This was a day off our bikes. It gets a blog post of its own nonetheless,
because Elgol is one of my Top Reasons To Go To Skye.
On arriving in Elgol on the Strathaird peninsula at the end of Day 2, we got checked into our B&B, washed and changed and then headed down to the village. And by 'down to the village', I do mean down....
Elgol lies at the end of the A8083 road from Broadford. The road ends at the pier. If you're in a car, once you reach the pier, you can only turn around and go back.
The village sign is sited up on the crest of the hill, a full 2km from the pier. Once over the cattle grid, you're in Elgol but in reality this just means there are houses along the side of the road, for much of the 2km down to the pier. The year-round population is about 150. In the winter, many of the houses stand empty -- they're holiday rentals. In the summer, the population swells tenfold with day visitors, some arriving by car, many brought in by coach just for the day. The car park around the loop of road at the pier is full of coaches. (Oh and German and Dutch motor homes, of which more later).
Getting from our B&B up near the village sign down to the pier by bicycle.... frankly terrifying. The gradient varies but is unrelentingly steep.
I managed to lock my rear brake going down the hill the first time, the evening of our arrival. The rear of the bike slid around as if trying to overtake me. After that, I carried trainers and walked my bike up that part -- whether going up or going down. With my depth perception problems and fear of falling, I just didn't have the nerve. I did take Adam's braking tips on board though -- and had many opportunities later in the tour to put them into practice. You can't walk every descent!
Getting to the bottom is such a relief!
I had in fact woken up that morning with a migraine. It seemed to respond to a sumatriptan injection and I felt able to face the day, but we made a leisurely start down to the pier, stopping to enjoy a drink and a few quiet moments at the cafe behind the village hall.
However, sipping coffee outside a village hall isn't a reason to go to Elgol.
Because really, once you get down there, there is only one thing to do:
Get on a boat.
And this opens up a variety of places to see, all of which will easily be the highlight of your visit to Skye. From Elgol, you can ride a boat across Loch Scavaig to the foot of the Black Cuillins to hike into Loch Coruisk (nestled in the circle of the mountains) or indeed climb into the Black Cuillins themselves without hiking all the way in round the back side from Sligachan. Elgol is also the launch point for sightseeing boats around various of the Small Isles: Soay, Canna, Rum, Muck, Eigg.
There are several sightseeing tours available from Elgol pier. I've been over to Loch Coruisk on the Bella Jane and have had a half-day tour out to Soay, Rum and Eigg on AquaXplore's ridged inflatable. For this visit to Elgol, I had booked us on the latter.
The exact route the tour guide takes varies by season and is tailored according to recent wildlife and seabird sightings. When I visited before in October, it was too late for the nesting seabirds on the cliffs of Canna and we had missed the whale migration, so our tour guide focused on the geography and geology of these islands -- properly fascinating even without any wildlife -- and we saw various birds and red deer as well.
I'm no bird watcher and I found it really difficult to take decently-focused photographs from a boat that was either moving quite fast or supposedly sitting in the water but subject to huge jarring ups and downs with the swells of the waves. Each time I thought I had a bird in focus in my lens, the boat would drop 15 feet like a broken elevator, hitting the sea with a huge Whack! I felt quite beat up by the end of the day! But.... it's such an amazing opportunity to see birds you've only ever read about or seen on television wildlife documentaries, I must show you what I can and urge you to go, if you're ever in Skye. Make time for this. It's really special.
And now here are a few photos* from our day out to the Small Isles.
The latest in sea-faring fashions, these suits were further enhanced by the life jackets we donned before boarding the boat.
These are "native" Soay sheep, almost chocolate brown in colour. They are actually descendants of sheep left on these then-uninhabited isles by the Vikings en route to southern raids, left here to provide fresh meat when the Vikings sailed north again afterwards.
Our guide pulled the boat quite close to the rocks, as we were there to collect a couple of hikers that he'd dropped off earlier in the day.
Meanwhile, we had visitors!
Here come the walkers.
Then it was off to Canna's northern cliffs to see the birds.
They were everywhere.
Lining every clifftop, nesting on every flat surface...
Clinging to impossible crevices...
Canna is particularly famous for its Atlantic Puffins. I never imagined they are such small birds - smaller than pigeons!
I wish I could have got a photo or video of them flying -- their tiny wings a blur, skimming just above the surface and delighting in racing our boat!
From the north side of Canna, we zoomed around to the harbour, where we went ashore for an hour.
Yes, it's a black Highland bullock. It's a rare but native colour and someone on Canna is developing a breeding programme around producing more black animals.
The Highland cattle calling card.
I am not sure why I took this photo...
...but a flicker of movement caught my eye. I waited til I saw it again... zoomed in and found this:
Grey seals.
Mountain goats.
This is a nesting pair, known to locals for having a nest on another of the small isles (I don't remember which) each summer for several years. But last summer, for reasons unknown, they 'moved house' to Mull.
Just along the cliff from the eagles' nest lies the wreck of the French trawler Jack Abry II, which went aground here in January 2011. The captain was later found guilty of failure to keep a proper lookout and fined £3,000. No one died - the 14 crew members were airlifted off by helicopter.
It's estimated that the scrap metal here is worth £2million. But it would cost £3million to salvage it.
Then we headed back to Loch Scavaig.
Approaching Elgol pier, frankly the hilly setting doesn't look too extreme.
Or does it...?
I never get tired of the views back across Loch Scavaig from here.
But eventually you have to leave. And there's only way to go. And that's Up.
Quite by accident, the spot where I stopped to catch my breath turned out to be one of only two places in Elgol with any mobile phone reception.
After refreshing ourselves back at the B&B, we had dinner up at Coruisk House, a fairly recent addition to the area but fast becoming A Destination for serious 'foodies'.
For starters, we had Loch Aishort mussels in a white wine, cream and shallot sauce, with a hint of garlic. The star of the sauce however was the cream.
Our main course was a Coruisk House orginal recipe: "roast loin of Skye venison with rowanberry and red wine sauce sauce, venison rillettes and smoky bacon, boulangere potatoes and dill and star anise carrot and courgette ribbons".
What?? Forget the fancy French words. This was heavenly.
Looking a bit windburnt, I enjoyed my after-dinner coffee.
Thus concluded a very eventful day in Elgol, the village at the end of the road with a view to the mountains and gateway to the isles.
* For some properly good photographs by a serious birdwatcher who took an AquaXplore trip the same week we did, have a look at The Cowboy Birder's website.
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