Its often said in the UK that the weather is so changeable we can experience all four seasons in a day, hence the British obsession with the weather. Well I'd say, judging from my week on Skye, it's possible to experience all four seasons in an hour there. Sunshine, wind, rain and hail, we pretty much encountered it all apart from thunderstorms (which were forecast) and snow. Although snow and ice was still clinging stubbornly to the Cullins on the rare occasion's they took their heads out the clouds and graced us with their presence.
Having done a fair amount of hill-walking, I'm no stranger to weather. There's an old adage when hill-walking that the sun never shines on the summit on which your standing. You also learn to look on for the tell-tale signs of impending change, learn when to remove yourself from the summits and seek the shelter of lower ground. However that relationship with the weather seemed so much more visceral and primeval on Skye, much like it must have felt for our distant ancestors.
On Skye it felt as if you could sense/feel the weather changing before you saw it, almost like a sixth sense. The drop in air pressure, the sudden chill in the air, warning of the pending onset of rain. I've never been anywhere before where I've felt so intimately connected to environment. It's fascinating to just to watch the constantly changing and shifting quality of the light as the clouds roll across the mountains and curtains of rain, backlit by the sun, sweep over the landscape, leaving spectacular rainbows in their wake.
One of the other things that stuck me was how rich the history of this small island is, although lacking any Neolithic monuments. The earliest evidence of human habitation are Iron Age Brochs, double walled dry-stone towers, unique to Scotland, of which Dun Beag is the most accessible and best preserved example. Skye is also littered with the poignant remains of abandoned settlements of more recent times, not least from the highland clearances. In fact several key battles in the struggle for Crofters rights were fought on Skye, including the Battle of Braes (1882), celebrated by a monument and a folk song. While Glendale, today a community owned estate on the Duirinish peninsula, was also the home of the Glendale martyrs (1882). These struggles eventually resulted in the Napier Commission and the Crofters Act of 1886. And despite the growing importance of tourism, a strong crofting tradition survives on the island.
There's also the small matter of the clans who fought many bloody battles for control of Skye with the island dominated by the two great clans of the Macleod's and the MacDonald's. Today, in more peaceful times, Dunvegan Castle, the oldest continuously inhabited castle in Scotland (800 years) is home of the current (30th) chieftain of the Macleod's. The cottage where we stopped, a former schoolhouse in the small village Boreraig, was previously the home of Skye's piping heritage centre. Clan MacCrimmon, who can trace their line all the way back to 360AD and the then King of Ireland, were the hereditary pipers of the Macleod's. Their reward was the gift of the land that today forms the settlement of Boreraig. A memorial cairn, overlooking Loch Dunvegan, celebrates the famous piping college they founded which stood here between 1500-1800AD. Even today tradition dictates that every newly qualified piper should play at least once besides the cairn as a mark of respect to the MacCrimmon's and their contribution to piping.
The natural history of Skye is equally amazing. The stunning Fairy Pools, a series of crystal clear pools and waterfalls in Glenbrittle, provide one of the easiest ways to get up close and personal with the majestic mountains of the Black Cullin. While the Trotternish peninsular and ridge often feels like another planet, due to a series of prehistoric land slips that have left a series of weird and wonderful rock formations in their wake such as, The Old Man of Stor, the Needle, the Sanctuary, Quiraing and much, much more. Kilt Rock where the rock is pleated like the folds of a Kilt and a waterfall crashes 200ft into the sea below. The brilliant white 'Coral Beaches' of Claign, where seals can often be seen playing off-shore. The Sea Eagles eyrie a short boat ride from Portree, the soaring Golden Eagles and Seal roost on the coast of Raasay.
The above barely begins to scratch the surface of all that we saw and experienced in one brief week on Skye. I still I at least another week's worth of things to see and do, so much so that I've already started saving up for another trip. However what sticks in my mind most aren't the most popular tourist attractions, but the unexpected things we encountered of the beaten track.
The only sycamore tree on Skye, they're not native to the island, which stands in the ruins of a small cliff top coastal settlement abandoned in the 1920's. Tragically all the young men enlisted in the First World War, never to return, leaving the very young and the very old behind. They were relocated to a more accessible settlement and today only the outline of the ruins of a couple of cottages and the sycamore tree remain. We'll never know who or why the tree was planted. The topic for a future story perhaps?
The Manners Stone, an unassuming rock set on three smaller stones, in the ruins of another lost settlement. This was about a mile or so from our cottage where the road ended at Galtrigill. Once there was a sizable settlement here adjacent to a steep gorge, where a series of waterfalls run down to the sea. Several legends are associated with it. In one the stone is reputed to give good manners to those who stand on it. It's said the children of the village who transgressed would be sent to stand on it until they ‘found their manners'. Another says anyone who sits bare arsed on the stone will have fertility and good fortune. Yet another that the villagers of Galtrigill came here each year to bow to this stone of the ancient gods, believing it would bring a good harvest. Incidentally the Gaelic word manadh (pronounced ‘mana’) means ‘omen’. So it could well be that ‘Manners’ is an anglicisation of ‘Manadh’.
Like the sycamore tree its origins have been lost in the mists and we can only speculate. However I can confirm when we sat on it a strong wind whipped up a rain cloud that washed over us. At first I thought we'd angered the ancient gods and this was our punishment, but then we were rewarded with a series of vivid rainbows. To be honest I was hoping for a winning lottery ticket, but then again I'd failed to bare my arse when I sat on it.