Rubha nam Bràithrean

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Skye: Tuesday 4 April: Brothers’ Point: it’s not a long walk – not much more than two miles to the tip – neither is it a quick walk. The shore is full of interest – a good place to lose an hour or two on a fine day (even if the minibus tours have discovered it). The sign at the top of the path says “We do not recommend that you walk to the point”. Quite – to pass the gendarme and get over the rock tower beyond requires the use of hands as well as feet, but beyond it’s an easy walk to the end, where comfortable rocks provide a good seat from which to enjoy the seascapes. (I should add that it’s also a good place, being low down on Skye’s east coast, to escape from a strong south-westerly wind. The showers are less easy to dodge, but we’ve been lucky this afternoon)

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The Ordnance Survey calls it Rubha nam Brathairean. We’ll stick with the name on the display board – it’s shorter…

Widdershins

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A teatime walk – same route as yesterday, but anticlockwise. The views are different, and so is the weather: after a showery day, the sky is mostly blue, the air is clear and the sunshine bright. I pause beside the pool to tie a bootlace, foot on the fence, startling a previously-unseen duck. A passing walker asks if I’ve seen what’s below me – no fewer than eight eggs (he’s been watching the spot for a day or two). A very quick snap and we’re on our way – we will look forward to ducklings…

View OS map on Streetmap http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map?X=367515&Y=298310&A=Y&Z=120

An Uig exploration

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Skye: Sunday 2 April: after a day of rain, today is grey and still. I’m exploring Uig, beginning with a walk up to the headland on the north side of the bay. It’s a fine viewpoint for the north-west shore of Trotternish, with a great view of the departing ferry, setting out on a crossing to Tarbert, Harris. Later, I walk through the woods lining the shore between the Rha and Conon rivers. This is temperate rain forest (albeit a very small one!), where the trees are lined with moss and a remarkable assortment of lichen. The tree lungwort resembles miniature cabbage leaves – amazing stuff!

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Skye in the spring

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We’ve not been back long from a trip to our northern office, a week of rather variable weather (rain, wind and a little sunshine…). Nevertheless, we squeezed in a few outings, ending on a high note with a wonderful clifftop walk, well away from the bucket-list tickers and selfie-snappers (they’re already here in force)… More to follow; in the meantime, here’s a taster selection

Trespassing again

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Monday 27 March: It wasn’t as sunny as forecast just a day earlier, but it was cool, dry, bright and periodically sunny on Kinder Scout – a great day to be out on the southern Pennine hills, following the route that the famed mass trespassers took to these bleak moors with their wonderful rocky fringe. Walk? It’s more like a horizontal scramble along that gritstone edge!

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The famous grouse

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Monday 27 March: Kinder Scout. “Have you seen the weather forecast for tomorrow, up there?”. In the event, the sky wasn’t quite as clear of cloud as the earlier forecasts suggested, but with with some bright sunshine in-between the clouds it was a most enjoyable full-day outing. It will take a while to work through all the photos – more to come. Meanwhile, here’s a well-known chappie (and another, possibly less-well-known)

March winds or April showers?

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A bit of both today – a stiff breeze blowing light showers across the countryside. Walking past Hurst Farm and on towards Shirlett, it would have been good to complete the loop to Shirlett Lane and return to the car down Round Hill – but I suspect we’d still be floundering in the mud (we had a drop of rain last night). Instead, where the track ends, we’ll turn and retrace our steps. The views are different in the other direction…

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