Explore the Isle of Skye with a Cicerone guidebook

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• Introduction
• Sample Route
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May 2010

WALK 1.2: Point of Sleat
Start/Finish: Road end, near Aird old church. NG589007
Distance: 8km (5 miles)
Total ascent: 340m (1115ft), spread over many undulations
Map OS Explorer 412

This expedition to the southernmost tip of Skye is unlikely to need more than a few hours away from home, but crams many delights into that brief time-span, especially if you go there in spring and early summer when the fields are ablaze with colour and the air loud with bird-song.
The approach is along the road from Ardvasar to the Aird of Sleat, where parking is very limited and needs to be accomplished with consideration for others.

Beyond a gate follow a cart track ascending gently over heather-clad moorland, with Rhum at one point suddenly putting in an appearance and a moment’s pause providing a fine retrospective view. Descend and keep on along the track that follows, descending to cross a bridges over the burn that flows from Loch Aruisg, and continuing to a gate beyond which the track passes through the scattered settlement of Acairseid an Rubha.
Just before the gate, however, take to a signed path (Point of Sleat and Sandy Bay), that climbs briefly and then runs alongside a fenceline that marks the upper boundary of the settlement, where new properties are being built.
When the fenceline ends, continue forward a few strides to a waymarked junction. If you go forward, you soon reach the golden sands of Camas Daraich. But for the Point of Sleat, bear right following a continuous path across heathery upland until steps guide you down into a wide gap that separates the final stretch from what has gone before. From the foot of the steps, go forward briefly towards the rocky shoreline, and there swing left soon reaching a low, grassy bar beyond which another small golden sand beach awaits. From here, it is just a few minutes on a clear path and then across close-cropped grass to reach the light at the southernmost point of Skye.
Just to the west of the Point, Eilean Sgorach is a favoured gathering ground for cormorants, where they stand drying outstretched wings. The view is dominated by the mainland, and the island of Rhum, but on a warm, settled day you could be a million miles from anywhere, resolving clouds, soaking in the gentlest of sea breezes, without a care in the world.

Your return journey can only be by the outward route.