Isle of Skye

Wow, I had some of the best days on the trip so far on the Isle of Skye, what an amazing place!

Firstly, I thought I’d share the source of my motivation to go to Skye.. Before I started the trip I saw the following video posted by Al Humphreys who is training to walk to the South Pole later this year with Ben Saunders, recreating Scott’s journey (without the ponies or death bit I’m assuming). Al rode around the world for 4 years, and has written some great books that I definitely recommend. His website is really worth a look, especially the stuff around “microadventures”- the philosophy being that whilst we’re busy working 9-5, that still leaves 5-9 for adventuring and that you don’t need to leave your job for two years to have an adventure!

Anyway, they did a training session on Skye, and whilst I didn’t get anywhere nearly as remote as they did on the island, it’s still a beautifully shot video!

Training on Skye from Ben Saunders on Vimeo.

Anyway, back to me!

After a great couple of nights with Heidi and Chris I took the train to Kyle of Lochalsh, where there is a bridge to Skye. The train was great, and I was able to roll my bike straight on from the platform, instead of having to lift it up like normal.
The journey was nice when the cloud wasn’t too low, and it would’ve been a really nice ride if I’d had enough time to do it! It had a good amount of variety, both highland moor type landscapes and some coastal stuff approaching Skye.

Until 1995, the only way to get to Skye was by ferry, and a lot of the access is still by boat. However there’s now the Skye Bridge, which I took, as seen here from the train station:

There’s a decent view from it too:

Straight away I had great riding on the island. The roads were narrow, without much of a shoulder, but I’m pretty used to that from NZ so it wasn’t much of an issue. I followed the main road to the main town on the island (Portree) where I had to, along the coast to the east of the Cullin hills.

I managed to find some quiet roads that hugged the coast when the road went over some low passes inland. The views were awesome, the water blue, and

After passing through Portree I stopped at a campground a few kilometres out of town. It was pretty social- I was camped beside a couple of Kiwis who were walking through Scotland. And then I was invited for a couple of beers and eventually dinner by a really nice Scottish couple with a cute big dog! And the best part was that they had a charcoal BBQ which kept the midges away!

The next morning I rode north up the Trotternish Peninsula. It was more scenic riding, with views of steep escarpments on one side and the sea on the other as I rode along the terrace between them.

I’d started early on a Sunday morning, and I had the road to myself. Instead of following the coast all the way round I turned inland and climbed over a little cleft in the escarpment.

At the top there was an older guy about to jump off the cliff with a hang-glider..

The view from the top was pretty nice!

And it was an easy ride down the other side to Uig, a little village by the water.

The western side of the island provided big open spaces, there are very few trees on the island (except for a few plantations), so I was glad it wasn’t too windy!

I made it to this campsite under some hills that looked rather volcanic to my untrained eye! The midges were so bad here that after hiding in my tent for a while trying to squash all the ones that made it into the tent when I got in, I gave up on using my cooker outside and withdrew to the pub across the road to try haggis (which I really enjoyed).

My last day on the island took me along the Sleat Peninsula, to Armadale where I took the ferry back to Armadale on the mainland. It was picturesque riding with views across the water to some rugged parts of the mainland.

So to sum up, even though I don’t think my photos do it justice, I found Skye to be the best riding I’ve had on the trip. The roads were pretty quiet, the views impressive, the landscape unique and the weather fine.

And here’s a map of the route and photos!

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