Old Man Of Storr

The Old Man of Storr

The day after the epic Trottenish Ridge walk we were really not up to much. We did have to drive to the other end of the island for the following day's walk, but we didn't want to spend all the time in the car.

Since the weather was much better that day (at least for Skye) we thought we may as well stop off at the Old Man and see what we missed out on yesterday. The walking couldn't have been more different from the previous day, then we had the whole place to ourselves. True we couldn't really see the rock formations, but we did have some solitude. The next day you could see the rocks but the place was seething. The tourists had definitely come out in force. In case you feel you are missing out on not seeing photos of the Quiraing, it was very similar to this area, except there the rocks were shaped in more of a amphitheatre formation, so very slightly curved around. The Old Man area was much more open.

The Old Man, with the Storr behind, shrouded in cloud

The Old Man is probably the most accessible "sight" in this part of Skye, so it's kind of weird that the first half an hour of the walk (before you can really see the Old Man) is through a post-apocalyptic hellscape. You walk through what used to be a picturesque pine forest, but that has all been clear-felled, so it's just stumps and logs and incredible boggy mud. Pretty weird to see all these tourists slogging through this really unpleasant section to get to the main attraction. Normally if you had such a great natural wonder, so close to the road, you would make it easy for people to get there, it would be a walking super-highway, people with prams would be able to get close enough to take a nice photo. It's a weird approach to tourism that the old Skye council has.

Just great rocks in Skye