Raasay is a small island, 14 miles long north to south, that lies east of its neighbouring island of Skye. My journey there from home by bus and then ferry, for a few days of walking and camping, took an incredible ten hours. But it was a gorgeous journey marked by stunning transitions. Central belt city gave way to rolling countryside which was overtaken by the rugged mountains, coast and sea of the West Highlands. Then finally a boat journey across a choppy, frothy sea so you can feel you have truly left the rest of the world behind. Raasay is a lovely wee island, scattered with stuff from the past so you feel that it's ever present. Here are my highlights from my second visit in a grey, murky March week.
Calum’s Road
Since reading Roger Hutchinson’s book “Calum’s Road”, the place has risen to legendary status in my mind and yet, I missed getting up there on my first visit to Raasay. So this time I made the long walk north.
If you don’t know the story it goes like this. Calum Macleod lived in northern Raasay in the small hamlet of Arnish. He was a crofter and part-time postman and lighthouse keeper. There was no road to Arnish, just a footpath. Concerned that this was leading to the de-population of the north of the island, Calum and the other local inhabitants campaigned for decades for a new road but were refused. Eventually Calum built the road himself, using not much more than a spade, a wheelbarrow and a road-building manual that he had purchased. In ten years he laid just under two miles of road to link Arnish to the main road on the island. Several years after Calum finished his road, the Council eventually adopted it and surfaced it with tarmac. At that time Calum and his wife Lexie were the last inhabitants of Arnish and when he died in 1988, Calum was taken away from Arnish by hearse on the very road that he’d built.
A remarkable and moving story. You might think a sad ending but it's not so. A walk through Arnish today reveals six well-kept houses, three of them currently occupied and one with a young family. I know this because I passed the boy being driven to and from the primary school in the south of the island as I walked along Calum's Road.
The delights of northern Raasay extend beyond Arnish. A stunning walk through stunted birch woods hugs the coast and takes you to the tidal causeway that links Raasay with another island, Fladday. Its three white-washed cottages stand proud against the elements. Imagine living there – an island that’s off an island that’s off another island!
The delights of northern Raasay extend beyond Arnish. A stunning walk through stunted birch woods hugs the coast and takes you to the tidal causeway that links Raasay with another island, Fladday. Its three white-washed cottages stand proud against the elements. Imagine living there – an island that’s off an island that’s off another island!
The path to Inver
About halfway down the west coast of Raasay, a footpath leaves the main road, which is all single track by the way, and heads to the sea. En route, it follows a river as it passes through more of Raasay’s typical stunted birch woods. Soon you are wrapped up in the trees. It’s a quiet place, the woods providing shelter from the ever-present winds. The trees are covered with a myriad of different mosses and lichens, and overhang little waterfalls and pools. The boulders of a stone-built single-room dwelling are half hidden by vegetation as the structure is gradually smothered by nature. If you were a child, you would imagine that fairies live here. Where the river joins the sea, you are suddenly tossed out of the woods onto a wild, pebble beach with a white-frothed sea offshore and a sliver of a view to Skye.
Dun Cana
Dun Cana is Raasay’s only significant peak and it’s only 443m high but nonetheless, it’s a wee bit special. An extinct volcano, it has a bizarre outline with a flat, cut-off top and a band of cliffs that look like a pie crust. Given its splendid isolation from any other hill for miles around, the top is reputed to have a sensational 360 degree panorama of mountains, seas and islands. In two visits to the top in murky weather, I can only vouch for the view to Skye where the Black and Red Cuillin form an undulating line of rock on the westerly horizon.
Hallaig
If ever there was a place that gave you goosebumps, that made you linger and ponder the past, it is Hallaig. An old, old path leaves the last of the white cottages at Fearns and skirts round the southeast edge of Raasay. Above are tall, imposing limestone cliffs and below an angry sea, whipped up by a strong westerly. Once again, the path enters Raasay’s birch woods then clings precariously to the slope before popping out the other side to cleared land and the remains of lazy beds. Dun Cana rises dramatically above you here and on your right the sea stretches to the hills of the Applecross Peninsula.
There’s a large, square drystone enclosure and dotted about the hillside, the remains of stone-built houses, gradually being reclaimed by nature. It’s like a miniature Machu Pichu. But there is one dwelling that is incredibly intact, bar a roof and windows, and its wholeness makes it so much easier to imagine the past and the people who lived here.
Hallaig was Raasay’s largest settlement before the appalling Highland Clearances, that most disgraceful episode in our history when tenant farmers were forcibly evicted from their land. Walking through the rooms of the house, the wind whistling through the empty doorway, the sea growling below and Dun Cana rising above, you feel the presence of the past. Sorley MacLean, the Gaelic poet, was born on Raasay and on a cairn near to Hallaig are beautifully inscribed the words of his poem, Hallaig. I’ll finish with his opening words:
Time, the deer, is in the Wood of Hallaig.
The window is nailed and boarded
through which I saw the West.
Fact File
More photos on Flickr - click HERE.
Start/finish: Ferry port, Raasay
Public transport: Citylink bus Glasgow to Skye stops at Sconser from where the Raasay ferry leaves regularly throughout the day.
My routes: From the ferry, followed the road round to the right towards the village, Inverarish. At the first fork in the road, stayed left and same again at the next one. Just after here on the right, the track called the Burma Road is signed. Followed that to the top and a path to Dun Cana is signed from here. Path ascends boggy ground and then passes along the top of a rocky escarpment before dropping down to Loch Na Meilich and continuing to the top of Dun Cana. When I returned to the escarpment, I didn't retrace my steps but took a path that heads northwest and joins the road further north. Walked the road to Brochel but just before, as the roads drops steeply, took a forest track to the ruined settlement of Screapadal which made a great camp spot for two nights. Walked on Calum's Road from Brochel to Arnish and continued on the dirt track beyond. Took the first footpath signed to the right and at the next path junction turned left towards Fladday. This makes a lovely circular walk from Arnish. Walking back down the island, the path to Inver starts on the right at Brae. For Hallaig, walked the road to Fearns which continues as a track then path to Hallaig. As well as these routes, there are many wonderful forest walks in the Inverarish area which filled a whole day. Look out for the Forestry Commission leaflet in the ferry terminal.
Info: My photos may look overlay atmospheric - I had very grey weather on Raasay with no decent light so used a creative function on the camera to enhance the pics a bit. The Community Shop in Inverarish is very well stocked, including some gluten free items.