The Quiraing

Tara on Tour

Emma and I set off on Sunday 3rd June for the next leg of the journey. I'm on the road now, having packed up my things and left The Salisbury Centre. Travelling this first week with Emma wasn't scheduled, but since she'd taken a week's holiday and was planning to go to the same part of Scotland at exactly the same time, we realised it couldn't be coincidence and decided to travel together.

After a long, cold Spring, the warm sunny weather we've had since we left is very welcome. And there are few places more beautiful than Scotland in the sunshine. Heading north up the A82, we drove through Callander, Crianlarich, stopping for a cup of tea brewed on the stove by a small loch before reaching Fort William in the late afternoon. Turning west, we drove towards Mallaig where we would take the ferry the following morning for the Isle of Eigg. We'd been told to stay in Arisaig, 3 miles short of Mallaig - a real beauty spot with white sands and a hint of the Caribbean. What we'd failed to appreciate was the reason Scotland is not, nor ever will be, overpopulated.....but as we arrived at our campsite and prepared to erect the tent that had still not been out of its bag, the fog became the least of our problems as the dreaded midge homed in on its unsuspecting prey. The entire population of west Scotland's midges in fact. Everyone else was inside. We screamed, swotted, ran up and down and initiated a tribal dance to deflect the enemy's advances as we pitched our home for the night. Diving into the sleeping quarters as soon as they were up, we were then trapped, not daring to emerge again until the following morning. Emma, in her wisdom, had brought the only midge repellent known to protect even a soldier on exercise on the west coast - Avon's Skin So Soft. The cosmetic body oil is so wonderfully toxic that, as well as giving me asthma, it stopped the midge from feasting on succulent flesh and I awoke with only 3 bites. Passing a less fortunate woman in the showers, I realised the midge shows no mercy and Avon have done the world a favour.

The next morning, the fog took some time to clear but when it did, we were rewarded with stunning views of the Small Isles and Skye - and a spot of yoga down by the sea on those brilliant velveteen white sands. We'd decided Eigg was no longer the place to go - it was Skye.

We took the ferry from Mallaig to Armadale and headed up to the north-east of Skye, along the Trotternish Peninsula in the direction of Staffin.

Little did I know how skillfully Tara was leading us.

Beyone Portree, the Trotternish Peninsula begins, marked dramatically by a rock formation known as The Old Man of Storr. Our hostel (forget camping) was north of Staffin, in a village called Floddigarry, directly opposite the Quiaraing - a well-known destination for hikers. Our hostel was an absolute jewel: once part of the 4star hotel next door, our views were worth at least £100 pppn.

I'd been to the Quiraing before - and had had one of those strange experiences of being 'transported' to another time and place - so I knew it was a special place. J.R. Tolkein visited Skye as a child and it's easy to see how such a landscape might have inspired the world that he created in Lord of the Rings.

What I didn't know was how the Quiraing had been formed. A geology student had left a copy of her thesis in the hostel, investigating the origins of today's rock formation up on the Quiraing. As I began to read it the fact we'd ended up here rather than on Eigg began to dawn on me as nothing short of a miracle.

The Trotternish Peninsula is dominated by a lava escarpment which was subject to extensive "failure" during the Quaternary period, resulting in the largest and most spectacular landslides in the British Isles. The most impressive and most dramatic of these is the Quiraing - which it seems is, to this day, still marginally unstable in places. Particularly around the Floddigarry area.

So here we were. This Tara, whose particular activity is to protect from earth-related disasters such as earthquakes, landslides, avalanches, etc had brought us to the most perfect site in the UK.

The following day we began the fairly difficult climb to the top of the Quiraing. Our appreciation of the natural beauty greatly enriched by our recent knowledge of how it evolved, and by the awareness that thousands and thousands of years were embodied in the rocks beneath our feet. A geologist's study had revealed that the face of the escarpment was made up of two dominant lava types - and that these, because they overlay a much softer Jurassic layer of clay, would have established unstable slope conditions. During the last Ice Age, glaciers flowed through this part of the world and settled here. This process, followed eventually by deglaciation, resulted in a significant weakening of the rock and a number of dramatic landslides took place.

Walking through the landscape, we were struck by the way in which nature will take a hold anywhere she can - and that life will continue at the first opportunity. The most delicate of flowers grew in obscure, remote and barren parts of the escarpment.

After a 2-mile walk, our path suddenly ascended steeply and we scrambled up along the path (Emma like a mountain goat, myself an urban chick). We were heading for the Table, the very top of the Quiraing at a height of nearly 600metres. We were pretty much alone by this point, and the silence was eerie - simply us and the ravens, and a rather wild wind. Reaching this magnificent green lawn on top of a mountain was a bit like finding paradise. Tara was placed in the ground close to a small stone circle, prayers were recited and our mission accomplished.