High cliffs and Hoe Rape

This western corner of Skye was once busy and fertile farmland, where everyone bore the single surname of Macleod.

The sons of Ugly

Leod, the forefather of the clan, may take his name from the Norse Ljotr, meaning ugly. It's a measure of the importance of the sea against land links that this branch of the clan, Macleod of Macleod, also covers Harris, with the other branch (Macleod of Lewis) occupying the other half of the Harris–Lewis island. Macleod's headquarters were at Dunvegan Castle, and the sea stacks seen from the corner of this walk are named as his Maidens. As maidens they look pretty unassailable, though two of them have in fact been climbed.

Macleod's Tables

Two notable hills, Healabhal Mor and Beag, overlook the walk. Geologists claim their flat tops are typical lava-flow features, but actually they were caused by St Columba. Finding the Macleod unwelcoming, the saint chopped off their tops to provide himself with a bed and a table.

Later, the Macleod chieftain was a guest at an ostentatious dinner by King James in Edinburgh. 'Very fine, but I can better it,' he told his disbelieving host. For the return visit, he spread a banquet on a far vaster table, Healabhal Mor itself. His candles were kilted clansmen with flaming torches, underneath a far finer ceiling – the starry sky of Heaven.

From the road end, head down the track between farm buildings and across Ramasaig Burn to a stone shed with a tin roof – a former black house. Continue slightly left on the main track. (If ground around the hut is farm mud, keep left of the hut and rejoin the track later on at a gate.) At the next right-hand bend of the track, the hummocks of former lazybed cultivation are above on the left. The track crosses a ford and climbs over moorland, descending to a gate, with a view into Lorgill Valley.

Don’t go through the gate but turn right on a trace of path. The way now follows the top of the steep ground, with the Lorgill Valley below on the left. This former settlement has just one building remaining, another former black house, re-roofed in slate. Behind, the moor rises in terraces and long, low outcrops – typical lava landscape. Follow the top edge of one such outcrop, then a grassed-over old wall. Where this wall line appears to vanish, go up a few steps to find it again above a trickle waterfall. Eventually the wall heads up to the right a little, and peters out. Keep on around the slope, climbing a little, sticking to the valley rim. Follow the top of a line of outcrops round the point above Lorgill Bay. Look back along the coast to see the tall seastacks called Macleod’s Maidens, visible only from this one point on the walk.

The way is now clear, keeping to the short grass near the edge of tremendous cliffs on the left. The ground rises gently, soon following the iron posts of an old fence. You cross an old wall, and in 0.25 miles (400m) the ground starts to drop. A fence running across guards a large notch in the cliff edge – keep round to its right. With the cliffs now much lower, you could head out left on to the grassy promontory of Hoe Rape.

Continue along the shoreline, around Ramasaig Bay, crossing more lazybed hummocks. Cross a stream to a field gate – going through it here is easier than crossing the fence later on. Either way, turn left along the fence to the Ramasaig Burn.

The stream plunges to the beach in a waterfall, which was seen from Hoe Rape, but isn’t visible from above. Turn up alongside the stream, past ruined black houses, to the track bridge at Ramasaig.