Visit Lochalsh & the Isle of Skye. Scottish Highlands part 1

Over the years my wife and I have holidayed many times in a variety of locations across Scotland –  in truth we’ve holidayed there probably more times that we can recall.

We were definitely looking forward to this trip, partly because it had been almost a year since we were last in Scotland together.

In all the times we have been to Scotland, we have never been disappointed.  This break to the Highlands was to be no exception.

On our last trip (click this link to see for more info’) we had a fantastic time when we based ourselves in Kelso in the Scottish Borders.

In addition to our Kelso trip I had also been back to Scotland for a short break on my own when I headed north on my BMW F900 XR in August of last year.

Back to the Highlands

On this occasion we had booked accommodation in a place called Sallachy, a small hamlet on the north shore of Loch Long in the district of Kyle and Lochalsh.

Loch Long is certainly impressive to look at. It’s a sea loch located in the council area of Argyll and Bute and it’s pretty big being approximately 20 miles in length.

Historically, the loch actually used to be the boundary between Argyll and Dunbartonshire but when the boundaries were redrawn in the 1990s the loch became located wholly within the Argyll and Bute area.

But moving on from the information about Loch Long … after we left the main road near Dornie in the district of Lochalsh, the final part of our journey to Sallachy took us along a single track road for about four miles.

This single track road twisted and turned and called for a fair degree of concentration, especially along a couple of sections that had some pretty steep drop offs to one side!

Overall our journey from our home in the north west had been routine and without delay. We had driven around 420 miles and although the final part of our journey required extra concentration and care, and we were glad we had arrived in time to take that last short stretch of road in daylight!

Simply stunning

The scenery for the latter 140 miles or so of our journey had been excellent, and the views were simply magnificent as we drove along the edge of Loch Long to our accommodation at Island Bay View.

The property seemed to be ideal for our stay, spacious enough, warm enough with very effective underfloor heating, well equipped and with glorious views across Loch Long.

We were pretty fortunate during our stay with the weather,  but we tend to think there is seldom the wrong weather as long as you have the right gear we wouldn’t have been too troubled by anything but the most severe of conditions.

Picture sets

As is pretty much the case with most of my blog posts there are plenty of photo’s in the series of posts from our trip to Skye and Lochalsh.

In this particular post there are four separate picture sets.  Set One are from our journey to Scotland; Set Two from around our accommodation; Set Three from a trip to Skye and then the final and much smaller Set Four made up of a series of pictures of my wife ‘stalking’  a group of cormorants and then some overlooking the picturesque Eilean Dornan castle in Dornie.

Picture set one

Clicking on any of the images below will open a picture gallery that can be clicked or scrolled through.

Picture set two

The photo’s in this set were taken around our accommodation in Sallachy.  Some of the photo’s in this set and throughout the series of posts from this trip are taken using a drone (see more drone related info at this link).

Clicking on any of the images below will open a picture gallery that can be clicked or scrolled through.

A trip to Skye

We had no fixed plan or structure to our stay and had pretty much decided our days would be dictated by the weather.

The forecast looked decent for our first full day there so after some photo’s at our accommodation we headed off for Skye – crossing via the Skye Bridge which was only about 10 miles away from Sallachy.

The Skye Bridge itself connects the village of Kyle of Lochalsh on the mainland to the village of Kyleakin on Skye. After a couple of stops along the way to take in the scenery and have a wander we thought we might take the ferry from Sconser to the island of Rassay.  But after parking up at the small ferry terminal we realised that the winter timetable ferry times just didn’t work for us on this trip, so we headed for the capital town of Skye at Portree and a coffee in the square.

Skye is the largest of the Inner Hebrides islands, has a population of around 10,000 or so and is famed for its natural beauty and its rugged landscapes, a plentiful supply of pretty and picturesque fishing villages along with seven mediaeval castles. The Isle of Skye is more than worth a visit and I’m pretty sure that the couple of visits we made to the island on this trip won’t be our last.

As you would expect there is plenty more information about Skye on the web, and a good starting point if you want to know more is to check out the Visit Scotland web site.

Picture set three

Photo’s in this set are from our first trip to Skye. Clicking on any of the images below will open a picture gallery that can be clicked or scrolled through

Picture set four

The last photos in this post include picture of my wife approaching  a group of cormorants on the end of an old stone pier and then some overlooking the castle at Dornie.

Clicking on any of the images below will open a picture gallery that can be clicked or scrolled through

You can check out Part Two at  this link