New Year on Skye
After Boxing Day we left for the Isle of Skye. A group of 24 of our friends from caving had arranged to celebrate the New Year together at the Flora MacDonald hostel.
After the day spent driving up, we arrived late in the evening; and after catching up with the people who’d already arrived, we hit the sack.
The next day I went for a walk with a few others around the Elgol peninsula, a pleasant low-land walk with the Cuillin Ridge and Bla Bheinn for a backdrop. On the beach we found an interesting whale spine. Towards the end of the day we came across a bothy with a lovely, large window with a great view over the blue waters of the bay.
The following day a group of us headed out for some scrambling on the south-edge ridge of Glamaig – choosing our route to hopefully avoid the worst of the forecasted wind. With the heavy rain overnight we had to cross a number of swollen streams and made our way through boggy valley to reach the saddle. From here we scrambled up onto the ridge. On the ridge we weren’t as sheltered from the weather so decided to retreat back the way we’d come. On our descent we noticed that the wind seemed to have changed direction and was now coming from the east, which seemed odd. Continuing on, and with the cloud clearer slightly we were able to see that we’d been turned around in the fog and were about to descend the wrong side of the ridge; oops! After actually consulting the map and compass this time, we made a correction and descended the other side, down a few long scree slopes to the valley floor and back to the cars.
The day after a group of us headed for Ord, and a short coastal walk to see some ruins marked on the OS map. They turned out to be much more interesting than we’d anticipated. Still obviously a castle, and with a bridge over a moat (although missing the floor).
In the afternoon we took another short walk to the Point of Sleat, on the peninsula we were staying on. Our path took us past a lovely beach, with crystal clear waters. Although the lighthouse was particularly uninspiring, just a metal frame.
On New Years Eve we ventured further north to the Talisker distillery, unfortunately it’s a particularly busy tourist attraction and all of the tours were booked up. Instead we headed to Talisker Bay, an interesting black, stony beach with waterfalls plunging off the cliffs surrounding it.
In the evening we had our own Scotch whisky tasting, which bottles provided by various people and tasting notes downloaded from the internet. Before welcoming in 2019 with our relatively low-key celebrations.