Walking in Skye

A guide to walking in Skye near Seal Haven self catering holiday cottage.

 We recommend the Walkhighlands website, www.walkhighlands.co.uk, as a priceless, but free resource for serious or the not so serious walker at Skye cottages.  There you will find Ordnance Survey maps of your chosen walking area and route, which can be downloaded free, and taken with you.  At Seal Haven Cottage, we can print out maps of your walking routes, if you haven't already pre-planned your walks.   This is part of the service to our cottage guests.  We have a selection of OS maps available at the cottage and a Walkhighlands pocket guide is also available at the cottage.  A useful reference while out and about. 

Many visitors come to Skye cottages for the walking and climbing. Whether you enjoy a gentle stroll, or a serious hill-walk, there is opportunity to test yourself at all levels of skill. You can tackle the Cuillin Ridge, maybe a difficult rock climb,or perhaps something a little easier to begin with.

While serious rock climbing is out-with the scope of these notes, Seal Haven cottage is ideally situated to tackle the outdoors at all levels. Without using your car, you will be able to walk the shore, a few hundred metres away, and enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of the sea-shore. You can see a myriad of bird life and may be fortunate to spot an otter, at close range, Alternatively you can take to the hills. Overseen by the twin sentinels of MacLeod's Tables and immediately behind Seal Haven cottage, there are a few thousand acres of hill, moorland and glen to explore. Take an Ordnance Survey Map, the Explorer 407, 1:25 000 scale, is a good start, add a simple compass, and the walking is well within the capabilities of most people, taking you into your own wilderness world.

A little further afield, twenty minutes or so by car from the cottage, you will be spoiled for choice. Visit the Dunvegan and North-west Skye page of www.walkhighlands.co.uk to check out sixteen graded walks in the Dunvegan/Glendale area. Walkhighlands was recognised by a Scottish Tourist Board, Thistle Award for Innovation 2008. If you wish to travel further afield, their Skye home page will take you on a walking tour around Skye.  Link to Walkhighlands at the Skye Cottage Links page

Should you need any walking accessories while you are here, we have a superb outdoor shop, a few minutes away from the cottage, in Dunvegan, where socks, boots and outdoor gear can be purchased at very reasonable prices.

Please think Safety when going out walking anywhere. Make sure clothing is adequate for the intended route. If venturing into the hills, tell someone where you are going and when you intend to return. Check the weather forecast at the BBC or the Met Office

Latest 2010 news from www.walkhighlands.co.uk

Walkhighlands have advised isleofskyeholidays.co.uk of the new inovations and improvements to their excellent website and we copy it here...............

" Walkhighlands is expanding....

So, what have we been up to at Walkhighlands? Well, it has been quite a year for Walkhighlands - here is what we have done since last year:

 First and foremost, we've continued to add more walking routes; there are now over 1,000 free routes on the site for visitors to use. By becoming the most useful and comprehensive resource for Scottish walking we will ensure that more visitors think to look on Walkhighlands first when planning a trip to a new area - and have the chance to choose your accommodation or service.

Following negotiations we have become the only walking routes website in the UK to offer free 1:25000 Ordnance Survey mapping for all our routes. Though the licences are expensive this makes it much easier for visitors to find and follow walks.

We've continued the development of the site to become one of Scottish tourism's liveliest social networks. Walkers can keep a complete record of all their outdoor activities, logging the ascents of hills they've climbed (over 100,000 hills ascents have been logged), adding and sharing their reports and photos (over 14,000 user photos uploaded), drawing their own routes on OS maps and keeping up to date with old friends or meeting new ones. This all helps to ensure loyalty and bring these visitors back time and time again.

We've added new maps showing the start points of the walks, including co-ordinates for visitors to input into their car satnav's and detailed driving instructions are available to every walk from anywhere in the UK.

We launched a new 'Find-a-walk' facility, offering the chance to search to find routes based on any criteria, such as in specific areas, certain types of hills, forest walks, routes of a certain length, rambles that include specific interest such as castles or reminders of the Highland Clearances.

- We have launched a vibrant presence on both Facebook and Twitter.

- We've teamed up with the Mountaineering Council of Scotland to offer online safety advice."................

We at Seal Haven cottage congratulate Walkhighlands on these additional resources for walkers and visitors to Skye cottages.

The cottage will give you access to the many and varied walks in the vicinity of Seal Haven.

by Neil Gracie - 8th March 2010

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To visit the sites mentioned in this article, please visit our  Skye Cottage Links page.