The northernmost tip of Skye is Rubha Hunish, which makes an excellent and popular walk from the little car park at the end of the Shulista road (see Rubha Hunish). A couple of  miles further east is Rubha na h-Aiseig (“ferry point”?), perhaps only a couple of hundred yards inferior.  The scenery is less spectacular too, but it’s much quieter, and it feels much more isolated. Plenty of sheep (a seal, several oystercatchers and lots of gannets cruising by) but no other people. To the north, there’s nothing between us and the Arctic ice (if there’s any left).

The walk along the low cliffs and, beyond, the rocky shoreline, is worth taking slowly. There are deep inlets, a substantial rock arch and a fine stack (“Stac Lachlainn”) along the first stretch. Our return, across scrubby moors, wasn’t always an easy walk, but the views were different. It might have been worth scrambling through the scrub to the top of Ben Volovaig – at 111 metres, it wouldn’t have been a major expedition. If the weather up here hadn’t been so dry in recent months, a boggy watercourse would have presented an impassable obstacle. As it was, one of us got a rather wet foot…