"To live on Skye you need to be...Resilient. Inventive. Humorous. Tough. Self-Sufficient. Waterproof. Patient. Lucky." - Unknown
Years ago, while binge-watching The Outlander on Nexflix, I became smitten (yes, smitten) with the theme song. It is melancholy, sweet, sad, and hypnotic, wrapped in Celtic plaid and floating on a misty bog: "Sing me a song of a lass that is gone. Say could that lass be I? Merry of soul she sailed on a day, over the sea to Skye. Billow and breeze, islands and seas, mountains of rain and sun. All that was good, all that was fair, all that was me is gone. " Fast forward to our trip planning for Scotland. It was a foregone conclusion that we would spend some time on the Isle of Skye. Granted, a theme song is not typically a good reason for a travel destination, but we have traveled to more obscure locations on less.
The Isle of Skye is incredibly desolate. From our home in the tiny house named Molly's Den in the southern village of Portnalong, we could see for miles. Our neighbors were cows, sheep, chickens, and a family of rabbits in the front yard.
In the distance were the Cuillin Hills, which many hikers and scramblers regard as Britain's most rugged and challenging mountain range.
When we arrived, our host asked us to let her know if we decided to go for a hike. A guest staying there had disappeared one day and didn't come back, and a search party was sent out for him. When found, he explained that he just started walking without any plan, and ended up in the Cuillin Hills overnight. Skye has that effect. We saw several abandoned cars by the side of the road and came to realize that folks were just getting out of their cars and heading into the hills. It is that kind of place.
We took long walks in the rain.
Maybe a little too long. No, Ron, that is not a Men's Room.
Not there either!
A sunny morning arrived, and we were off. We started in the "big" town of Portree, on the other side of the island
then ventured out along the beautiful coast on the northern edge of Skye.
Creag An (literally, "the rock with the kilt-like appearance" in Gaelic) or simply "Kilt Rock" is a 200-foot cliff that looks like - you guessed it. A kilt! Over millions of years, this unusual cliff face formed when volcanic lava forced its way up through layers of soft limestone.
A food truck at the edge of the parking lot served a great cuppa tea, while tie-down straps kept it from blowing away.
A little further along, the weird and wonderful rock formations of The Quiraing came into view. The Quiraing is an area of an enormous landslip (landslide) created over millions of years when massive quantities of rock fell into the North Atlantic. The Quiraing (from Old Norse “Kví Rand” meaning “Round Fold”) spills from the northernmost summit of the Trotternish Ridge, hence the name Trotternish Landslip. The effect is a hollowed-out, huge grassy crater from which jut lofty cliffs, rolling hills, and stony pinnacles.
The 5 square mile area is still geologically active and moves a few centimeters every year. The nearby road has to be shored up annually as it opens up to crack and splinter as the land takes another step closer to the sea. (Please don't tell Ron until after we are safely back in Portnalong!)
The Trotternish Landslip also created the Old Man of Storr, where we stopped to eat our picnic lunch.
Back on the road, we navigated the heavy traffic,
and pulled over to explore the ruins of a castle that still impossibly clings to the edge of a cliff, facing the water that separates Skye from Scotland, and the sea route used by centuries of invaders.
I think my favorite of the strange and unusual landscape formations on the Isle of Skye was a place called the Fairy Glen. It is believed to have been formed by a series of landslips, similar to the one that created the Old Man of Storr and The Quiraing. The landscape was then smoothed by glaciers during the following ice age.
The "castle" on the far right, named Castle Ewan, is not a castle at all, but rather an unusual outcrop of volcanic rock. The cone-shaped hills are dotted with ponds and waterfalls cascading into one another. We could hear the water more than we could see it. We could not help but explore this area - around each bend, something beckoned us to continue.
I was curious about the name of this place - Fairy Glen. Truthfully, it sounded like a Disney sales pitch, and I didn't want Ron and I to find ourselves feeding goats again! But after serious research, the name remains a mystery, with lots of theories. I have picked my two favorites. First, Pictish Stones have been found on the Isle. These are stones with symbolic inscriptions that were erected by the Picts, a group of people who lived here in the 4th century AD. The stone carvings strongly suggest that the Picts were polytheistic and believed in magic and that Pictish wizards favored this spot to amplify their magic. If I had lived in that time, I would have picked this place for magic too. Other scholars believe that the name was given by the Scottish clan MacDonald, who has a long history of close association with fairies. And In folklore, quite universally, fairies live near little bodies of water in grassy fields.
The sun was hanging low in the sky, and it was time to go. I could not leave without one final effort to bond with this strange land. So this is why the hiking books about Skye refer to "walks" and "scrambles". My first scramble, billy-goat style!
Fairies or wizards, domes or gnomes, the Isle of Skye is pure magic by any measure.