so many of the young men of island communities with fishing an integral part of their lives would choose to serve in seafaring capacities.

There's a broad panorama of Castlebay from the hilltop site of the memorial. Like almost every community I've seen in the Hebrides, apart from the "city" of Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, the houses spread broadly across the landscape, with plenty of space the rule. The one exception in Castlebay is the short road which runs around the "waterfront" in the area by the ferry dock. There you will find the post office, a cafe, a tour boat office, and the ferry terminal all placed in close proximity to each other.

The misty air is a commonplace in Barra, with the summit of the island's tallest mountain, Heaval, concealed in the clouds, although it did get much sunnier later in the day. I think that slightly misty air is part of the special atmosphere of Barra. It can get quite bright, even sunny, without the air ever entirely losing that misty softness. It's a gift from the Atlantic Ocean, which was right behind me, a mile or so away, when I took this photo. The next solid land in that direction is Labrador.

 

Add in the exhilaration of climbing that hill and getting to that view, and it suddenly became easy for me to understand why so many Scots authors have equated the Outer Hebrides with Tìr na h-Òigridh (the magical land of youth) which by tradition was located somewhere out in the middle of the ocean. Now I'm convinced too. Barra is the place, and this feeling of renewal was what I took away with me. Barra provided me with the perfect opportunity to shed stress and drop a few years in the process. Ponce de Leon was looking in the wrong place!

 

(Just by the way, I'm using the Scots Gaelic spelling given to me by Google Translate. If I have any Scots Gaelic-speaking friends who can set me straight on this, I'd be glad to hear from them.)

 

I'm sure some of my readers are wondering by this time why I'm avoiding the topic of the castle which gives Castlebay (Bàigh a' Chaisteil) its name! Well, here goes. 

 

Kisimul Castle (pronounced "kish-mool") is the dramatic centrepiece of Castlebay. It was the stronghold through the centuries of the Chieftains of the Clan MacNeil of Barra, a clan which was small but fiercely proud nonetheless. For an entire century, from 1838 when the island was sold until 1937, the castle was abandoned. It fell to the then-Chieftain, Robert Lister MacNeil of Baltimore, who purchased the estate again and set to work restoring the castle. The form in which the building currently stands is largely the result of his work, which ended with his death in 1970. His son, as Chieftain, rented the Castle in 2001 to the organization Historic Scotland (now absorbed into the Historic Environment Scotland government department) for 1000 years, for an annual rental of £1 and a bottle of Talisker whisky (the man certainly had good taste!).

Historic Environment Scotland continues to have responsibility for the Castle and for the archaeological and structural remedial work which is ongoing there. As a result, the castle remains (as it has been for years) closed to visitors.  And now you know why I haven't said anything about going there! Grrr. I'll get back to my best picture of Kisimul Castle at the end of this post.

 

My second walk of the day was just as enjoyable, but neither as long nor as challenging. I left at about ten past five in the afternoon, in the golden glow of the afternoon sun, and walked to the east. 

 

This picture shows two more of the small hotels of the Castlebay area, as well as the church of Our Lady, Star of the Sea. Roman Catholicism is the dominant religion of Barra and Vatersay. You have to get up to the midpoint of the entire Hebridean chain for the doctrinaire puritanism of the Reformed Free Kirk of Scotland to dominate. It's one of the oddities of the southern end of the Hebridean chain that the Roman Catholic faith is so strong here. Barra has five Roman Catholic churches and one small (I'm tempted to say token) Free Kirk. 

At the bottom of the hill, I turned right onto the road leading down to the harbour. Just a pleasant walk around the shoreline. The road is one way only, right around to the ferry dock where it feeds into the parking lanes for traffic boarding the ferry, and then back up to the main road where the traffic coming off the ferry will go.

A significant sight along the way, and one not much understood outside the UK, is the Barra Lifeboat.

According to the placard, 349 boats like this are positioned all around the coasts of the British Isles, providing key search and rescue services which in Canada and many other countries are handled by governmental departments. But the Royal National Lifeboat Institute is not a governmental body -- it's a charitable organization!

Passing by the ferry dock, I started climbing back up the hill towards the hotel, and found a small bench where I could sit and watch the ferry arrive. Here's a set of three pictures showing the Isle of Lewis making its way into the bay and then swinging around to tuck itself into the berth, stern-first.

If it looks like a tight fit with Kisimul Castle in the final picture, that's not an illusion. There isn't really any space to spare, When the ship leaves the pier, it has to swing sideways away from the outer end of the pier until it can begin to move ahead without running aground on the Castle island!

 

With that, I knew that my quiet time on Barra was nearly at an end. I'd have to leave by 6:15 in the morning to walk down to the pier, which meant that I would miss a second crack at that enormous Scottish breakfast in the Castlebay Hotel. Fortunately, Calmac also dishes up a mean Scottish breakfast in the cafeterias on their ships.

 

So I ended the night, shortly before going early to bed, with this picture, taken from my room, of the castle, glowing in the golden light of the descending sun. Sheer magic. Tìr na h-Òigridh, indeed.

And We In Dreams Behold the Hebrides Part 3: Over the Sea to Skye

My two-part post on the 2007 tour of the Hebrides now becomes three parts 

with this side trip from North Uist to and from the famous Isle of Skye --

one of the homelands of my ancestors. 

 

The Isle of Skye can be reached from more directions than any other island in the Hebrides. For us, this meant taking a side detour from the outer islands via the Calmac ferry from Lochmaddy in North Uist "over the sea to Skye" to Uig on the northernmost peninsula of Skye thus arriving on the island from the west. The voyage lasts 1 hour 45 minutes.

 

This route is served by one ship, sailing from Uig alternately to Lochmaddy and to Tarbert in Harris, at 1 hour 40 minutes sailing time the shortest sea route to travel to or from the Outer Hebrides. During the voyage, you get an early introduction to the rocky coastal scenery of Skye even before you land on the pier. Skye is an island with an unusually mixed geological history, and the wildly diverse scenery reflects that fact.

 

Already there are the typical hallmarks of the landforms in the northernmost peninsula of Skye, which is called Trotternish: steep slopes alternating with vertical cliff faces, and with rock segmented into separated spires and pinnacles on occasion.

As you drive away from the pier on the A87, Skye's "main street," the road circles the bay and climbs the hillside, where a pullout gives a good panoramic view of the village, pier, and ferry. The harbour village of Uig typifies the Hebridean or Highland small community -- the houses well spread out, with ample room from each one to the next, not crammed close together as in more heavily populated regions.

The A87 runs all the way down the island to the eastern end where the Skye Bridge carries the road over to the mainland just west of Kyle of Lochalsh, for its continuing journey east to the Great Glen. There, you can continue via the A82 either north to Inverness or south to Fort William and on through Glencoe and Loch Lomond to Glasgow. Here's an internet photo of the Skye Bridge, taken from Kyleakin in Skye.

 

August Schwerdfeger photo.

 

The bridge connects across the island on the right in the photo, Eilean Ban, to a low viaduct which completes the journey to the mainland. The word "kyle" refers to a very narrow strait between two land masses, connecting two different sections of the ocean. The waterway at Kyle of Lochalsh itself is only 500 metres wide, and was for centuries the site of a ferry crossing. Even when the ferries shuttled back and forth every 15-20 minutes and each held 60 or more vehicles, there could still be immense lineups in summer that took hours to get through.The impetus to construct the bridge might seem obvious -- but it was stoutly resisted by many islanders who feared that the Isle of Skye's traditional way of life would be irreparably disrupted. The exact same arguments were advanced in Canada against the construction of the Confederation Bridge linking Prince Edward Island to the mainland. Both P.E.I. and Skye seem to have weathered the "disruption" just fine, as far as I could tell after visiting each of them both before and after.

 

However, this bridge was constructed by a private consortium which was given the authority to charge tolls. There was an ongoing controversy over the tolls, with many islanders refusing to pay and being charged and tried in court. During these legal cases, it came out that the ferry crews had in many cases not been collecting tolls for the sea crossing from the local residents. The debate lasted for many years until the authority over roads was transferred from Westminster to the Scottish Parliament. Then, the bridge consortium was bought out by the Scottish Ministers and the tolls were immediately lifted.

 

The third main access point to the island is the popular ferry crossing from Mallaig on the mainland to Armadale. For those not travelling by car, there is rail service to both Kyle of Lochalsh (from Inverness) and Mallaig (from Glasgow), with connecting bus services into Skye. Both are among the most spectacularly scenic rail journeys to be found in the UK.

 

Here's a map of the Isle of Skye to show the main roads and focal points. 

 Base map contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right

 

The complex road network becomes a bit easier when you notice the two main junctions of Broadford and Portree. Sooner or later, every road will feature a sign pointing you towards one of those two key spots!

Although Skye is well-provided with places to stay, they can often be all filled up during the summer, as this island is one of the most popular holiday spots in Scotland. Advance reservations, as in the Outer Hebrides, are essential during peak season! The B&B where we stayed was placed about halfway along the A87 from Uig to Portree, and gave a us a comfortable room, a spectacular breakfast of scrambled eggs and local smoked salmon in generous portions, and a beautiful view out the front over the sea loch which extends inland from Uig, Loch Snizort. Why does that name always give me the urge to shout "Gesundheit!"?

Although there are highland and mountain areas all over the Isle of Skye, it is the Cuillin in the centre of the island which gives the most dramatic scenery -- if you can see it. 

Although often referred to in the past by the laconic description "Cuillin Hills," these jagged peaks are true mountains in every sense of the word, soaring straight up from the ocean to the highest peak, Sgurr Alasdair, at 992 metres (3255 feet). Here's an internet photo to give an idea of what they look like when they aren't busy generating their own weather due to the sudden and hefty elevation difference.

Dunvegan Castle photo.

There are actually two different ranges, the Black Cuillin (the more westerly) shown here and in the foggy photo above, and the Red Cuillin to the east. The names accurately reflect the completely different rock types of the two ranges. 

Here's another view, a real close-up, to reveal the jagged nature of the Black Cuillin's peaks. This isn't so much walking country as it is scrambling country (as it's known in Britain) and you have to be a dedicated, skilled, experienced scrambler to tackle any part of the Black Cuillin, especially the traverse along the crest line of the entire range. One or two of the peaks are only accessible with full rock-climbing training and gear.

Adrian Pingstone photo.

Aside from views from the roads to the north and west, the other highway-accessible spot to view the Black Cuillin is the village of Elgol. The drive from Broadford to Elgol is itself one of the most dramatic roads in Skye, with views of the outlying Cuillin peaks Bla Bheinn and Garbh Bheinn along the route -- and then the panorama of the main range of the Black Cuillin across the water from the Elgol pier. I drove that road on my first visit to Skye, back in the 1990s, and while the views of Bla Bheinn and Garbh Bheinn were spectacular, the Black Cuillin range was -- as usual -- hidden in clouds.

 

The Black Cuillin is part of the largest single estate on Skye, the estate of Dunvegan Castle, traditional home of the Chieftain of Clan MacLeod (MacLeod of Harris, that is; MacLeod of Lewis and MacLeod of Raasay have their own Chieftains). Dunvegan is an intriguing combination of medieval fortress and manor house, and is open to the public. On the road there from Portree, you see some intriguing views of the southwest sea coast, replete with grazing sheep scattered across the green slopes. 

 

 You also see a couple of small flat-topped hills, of which there are a fair number in this area.

A mile north of the village of Dunvegan is the Castle. As well as the main building, there are extensive gardens with seasonal flower displays -- if the rain lets up long enough to let you enjoy them (it didn't on this occasion).

With a little help from the internet, here's a photo of the more dramatic water side of the castle, lording it over Loch Dunvegan from its rocky crag. Funny how everyone else except me seems to find sunny days to tour around the Hebrides.

 

Pam Brophy photo.

 

The exhibits in the castle include significant clan artifacts, and especially the legendary Fairy Flag, which is said to have the property to save the clan from disaster three times (a good magical number). As any experienced traveller normally expects, the self-guided walking tour through the castle conveniently ends in the gift shop. I was quite tickled on my first visit here to recognize the cashier in the shop. It was the 29th Chieftain, John MacLeod of MacLeod, in full tartan dress, taking patrons' money and giving change and receipts. At the time, I thought it was a cool marketing idea. Many years later, I learned that lean times and a dwindling financial base may have been a more likely explanation. 

Although I've been the first in my family at many of the places I've visited, Dunvegan wasn't one of them. My parents were here before me. My mother was a clan member, and actually an unusual one since she had a foothold in both main branches -- her mother and father were both named MacLeod (although with different spellings from the official clan titles, and from each other), with her father a MacLeod of Raasay (a subdivision of MacLeod of Lewis) and her mother a MacLeod of Harris. In visiting places from my family history, I have now been 4 times in all to Aberdeen and three times to Fraserburgh, the heart of Stephen land, and twice to Dunvegan. However, I've yet to set foot on Raasay, easily reached by ferry from Sconser, between Portree and Broadford -- a definite piece of unfinished business.

 

My parents' visit to Dunvegan occurred during the later years of the four-decade Chieftainship of Dame Flora MacLeod of MacLeod, the 28th Chieftain, who did so much to raise awareness and build links among descendants of the clan in many different countries. Dame Flora also opened Dunvegan Castle to visitors as a way of raising money to maintain the estate. She was among the earliest landowners in Scotland to take this step, which many others have now followed.

A side note: many of the historic sites, monuments, ruins, and stately homes and castles in Scotland are owned or at least managed and maintained by The National Trust for Scotland (NTS). Visitors will quickly become accustomed to the distinctive brown road signs with the stylized oval thistle logo giving direction and distance to the properties under NTS stewardship (including Dunvegan Castle). Here's an example from the Corrieshalloch Gorge near Ullapool.

 

Across Loch Dunvegan from the Castle, to the west and southwest, are the two biggest flat-top hills in Skye, Healabhal Mhor and Healabhal Bheag, collectively known as "MacLeod's Tables." Thanks to cloudy, misty weather, I have yet to see them personally (sigh). By the way, don't let the appearance of those Gaelic names fool you. The adjective "bheag" may resemble the English "big" but it actually means "small." "Mhor" means "big". To completely confuse the issue, Healabhal Mhor appears smaller in this photo.

Andy Malcolm photo.

From Dunvegan, you can complete a circle tour and head back to Portree. As the island's centre of local government and its largest centre of population, Portree is considered the "capital" of Skye. Here you can find a good assortment of accommodations -- including self-catering apartments for those wishing to make longer stays -- plus shops and restaurants.

The view across the bay at Portree gives another dramatic Skye landscape.

Like the more famous example at Tobermory on the Isle of Mull, Portree also features some colourful painted houses along the waterfront.

The third and final group of scenic highlights in Skye are found by driving north from Portree along the A855 on a circle tour of Trotternish. Since we'd already driven south from Uig on arrival, it was a sensible step to complete the circle on the way back to Uig for the return ferry to Lochmaddy.

 

Driving up the east shore of Trotternish brings you into a different geological environment, up close and personal with the cliffs, slopes, and pinnacles that we observed from the arriving ferry. This strange sequence of landforms is in large part the result of successive landslip events, as sizable portions of the island have, over the eons, sheared away and slid down into the ocean below. This in turn demonstrates that the rock here is much more fragmented and collapsible in nature.

 

One of the main sights is the hill called Storr. Notice how the mist completely swallowed the summit in the few minutes it took me to drive from the site of the first photo to the site of the second.

 

Also completely obscured in the mist was the large and distinctive rock pinnacle called The Old Man of Storr. I'd seen it, or perhaps half-seen it, on my first visit but not this time. But there is no shortage of smaller pinnacles and breakaway portions to be seen in the second photo above.

More of the same can be seen almost anywhere you point a camera along this road.

Two of the most distinctive sights happen in quick succession on the right-hand side -- the ocean side -- of the road. The first is the Falls of Lealt.

Then, a short distance further along, you come to the signs and parking area for Kilt Rock.

 

 

The resemblance of the flutings in the rock face to the pleats of a kilt is unmistakable. Looking the other way from the viewpoint shows a whole sequence of similar formations, although none are quite so cleanly symmetrical.

Continuing north, the road cuts across the northernmost part of the peninsula to the west side, where you pass through the village of Duntulm and then come upon the dramatically situated ruins of Duntulm Castle. This medieval castle was once a stronghold of the MacLeod of Lewis, and later passed to the MacDonalds. 

There's a good but steep walking path from the parking area down the hill and across the stream and then up the even steeper far side to the castle on its rocky crag.

Coming down the west side, a valuable re-creation of life in older times is found at the Skye Museum of Island Life, housed in a small collection of black houses. The name "black house," by the way, doesn't refer to the outside colour but rather to the way that smoke from the peat fires would colour and coat all of the interior.

Just a short distance up the side road here is the grave of Flora MacDonald.

When the road takes a couple of sharp zigzags down a sizable hill, you know that you've arrived at the end of the tour in Uig. A right turn at the end of the A855 brings you in another minute to the ferry terminal. If you're lucky, you can enjoy some placid reflections on the water from out on deck as you wait for the ship to set sail back to the Outer Hebrides.

 

 

Helpful Hints:

[1] Weather:  "If you don't like the weather, wait ten minutes." That's the most famous gem of Scottish wisdom on this subject. Here's a less-known but even more pertinent one. "If you look out from the west coast and you can see the Isle of Skye, that means it's going to rain. If you look out from the west coast and you can't see the Isle of Skye, that means it's raining already." I'm sure I am not the only person who would have preferred better weather during my two visits. But what can you do? Dress in weatherproof layers and keep your fingers crossed.

[2]  Places to Stay

There are many in all parts of the island, but if you want to stay in just one spot and use it as a hub, the advantages of being in or near Portree are obvious. Note, however, that an accommodation many miles away from Portree may be listed in tourism websites as "by Portree," a term which is about as flexible as a description of distance can get. Use an online map source to double-check exact location before reserving.

[3]  Walking/Hiking

Skye has perhaps the widest range of hiking possibilities in the entire Hebrides, ranging from easy level prepared paths to rugged, rock-strewn scrambles such as the Black Cuillin. It's an excellent idea to consult one of the detailed websites geared to hikers and climbers, and get some feedback from them before venturing out. Be aware, too, that the clear-looking streams you see tumbling down the hills may very well be contaminated with sheep and cattle feces. Bring your own water supply with you -- a good rule for hiking anywhere in the Highlands and Islands, and for the same reason.

 

[4]  Reservations

 

The importance of making advance reservations for accommodations or campsites, and for ferry travel if necessary, cannot be overestimated -- especially in summer. 

[5]  Sundays

Some of the more rural areas of Skye may still face Sunday closures. If you will be driving around on Sunday, be sure to top up with petrol in Portree or Broadford before venturing further afield -- just to be on the safe side. It was a service station in Broadford which saved my bacon when I arrived on a Sunday evening in the 1990s from the Isle of Mull via Mallaig and Armadale, with my hired car running on fumes. There was not one single gas station open on Sunday in Mull -- anywhere. Perhaps today there would be.