Is there anything better than a wander along a quiet stretch of coastline, stopping at a beautifully located photogenic bothy? Quite literally my ideal walk, and this is one I’d be wanting to do for a while. I’m hesitant to drive north on Skye during the busy season… the roads are wild with rental cars (there’s currently one in a ditch outside the gates of where we stay, he drifted off the road because he was jet lagged, and that’s just one example of many incidents we’ve seen recently) and nearly every place to walk is incredibly busy. But, we risked it, and I think a particularly windy day meant the numbers of visitors were kept to a minimum.
This bothy is known as something else, but, and I know it’ll have a tiny impact (if any at all) I’ve been making a point recently to not ever give exact locations or names of the places I visit and photograph. I really don’t mean to gatekeep, that’s not the aim, I just really want to urge people to wander and find their own spots and their own places to go. I’m not a fan of this ‘tell me where to visit, tell me what to photograph’ mentality that social media is made up of these days. You see it a lot here… on Skye, the place being treat like a checklist of things to stop off at quickly and photograph and then go to the next place on the list. Nobody seems to want to wander and stumble upon things anymore.
I didn’t mean to go on a rant there, and to be honest, this bothy in particular is pretty well known so it’ll be no bother for you if you want to find it yourself BUT I’ll still do my tiny part to not add to the problem of over-visiting and lazy tourism.
Anyways, this coastal bothy is a corker. It’s rustic and wooden inside, with huge windows at the front, looking over the water. The light in that front room is incredible, and if I had the balls I’d love to be in there over a stormy night and watch the sea. I can imagine sitting on that stool with a flask of coffee and some binoculars and having the time of my life.
I love that people have started a collection of bones and shells, probably gathered on their walks, and set on the windowsill like trophies.