We’d missed a trick when we booked the festival tickets and campsite back in December 2023, in that we could/should have looked at getting the ferry to Skye from Mallaig, as it would have enabled us to explore more of the west coast – and avoid yet another visit to Fort William! Of course by the time we’d got round to thinking about it during the road trip, the ferry was fully booked, as were all the campsites for the period before and after the festival – so if we wanted to extend our stay on Skye we would be free camping!
Going via Fort William (again) allowed us another opportunity to raid M&S before we headed into uncharted territory along the Northwest coastline.
As we neared the still controversial Skye bridge (many locals resent the loss of true ‘island’ status), the weather failed to deliver the blue and sunny skies we were hoping for, and so Eilean Donan castle just down the coast, which we had hoped to stop and admire (the most photographed castle in Scotland, or so we’d been told) remained un-photographed by us on this occasion. But not so for the hordes of visitors that were milling about, perhaps not as lucky as us in that we’d have a chance on the return leg, after the festival. Mulling over the large number of people at the castle, and the increasing frequency of campervans we were seeing on the roads and in lay-bys, we wondered out loud to one another whether the Isle of Skye’s epithet of being Scotland’s most visited island might actually be true!
Our campsite for the festival was just north of the site in Portree, Skye’s capital and, after checking out the local Coop in town (and noting for the first time bilingual signs in Gaelíc and English) we drove up the hill until, just as we were wondering whether we had miscalculated the feasibility of walking to and from the event, especially the walk back up the hill, Portree Camping in Torvaig hove into view – phew!
After checking in and being reassured that plenty of other campers here for the festival would be walking to and from the site, we settled in for some planning about the logistics of seeing the bands we wanted to, weaving in supper each day (the last festival entry was 8pm each day and no re-entry at all on the Thursday evening) and exploring Skye beyond the festival. Although we had ventured this far north driven by a chance to see the band Niteworks play their last ever gig on their home island (with a few more on the mainland still to come before they disband) we were also really keen to explore what looked like a truly stunning island!
In the end we stayed just the four nights we had booked, with our reasoning explained below in our reflections on different aspects of our time on the island.
Firstly – the festival!
Our only other joint experience of festivals is of Wickham in Hampshire – a small one by Glasto measures at only 7,000 people, but still bigger than Skye Live at 800! So we didn’t really know what to expect as we wandered down the hill on the first night, with no-one in the line up we were mad-keen to see, but as soon as we saw the main and only stage in its marquee, we knew we were talking bijou! By comparison, one of our favourite venues for gigs in Brighton, Chalk, has a capacity of 850…
(We should add, that although we didn’t know one another at the time, we were both at the Charlton Festival in May 1974 which saw the Who, Lou Reed, Humble Pie, Bad Company and others,
with an estimated (over capacity) audience of 80,000 and some scary crowd surges… but we were very much younger then of course!)
You can get a sense of the size of the Skye Live venue in this pic we took between acts…
And, by the time the main band for the night, Tidelines, were playing, the marquee was rammed with a very youthful, kilt wearing, energetic, rowdy and ‘steaming’ audience, more like a packed club night than the audiences we were used to at Wickham, and we kept our own dancing to the fringes of the moshing crowds, wondering what we had let ourselves in for! And although it wasn’t raining, it looked like it might and there was no way that everyone on site could get under cover in the marquee!
Crunching our way back over the carpet of discarded Tennents lager tins, and clocking the three food vans serving the whole festival, we headed back up the hill with one thought in mind – this was going to be a very different experience for sure! And to add to our logistical planning challenges, no re-entry after 8pm meant no wandering back and forth to Evie and turning up just for the bands we wanted to see!
The second night was the big one for us – Niteworks were headlining, but they didn’t take the stage until 11.10pm, and we were keen to see Beth Malcolm (one of the singers who guests with Niteworks) who was on at 5.30pm – eek – how were we going to manage with eating – and staying awake?!
As it turned out (and thanks Adam for contacting the festival organisers to let us get in after 8.00pm if needed) we drew heavily on our Charlton heritage and decided to go early, go local and eat and drink on-site, and make the most of this unique experience! And what an incredible night it was! We saw Beth Malcolm up close enough to chat…
went local on the drinks…
danced comfortably (if strangely in Mr B’s case) to all female band Heisk...
ate like lords (and ladies)…
and eventually, danced our socks off to Niteworks, who delivered on all our hopes and expectations, making it a very special night indeed…
And to cap it all, at the end of the show, the Northern Lights even put in an appearance, making the walk back to the campsite truly memorable and the lightshow from the campsite absolutely breathtaking!
Note: Although we were able to see some colour in the sky and a very impressive waterfall of light filtering down to us from directly overhead, our human eyes couldn’t quite see the magical colours until they had been captured on camera. Nevertheless, it was a truly magical experience!
We weren’t sure about our plans for the final night on Saturday, as although there were more bands playing throughout the afternoon and evening, the special deal that our son Adam had brokered to let the olds in later, was only for one entry point – we could start late, but if we went in early we had to stay!
So we aimed to arrive with time to eat, catch some of the music from the grassy banks outside, and gird our loins for the finale – the Peatbog Faeries, who we had seen before and we knew, from seeing the response of the audience to bagpipes, were sure to elicit some energetic dancing!
Fuelled up with another foray into the local cuisine with pheasant pie, peas, curry sauce and tattie wedges, plus a black pudding and chorizo pizza (but no more Tennents – the one can being enough for us!) we watched from outside the marquee until it was time for the festival finale. And, like the night before, although pretty crowded and with plenty of tipsy folk about, there was a lot less of the raucous and rowdy behaviour we had experienced on the first night.
As you may see in the photo, we stayed further back this time, anticipating that we may need to beat a hasty retreat if the dancing got too wild for us – but as it happened, we left some time before the final tune, as the shift in musical style that the Faeries had made a few years back since we last saw them wasn’t quite enough to keep us dancing and honestly, we were both pretty exhausted by then!
As we left, around midnight, we were made aware of an incident that had just happened, when we were told that that there had been a medical emergency and to be careful leaving through the narrow access road, as site staff were waiting for an ambulance. We later learned that a woman had tragically died at the site.
Portree’s nearest ambulance station is 25 miles away and the capital’s medical centre, whilst just outside the festival gates, was locked up for the weekend with no access.
A sad ending to what had been a wonderful and memorable weekend.
Further north to the Quiraing…
With the festival over, we had already decided that we fancied a trip to the landscape that the Niteworks video above was filmed at – the Quiraing; an other-worldly landscape at the northern end of the Island’s Trotternish escarpment that looked too enchanting to miss. And, as we were passing, we thought we’d have a look at the beach at Staffin (thanks Tess and Nick) and its pier that Mr B was convinced was the setting for the Valtos video of their track Ceòl Dannsa (another Skye based ‘gaelictronica’ outfit we’d love to see live).
The drive up the eastern seaboard of Skye was without doubt very picturesque…
But, as we should have guessed from the sheer number of campervans and cars on the road, we were going to have quite a lot of company! In fact, we were so un-alone that in spite of slowly negotiating our way to the Staffin Pier, it was impossible for us to park, not even at a distance and walk back…
And the same fate awaited us as we toiled our way along the single track road to the Quiraing, where traffic was so heavy it was being turned back ahead of us. With just enough time (and a very small pull in) for Mrs B to re-enact a windy hair-blown homage to the Niteworks singers, with the Quiraing in the background…
And Mr B to do his homage to Valtos…
We headed back towards Portree, only too aware that Skye (and maybe the Highlands more generally) was quite obviously a very significant tourism magnet, and that unless we were to return in the depths of winter, not somewhere that would see sufficient resources for travellers like us, where we prefer to plan on the fly and there’s always a plausible plan B!
To the lighthouse – again!
Of course none of this stopped us from trying, and with the lighthouse beam already lit from our trip on the Ardnamurchan peninsula, we made sure we would visit Neist lighthouse (thanks again Tess and Nick), right at the end of a tiny track off a narrow single track road away in the west…
Mr B loves this type of driving, and so, secure in the knowledge of the success of our tiny road adventures so far, he volunteered to drive there and back. It’s only 33 miles away, but we knew it would likely take longer than the 1 hour Google predicted… which it did, by some margin! And we very nearly didn’t make it at all, when, with one eye on the (very deep) potholes, and the other on oncoming traffic on a particularly narrow stretch, Mr B almost put us in a ditch, as the edge of the road started to crumble and give way, and Evie’s 4.2 tonnes started to keel over towards the inevitable tipping point…
Luckily, having twin rear wheels (and newish tyres with plenty of tread) we were just about able to dodge the pothole and the ditch – with an eerie silence descending on us both until we were able to pull over and breathe again! Yikes – that was a close call for sure!
We completed the rest of the journey there without incident thankfully, and knowing there was meant to be on-road parking in the last part of the access road, we pulled over to have a well-earned top up with water before we set off to walk to the lighthouse. We knew from our research that it was a steep walk – but we weren’t quite prepared for just how steep! Pausing to ‘admire the view’ on the way down (Mr B’s quad repair means he’s a bit slow going downhill) we inched our way towards the lighthouse, set right out on a promontory.
Even though Neist is one of the most photographed lighthouses in Scotland, compared to the community-owned lighthouse at Ardnamurchan, it’s a bit of a sad sight, with minimal maintenance to the exterior of the tower, and the keepers’ cottages (sold into private ownership by the Northern Lighthouse Board) looking run-down and unloved.
It’s still a magical place though, as the setting is stunning, and although we didn’t get to see whales or basking sharks offshore, we did enjoy the field of cairns erected by visitors…
And the decaying industrial machinery…
After a good wander around the sometimes bog-like grassland, we enjoyed the walk back up to Evie, with Mrs B calling in the ‘views not to be missed’ as we climbed, slowly and steadily (with appropriate pauses!) towards the summit. With vans still arriving (and some clearly parking up for the night) but with a mist descending, we had a quick cuppa before tackling the road back to Portree. Which, with plenty of traffic in front of us to make negotiating the pull -ins that much easier, we were soon back at the campsite for our final night.
Portree town
We decided we’d spend a bit of time in Portree itself before leaving the island, and next morning after parking up in one of the dedicated motorhome bays in the smallish car park (thanks Portree!) we had a very pleasant wander, meeting the brother of Niteworks bass player in the Info centre; learning that a sea-fret in these parts is called a ‘haar’; enjoying the local café culture with this wonderful poem on the opposite wall…
i
as well as this painting of Neist point that captures the topography much better than our photos…
enjoying some of the lovely views to be had around the harbour…
i
and then, at Mrs B’s suggestion, we thought we’d go and see if we could have a look at the festival site, post festival. Known locally as The Lump, the setting was transformed; still being divested of its festival gear, the grassy outcrop was slowly being returned to its more usual function…
Whilst there, we got chatting to one of the litter pickers we recognised from the festival, still picking some 36 hours after it finished. Adam, it turned out, was a local crofter, living off the land in the north of the island, and supplementing his income with seasonal work. After a fascinating chat, where we were left in no doubt that it’s no easy life being a crofter, Adam suggested we might want to have a look at the views from the tower (a separate DJ stage part of the festival that we hadn’t explored).
Allowing us to see Portree from a different vantage point, it also allowed us to see the approaching ‘haar’, so we quickly beat a retreat back to Evie, and headed off to the local Coop, to restock and plan our return south, having decided that we would stay up in the highlands for a bit and see how the weather behaved…
S&J 26.05.24
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