Leaving Loch Lochy to make our way to the Isle of Skye we headed north and then west towards The Kyle of Lochalsh. along the way we passed through wonderful mountainous valleys full of autumn colours. Its easy to forget when living in England, that we have this incredible beauty practically on our doorstep. The only problem is that if you visit in summer there are the Scottish midges to contend with. This is the reason Lynne and I will only ever visit during autumn/winter simply to avoid the millions of flying teeth! On reaching Kyle of Lochalsh we drove right through as there is very little to see or do there as we’d found last year whilst stopping over for one night. Crossing the Skye Bridge I was, not for the first time, reminded of our time in Norway last year where we crossed countless bridges of the same type. Arriving on the Isle of Skye though, was at least initially, slightly underwhelming as we drove for the first few miles through fairly unremarkable landscapes. Happily they soon gave way to more interesting features as we approached Portree. The plan had been to walk up to the Old Man of Storr the day after arriving in Skye but after we had driven past Portree and arrived at the Old Man Of Storr Parking place it was 2.00 pm so we decided to do the walk as soon as we got there.
The walk starts out as a fairly civilised path but is actually very steep in places. Lynne and I made good time but as we ascended the steep path it became obvious that the path further ahead was going to be much more difficult. When it became apparent that the path ended and the only way up was by climbing treacherous slippery and muddy grass banks, Lynne decided that she wouldn’t attempt to carry on so I continued on alone. Lynne’s intention was to wait for me there but I had no idea how long the remaining climb would take. The rest of the climb turned out to be as far again as we had already travelled but by comparison to the first half was a real slog to get up. As it turned out it took me about an hour and a quarter to do the full walk but that got me high enough to be at least level with the Old Man and while I was there I only saw two other people get up that high. It certainly was hard work getting there and it certainly gave my heart and lungs a good workout before I finally reached the top. After taking a few moments to recover from my exertions I managed to take a number of photographs and I’m including what I think is the best of them here.
The other two people at this height were a young French couple and after obliging them by taking their photo standing precariously close to the cliff edge overlooking the Old Man of Storr I started to make my way down. The descent was more difficult although much quicker than the ascent. The obvious paths down were slippery and muddy and a couple of times I found myself unintentionally mud skiing which certainly sped up my descent. Once back on the more recognisable path I passed a family who were also on their way down. Dad was slightly overweight and lagging behind his young family. As I caught up with his wife, a Chinese/American woman with her two children I heard one of the two kids say in a strong American accent, “look mom, he’s an old man and he can still hike”. Kids don’t do subtlety do they. I looked around at the woman and she smiled at me apologetically while I just laughed and carried on walking. I suppose the only way to take it is as a kind of compliment although I really don’t need reminding of my age! In the end it took me 35 minutes to get back to the motorhome where Lynne was waiting for me having gotten tired of waiting at the half way stage. I hope you’ll agree that the photograph of the Old Man of Storr was well worth the gruelling climb.
I’m including the following photo to give an idea of the kind of conditions on the way up. I would estimate that this is the end of the proper path and the dark well trodden so called path you can see going from the bottom middle of the frame up towards the right, is the trail to the point the photograph was taken from. I’ve marked the spot with a small black dot on the top of what looks like a small peak to the right of the frame.
What you don’t see from this photo is that at one point well into the climb you actually go downhill for about 500 yards and then have to start climbing again. That really knocks the stuffing out of you when you feel like you’re about to draw your last breath!
As I was near the bottom of the trail there were still people starting the walk up and I couldn’t help wondering if they realised it was going to be dark in about half an hour. Back at the van we decided to look for somewhere to camp for the night. About three miles up the road we came across the Lealt Falls car park. There were still people parked there but I guessed that as darkness descended they would all disappear which is exactly what happened. We set up for the night and as soon as we had the car park to ourselves I set the generator working so that we could charge my computer amongst other things and not worry too much about the battery running down.
Next morning I looked out to see a lovely sunrise developing. I dressed quickly and went out to see what the Lealt Falls looked like. I ended up looking over a huge cliff at the ocean and various islands out to sea. I did take some photos none of which were very inspiring but within ten minutes my fingers were so cold my hands literally wouldn’t function so I made my way back to the van. It was only when I opened all the blinds in the van that I realised that the windscreen had a thick layer of ice on the inside. Lynne and I had been warm and toasty in the bed but hadn’t realised quite how cold it was outside. We had woken to a beautiful crisp cold morning and I have no idea how cold it actually was but later as I was photographing the bridge at Sligachan I noticed that there was thick ice on the running water of the river. How cold does it have to be for running water to freeze? This following pic is the bridge at Sligachan and below it a close up of the weird ice formations with the river running underneath it.
After Sligachan we headed for the famous fairy pools where we payed £5 for parking along with the hordes of other people. It was another long uphill walk to the fairy pools with lots of waterfalls along the way. It’s easy to see why they’re called fairy pools as there are pools under the numerous waterfalls which are an amazing blue/green colour. Lynne and I took roughly an hour to get to the top where the best shot was. Most of the other people there didn’t get this far up so I had the place pretty much to myself. It’s a place I’ve wanted to visit for such a long time and I’m really not sure about the resulting image. I can’t help feeling I could or should have done so much better.
So there we have it, three more bucket list items ticked off and our flying visit to the magical Isle of Skye was almost over. There is so much more to see and do on this fantastically beautiful island and I’m certain I will be returning before too long. To say its a landscape photographers paradise would be a massive understatement and I can’t wait to return! After two brilliant days on Skye we were heading back to the Kyle of Lochalsh we we found ourselves wild camping for the night in exactly the spot we stayed at the same time last year.
Wandering Wildman 