Fiskavaig

Fiskavaig Bay and the Road to Carbost

On the shore at Fiskavaig, below the crofts, there are ruined houses and a small stone pier, visible remnants of an older settlement. This is a dispersed crofting township on the north-west coast of Minginish, its houses scattered along a single-track road that runs out above the bay. Fiskavaig Bay opens into Loch Bracadale between Coille Ghuail, the Coal Grove, and the rocky Sgùrr nan Uan, the Lambs Rock, with the Fiskavaig Burn coming down to the water.

Fiskavaig has no pub or shop. Carbost, about four miles away, is the service village; from the A863 at Drynoch, follow the B8009 through Carbost and Portnalong to the single-track Fiskavaig road. MacDonald's Coaches routes 607 and 608 link Fiskavaig with Carbost, Sligachan and Portree, with sparse, mostly weekday service.

The Old Inn on Loch Harport

The Old Inn at Carbost sits on Loch Harport and is used by locals, walkers and visitors alike. The kitchen cooks Loch Harport mackerel and langoustines, oysters from a neighbouring farm and Highland meat; burgers come with chips and salad, and a specials board changes. There are open fires and live traditional music, and dogs are welcome in the bar and the lodge rooms. Non-residents are served first-come, first-served. In 2018 it was a finalist for Best Scottish Island Pub of the Year.

A short way off, the Oyster Shed sells Loch Harport oysters along with crab, lobster, langoustines, mussels, venison and Highland cheeses. Café Cùil, on the loch side, was founded by Skye-born chef Clare Coghill, whose business began in Hackney in 2019 before she returned to Skye in 2020 and settled at Carbost in 2022; its menu has featured Skye-langoustine prawn toast, Lochalsh beef-brisket rarebit, Tobermory smoked trout, and Scotch pancakes with rhubarb, gingernut crumble and gorse mascarpone. Local volunteers bought the corrugated-iron Carbost Community Shop, with its red roof, which stocks general supplies and Isle of Skye black pudding. Talisker Distillery was founded in Carbost by the MacAskill brothers in 1830 and is Skye's oldest working distillery.

Carbost Food and the Talisker Walks

The walking is the real reason to be here. A core path of three kilometres runs from Fiskavaig to Talisker. The full coastal circuit from Talisker is a longer undertaking: seven and a half miles, five to six hours, much of it pathless, rough and boggy, taking in Talisker Bay, sea stacks, cliff waterfalls, the islands of Loch Bracadale, MacLeod's Maidens and the Fiskavaig beach. Talisker Bay itself has an easier approach across farmland to a shore of dark and pale sand; the roadside parking is tiny and fills early, and a very high tide covers the sand altogether.

Clearance, Crofts and the Pictish Stone

The township you see is younger than it looks. Cleared in the early nineteenth century, its low ground given over to sheep, Fiskavaig was repeopled in the summer of 1923 when the Board of Agriculture laid out sixty-eight crofts here and at Portnalong and Fernilea, and families arrived from Harris and Lewis. A seventh-century Pictish stone, carved with a double disc above a crescent, was noticed on the shore around 1921, hidden again by shingle, and rediscovered in 1927 before being sent to Edinburgh. Of those cleared a century before, a witness told the Napier Commission in 1883: "Some of them went to America, and others were scattered about the country."

At the End of the Road

Stand at the end of the Fiskavaig road, where the tarmac runs out above the bay, with the water in front of you.