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Coasteering on Skye

WE NO LONGER categorise Britain as a seafaring nation, but in former times the sea was often the primary means not just of trading and warmongering, but also of transport and communication. This was especially true of remote areas whose topography impeded the building of roads, and nowhere is this more apparent than on Skye, whose coastline is the most complex in the country.

On the map the island resembles a group of five peninsulas joined together in the middle: Sleat, Waternish, Trotternish, Minginish and Duirinish. As the eagle flies it is approximately 50ml long by 7–25ml wide, yet the coastline is so contorted that it’s around 400ml long.

And what a coastline it is. With a vertical range that runs from zero (less than zero at low tide) to over 300 metres, there are still few stretches that carry a road. As a result, it remains virtually unknown and untrodden, but this wasn’t always the case. Until a couple of centuries ago, travellers and invaders arrived from all points of the compass, not just by the short crossing from Kyle to Kyleakin, where the Skye bridge now stands.

The treacherous Black Skerry off Duirinish claimed many a passing boat and attracted unscrupulous types in search of plunder. The wrecker and smuggler Campbell of Ensor even lit false beacons here to lure ships to their doom.

Huge sea stacks abound. The tallest of the trio, known as MacLeod’s Maidens, is 63m high and requires a 4.5ml each-way walk to reach. Stac an Tuill (Hole Stack) resembles a gothic cathedral, complete with spire and vaulted window (the hole). The Stacan Gobhlach (Forked Stacks) are linked to the shore by a double line of great flat rocks, like a giant’s stepping stones. None of these are easy to view from the land.

Forgotten sea caves have a long history of occupation. In Waternish, Macrimmon pipers were packed off to caves to practise out of earshot. The Pipers’ Cave at Harlosh Point, the largest sea cave on Skye, was once so famous that it was visited by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell on their celebrated 1773 tour of Scotland. Spar Cave in Sleat is one of the natural wonders of Scotland, even if its stalactites have long since been removed for souvenirs.

Lady Grange’s Cave is named for a tragic woman who had the misfortune to overhear a Jacobite plot in Edinburgh in 1730. For this, she was abducted and made to eke out the remainder of her life in sometimes appalling conditions on various Hebridean islands, including in this Duirinish cave, until her death in 1745.

Some stretches of coastline are still not fully explored. As recently as 2006, the newly discovered Uamh an Eich Bhric (Cave of the Speckled Horse) yielded a number of important archaeological finds, including the top of a human skull.

One of my favourite coastal formations, accessible only at low tide, is a huge archway cave at the headland of Meall Greepa (Precipice Hill). It tunnels right through the headland to form a beautifully arched cavern some 40m long by 10m high. I know of no one who even knows it’s there, never mind visits it.

For years, I was equally ignorant, until a week of cloud on the Cuillin had me looking coastward for exercise. It was a revelation. There was a whole new world of adventure here. How could a single island be so blessed, to have not only the Cuillin, but now also, it seemed, a coast that was equally spectacular?

My desire to discover this secret coast soon led me to realise that it could be every bit as demanding as the mountains. Much of it is as distant from the nearest road as are the summits of the Cuillin. Cliffs often overhang, undercut by the sea. Their ­vertiginous edges are often crumbling and honeycombed by rabbits. Sheep paths at the cliff edge make for excellent going but can also induce a false sense of security, for sheep have small, cloven feet and no sense of vertigo. Rivers cut deep gorges as they fall to the sea, forming countless unnamed waterfalls that may require appreciable inland detours to outflank. There is rarely any shelter from the elements.

Lorgasdal coastal architecture

The terrain is often undulating, requiring constant ascent and descent, sometimes on steep, exposed hillsides of grass that become slippery when wet. Such is the height of Skye cliff-tops that total ascent for a route can easily equal that for a hill walk. A different mental attitude from hillwalking is required as the end point of the walk is hardly ever in view.

Even shoreline walking on Skye can be difficult. There are no long sandy strands here, as in the Outer Hebrides. Rocks can be greasy and slippery. Crags can be awkward or even impossible to negotiate. Stonefall, sometimes induced by seabirds, is a danger at the foot of cliffs. Nesting birds can be aggressive and swoop to attack. And the greatest danger of all: becoming trapped at the cliff-foot by an incoming tide.

Over the years, I have come to know the Skye coast intimately and have had as much adventure here as on the Cuillin. Beneath a mile of sea-cliffs on the east coast of Trotternish, I raced an incoming tide to reach safety on return from the Eaglais Bhreugach (False Church) – an enormous boulder split by a huge arch, which is said to have been a site of pagan rites. On the shores of Loch Bracadale, beneath another line of sea-cliffs, I was attacked by nesting terns, whose outstretched talons came so close that I again had to run for safety.

On the north coast, to stay upright, I leant at 45 degrees into an Atlantic gale as I battled to reach the haven of the old coastguard lookout station, now a small bothy with incredible seaward views. At the top of Biod an Athair, the highest Skye sea cliff at 313m and well named Sky Cliff (sic Sky, not Skye), I lay down on the grass at the cliff-edge and peered over the edge at the miniature Atlantic breakers far below.

Miles from any road, between Idrigill Point and Lorgill Bay in Duirinish, there’s a remarkable spot. A narrow arête, topped by two pinnacles, drops to the sea. Beside it is a green so perfect that it could surely host a game of bowls. The arête is holed at sea level, forming a natural arch. Beside the arch are two stacks, one a wedge with a knife-edge summit ridge. Between the stacks, the Lorgasdal River plunges into the sea. The scene is the epitome of all that is best in coastal architecture.

For those of us who hanker after more than a coach trip and a tea room, the Cuillin will rightly always be the main attraction on Skye, but the coast deserves to be better known, as it was before that knowledge faded from the collective memory. At least that means there are still some secret and amazing wild places out there, in our united and crowded kingdom, that are just waiting for us to rediscover them.