Spend the weekend...on the Isle of Skye

When Samuel Johnson and James Boswell passed through Skye on their celebrated tour of the Hebrides in 1773, they were disconcerted by the lack of Highlands customs. Where were the fierce clans, the costumes and the Jacobite sympathies they had expected? Instead, in the person of the clan chief, Alexander Macdonald, they found a cultivated old Etonian more interested in reciting Latin verses to his distinguished guests.

The visit did not go well. Johnson asked why he didn’t have a magazine of arms hidden in his cellar and Macdonald replied that it was so damp they would only rust. Johnson complained when the sugar was served without tongs for his tea the visitors left early, in high dudgeon, although things improved when they later met Flora Macdonald and she could relate how she had saved Bonnie Prince Charlie some decades before.

There has always been a complicated gap between expectation and reality when it comes to the Highlands; and perhaps nowhere more so on Skye which carries the burden of both a famous name and now, with a bridge, relative accessibility. Happily, for the intrepid who venture there today, the island is less likely to disappoint and more likely to surprise. You can fly from London to Inverness for as little as £24 one-way, after which a scenic two hour drive that skirts the edge of Loch Cluanie will eventually lead you across the Skye bridge and onto the island. 

I headed for the Sleat peninsula on the southern part of Skye, which is more heavily wooded than elsewhere on the island. While there are a few slender beaches dotted around the peninsula – including a famous one at Tokavaig that looks out across to the ‘the fortress of shadows’, Dunscaith Castle, the principal seat of the Macdonalds in the 15th century – no one comes to this this part of the island for the sand. They come for the magnificent views of the Cuillins across Gauscavaig Bay and for some wonderful hiking.

There are traces of the old Caledonian forest, with a lovely mix of birch, rowan and oak, and moss underfoot. Walking along the shoreline on the old drovers’ road to the deserted ruin of Lettir Futr, I could look across the Sound of Sleat to the mainland and Knoydart; hard to imagine that the drovers used to get their cattle to swim such a wide body of water.

At first sight, the abandoned remains of the Lettir Futr stone houses look like one of the villages forcibly cleared in the 19th century to make way for sheep. But  appearances can be deceptive – not least because the house foundations are far larger and more handsome than the small buildings common at such sites. The Macinnes of Lettir Futr had a more wayward reputation for smuggling rum and getting rich by managing – or abusing – the precious resource of this rare bit of forest, to the point where the then Macdonald clan leader evicted them as nuisances.

The village has only recently been fully unveild, having been hidden in the forest for over a century. Near it on the shore is a cave with remains from 300 BC, a reminder of how early these islands were occupied; at just such a cave on Skye, archaeologists recently found the remains of a prehistoric lyre which, once reconstructed, proved to be remarkably sophisticated, belying the idea that prehistoric societies only had a simplistic notion of music. 

The descendants of that same Macdonald who so disappointed Johnson and Boswell during their Hebridean tour now run Kinloch Lodge, where I stayed during my time on Skye. As you might expect, Kinloch has plenty of nods to Highland custom – antlers on the staircases, fine whisky and Clan Donald ancestral portraits in the dining room. But if you want a filthy martini – as we did – one will instantly be rustled up and the seafood is seasoned with Japanese kombu.

The lodge has always been known as a place where you eat well. As the hotel’s chatelaine until recently, Claire Macdonald has produced a long line of influential cookbooks. Although Claire has now passed on management to her daughter Isabella, she still visits regularly and told me about the days when she first came to set up the Lodge: ‘I started off looking at Cordon Bleu photos back in the 70s and trying to imitate them – but really I learned to cook because I was fuelled by intense greed!’

At one point things got quite grand and the Lodge had elaborate long tasting menus; now there is a more relaxed approach, with a stress on locally sourced ingredients like ‘twice-dived scallops’ (yes I didn’t know either: it means the scallops get dived for once and suitable ones placed closer to the shore, so they can mature before being dived for again). The menu has kept Claire’s reassuring taste for substantial breakfasts – the local black pudding is superb – and proper desserts that are not just an artistic swirl of fruit compote on a white plate. Even the irascible Samuel Johnson might have mellowed when lulled by chef Jordan Webb’s ministrations. ‘Sir, if you must take a man out of London, then give him celeriac and truffle soup!’

This is the old Macdonald shooting lodge, built in the 18th century at the end of a loch, and both red and roe deer roam the surrounding hills. The hotel can arrange wildlife tours around the estate with local ghillie Mitchell Partridge. One of Skye’s 30 pairs of golden eagles live on the crags above the hotel and can be easily viewed with him; those lucky enough might even catch a glimpse of the white tailed sea-eagle. He also took us to watch porpoise wheeling in the bay and find otter droppings on grass turned a vivid viridian by their spraints.

‘I always think the droppings have the aroma of crabmeat,’ said Mitchell, with a connoisseur’s air. We took his word for it.

Kinloch Lodge - room prices from £300, including breakfast for 2 people