A brighter Skye

After a day painting on Saturday we headed to Skye for a mountain bike ride on Sunday. The drive to Skye has to include pastries from the Co-op at Kyle, and when we arrived a coffee brewed up in the van. After the coffee and a little faff we set off from Broadford heading SW.

Broadford

The red cuillin

through the quarry section

The route starts along an old former railway line that was used briefly to transport marble from the quarry near Suardal to Broadford to be shipped far afield. The marble works were in operation in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Oh my...

The track is great due to its pitching being a former railway line and not without interest when you pass through the quarry area with some short technical sections. As you reach the high point and beyond the track becomes narrower and fine singletrack with plenty of interest.

Impossible to take a bad photo on Skye

The 1st cleared village

Abi, can we take these home?

Along the shore

The views open out to the sea loch (Eishort) and beyond the Cuillin, Rum and Eigg. The drop down to the old cleared village of Boreraig provided very good riding before you are amongst the croft/village ruins which are very evocative.

Not all ridable 

In good weather like we experienced it seemed a dreamy place to be and formally live, but clearly life here would have also been extremely challenging and I tried to keep this in my mind as I felt a calling to the place.

Abi shifting..

Blaven and beyond

Following the coast Westwards the path is fascinating, some rideable, some not, hard to imagine that this is a main way in/out. There are waterfalls and great coast line to pass by but due to some bike carrying it's quite nice when you meet the next group of old buildings that are still used for farming at Suisnish.

From here there is a great track back to the road with fantastic views of Blaven and the Red Cuillin before you get back to the old graveyard in Strath Suardal and eventually old railway line which whisks you back to Broadford. A really classy ride, one that I would happily do many more times.