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.
You should know before you arrive that Fiskavaig has no pub and no shop. The service village is Carbost, about four miles back along the road, reached by the B8009 through Portnalong after you turn off the A863 at Drynoch. Buses on MacDonald's Coaches routes 607 and 608 connect the township with Carbost, Sligachan and Portree, though the service is sparse and mostly weekday, so check the times before you rely on them.
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 the 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; her menu has run to Skye-langoustine prawn toast, Lochalsh beef-brisket rarebit, Tobermory smoked trout, and Scotch pancakes with rhubarb, gingernut crumble and gorse mascarpone. The Carbost Community Shop, a corrugated-iron building with a red roof bought by local volunteers, has stocked general supplies and Isle of Skye black pudding, though it's worth checking ahead that it's open before you make a special trip. Carbost is also where you find Talisker, founded by the MacAskill brothers in 1830 and the oldest working distillery on Skye.
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.
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."
Stand at the end of the Fiskavaig road, where the tarmac runs out above the bay, with the water in front of you.