I seem to be mentioning my dodgy feet in this series of blog posts about our autumn holiday road trip last year, but it was ostensibly a combined family visit and hiking holiday, so most of our activities were organised around walking. Luckily, a good week’s rest and a few gentle walks seemed to largely do the trick, so it was only with a little hesitation and somewhat gingerly that I went out for a picturesque dog walk to Oronsay Island.
There are two islands with this name in the Inner Hebrides, but we visited the one to which it’s possible to walk, connected to the Isle of Skye, across a narrow and short tidal peninsula. After parking up in a sensible spot at the end of the road near Ullinish, we put on our walking boots, unpacked the dogs and made sure that they were securely fastened with their leads—local farmers quite rightly don’t take at all kindly to their sheep being worried—then headed out across the fields to the peninsula.
The path is well-trodden and easy to follow, but muddy because of the variable local weather and coastal location. After crossing the fields, we passed through a gate with a view to the island and then down a short, easy, rocky section to the tiniest sliver of tidal causeway to a small beach.
It was a simple ascent from there to the main summit of the little island, where you get magnificent views to Fiscavaig and Wiay, thence right along the coast to Macleod’s Maidens and out to the Outer Hebrides. We sat and enjoyed the warm sun for a while, and I sent my drone up and out to the far extent of its range, so that I could film the dramatic headland from above.
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