Marie Brown reminisces about her first island-hopping trip to the Isle of Skye in the Inner Hebrides.
It was the first holiday I’d ever taken with my then ‘new’ boyfriend (now husband), up the west coast and over to Skye for a night. The main reason I actually wanted to go to Skye was to visit Dunvegan, the place where my mum and dad met and fell in love. Second fiddle was me wanting to show my new kiwi fella some of Scotland’s raw beauty on the West Coast.
It was late September we set off in our wee hire car and had a couple of overnight stops before we got to Kyle of Lochalsh on the mainland to approach the famous Skye bridge. It looked impressive as it seemed to contort into the sky. Even with the strange angle it was actually fairly decent going over and so we drove over, arriving very near to Kyleakin on Skye.
We had decided to continue driving to Portree for lunch as the lonely planet guide had given us an idea of where to go to eat. On arrival, however, I was quite surprised at how many places we had to choose from! And it seemed quite busy! After a little wander around we decided to stick to our original plan and went into The Granary where I had the finest plate of beef broth I’ve ever had.
After lunch we continued north and then west on the way to Dunvegan. Our B&B was called the Atholl Guest House and was chosen because of its locality to the Dunvegan Hotel – where my folks both worked many years back. We had also booked there for dinner which was very nice indeed if you can afford the treat.
One of the things I love about these island communities is that they have a long collective memory. Our host knew that her neighbour (in her 90s) had worked in the Dunvegan and insisted she would know my parents so arranged for us to visit the following morning after breakfast which was an unexpected treat for me to talk to her.
Later that morning we visited Dunvegan Castle and had the most incredible tour, taking in the fairy cloth and the heritage of the formidable MacLeod’s of Skye (of which I became convinced I was descended with my maiden name Beaton).
As we started out on the road back to Portree for a late lunch at The Granary we reflected that it was hard to believe we had been on the island for only 24 hours. We will be back again.
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