Sleat And S Skye

Overview

The Sleat (pronounced 'slate') peninsula is Skye's southern tip, an uncharacteristically fertile area that has earned it the sobriquet 'The Garden of Skye'.

The loveliest part of the Sleat peninsula, by far, is the west coast. Tarskavaig has a little sandy beach looking out over to the Small Isles. Further along the coast, through some ancient deciduous woods, you come to Tokavaig, where a stony, seaweedy beach overlooked by the ruined Dunscaith Castle boasts views over the entire Cuillin range - this, and neighbouring Ord, with a pleasant sandy beach, are the two best places on the whole of Skye from which to view the mountains in fine weather.

Continuing northeast, it's another six miles to Isle of Ornsay, a secluded little village of whitewashed cottages that was once Skye's main fishing port. With the mountains of the mainland on the horizon, the views out across the bay are wonderful, overlooking a necklace of seaweed-encrusted rocks and the tidal Isle of Ornsay, which sports a trim lighthouse built by Robert Louis Stevenson's father.

From Kyleakin, you can take a boat to Eilean Ban, under the Skye bridge, once the home of author and naturalist Gavin Maxwell, and now a wildlife sanctuary with the emphasis on otters. Here there is also Castle Moil, a 14th-century keep poking out into the straits on top of a diminutive rocky knoll, that looks romantic when floodlit. You can take the ferry to Skye from Glenelg to Kylerhea, a peaceful little place some four miles down the coast from Kyleakin. From here you can walk half an hour up the coast to an Otter Hide, where, if you're lucky, you may be able to spot one of these elusive creatures.