Qualla: Skye

Skye: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Original uploaded by Saintchris (Transfered by Finavon), CC BY-SA 3.0. An t-Eilean Sgitheanach. The Misty Isle. Say it in Gaelic and you have already explained most of the island's mood. Skye is the largest and northernmost of the Inner Hebrides, 50 miles long and shaped like a starfish reaching west into the Atlantic, with the black serrated Cuillin in its centre and a coastline that finds new ways to be beautiful every few hundred yards. About 30 per cent of the 10,000 islanders still speak Gaelic. Road signs put the Gaelic name first, the English version second. The road bridge that links Skye to the mainland has been free of tolls since 2004. The midges are not free of anything, and you will meet them.

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Image: Original uploaded by Saintchris (Transfered by Finavon) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Skye: The Cuillin, the cleared

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Remi Mathis, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Cuillin are not large mountains by world standards, topping out at 992 metres on Sgùrr Alasdair, but they are exceptionally difficult ones. The black gabbro rock weathered to a sharp edge, the ridges narrow to inches, the weather turns instantly. Sgùrr Dearg above Glenbrittle...

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Image: Remi Mathis | CC BY-SA 3.0

Skye: Trotternish: the landslip

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Paul Lucas from Leicestershire, UK, CC BY 2.0. The Trotternish peninsula, the long finger of land running north from Portree, was warped 10,000 years ago when the retreating ice age glacier stopped supporting the mountainside. Twenty miles of cliff collapsed eastward in what geologists still consider the largest landslip in B...

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Image: Paul Lucas from Leicestershire, UK | CC BY 2.0

Skye: Bonnie Prince Charlie and Flora Macdonald

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY 2.0. After Culloden in April 1746, the Stuart claimant Charles Edward Stuart spent five months on the run in the Highlands. In June he reached South Uist, where local sympathisers told him he had to get off the islands or die there. Flora Macdonald, a 24-year-old who was not herself a...

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Image: CC BY 2.0

Skye: Getting there and getting around

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MissvainOriginal author: User:Mike_Peel, CC BY-SA 4.0. There is no airport. The Skye Bridge from Kyle of Lochalsh on the mainland is the main road approach; the A87 crosses it toll-free since 2004. Scottish Citylink coaches run from Glasgow (about 7 hours) and Inverness (about 3.5 hours) twice a day to Portree. Calmac ferries from Ma...

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Image: MissvainOriginal author: User:Mike_Peel | CC BY-SA 4.0