{"id":41,"date":"2014-10-01T17:06:42","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T17:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/?p=41"},"modified":"2014-10-01T17:06:42","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T17:06:42","slug":"hiking-the-hebrides-in-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/?p=41","title":{"rendered":"Hiking the Hebrides in style"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Published in\u00a0Sunday Times Travel<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0magazine, September 2013<\/p>\n

At the base of the cliff, the sea is a brilliant, incandescent turquoise, smooth, white rocks gleaming just beneath the surface. We are strolling along the cliff path towards a distant beach, the sand an amazing shade of pinky-yellow. As we get closer, we can see that there\u2019s nobody there apart from a few wading birds. When the breeze drops, the sun feels blisteringly hot. We could be in the Caribbean if it weren\u2019t for the bleating of sheep. We are, in fact, at Scotland\u2019s Loch Torridan, looking across to the islands of the Inner Hebrides.<\/p>\n

\"hebridean<\/a>Caribbean they may not be but the islands of the Hebrides are scattered over a large area off the coast of western Scotland and as such are less than easy to string together for a mere week\u2019s walking holiday. Fortunately, just as in the Caribbean, there is a cruise ship that will do all the work for you, in this case, the\u00a0Hebridean Princess<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hebridean Island Cruises\u2019 \u2018Footloose\u2019 walking cruises on this petite, 49-passenger ship are a stroke of genius. What could be more blissful than a very small, very luxurious floating home which takes you to wild, beautiful locations every day fo a week\u2019s worth of hiking through dramatic landscapes, over volcanic outcrops and along clifftop trails?<\/p>\n

The cruise begins in Oban, where I have joined with some trepidation. While the brochure describes the my voyage as \u2018walking or strolling at your own pace\u2019, I\u2019m worried that my assorted sporting injuries wouldn\u2019t stand up to seven days of hard hiking. I am not alone; as we cast off our lines and sail out of the harbour and into the sunset, dinner conversation seems to be a general swapping of war wound stories, as everybody sizes each other up. Fellow passengers are clearly fairly wealthy (these cruises don\u2019t come cheap); there\u2019s a fair smattering of titles on the guest list. But the wine flows and later, the single malts. Ted, one of the three resident guides on the ship, plays the guitar and rattles off jokes and I can already see some of the ladies getting misty-eyed and mentally signing up for his walking group.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, Day One turns out to be a baptism of fire. We awake, having sailed through the Sound of Mull, anchored off the tiny islet of Eigg, inviting in the unexpectedly brilliant sunshine. But Eigg is dominated by a sheer-sided, black volcanic plug called An Sgurr. It towers menacingly over the rolling fields and moorland. We are to go up it \u2013 not round it, but right to the top. Did I mention that I don\u2019t like heights?<\/p>\n

The walk starts out innocuously enough, through beautiful shady woodland, the ground in late May still a sea of bluebells and the scent of wild garlic hanging in the air. We tramp across boggy moorland, looking for wild orchids as the call of a cuckoo echoes across the heather. The push to the summit is up a steep, rocky slope, on top of which there\u2019s a sheer drop on one side and breathtaking, 360-degree views as far as the Outer Isles. Hebridean Princess sits far below us, a black and white speck in a glassy, flat sea. On the way down, a heat haze shimmers off the heather. I fantasise about moving to the Hebrides until someone tells me it\u2019s like this for about one week of the year.<\/p>\n

Sunday finds us on Skye, stepping ashore at the tiny town of Portree. Everybody knows each other by now. The tough \u2018walkers\u2019, have opted for the hardest climbs and have been assigned Pat as their guide. Pat is a man of few words and an archly raised eyebrow but displays an encyclopaedic knowledge of birds, flowers and geology. I soon learn not to ask him daft questions such as \u2018How scary is the steep bit at the top?\u2019 for fear of being kicked out into the slow-moving \u2018strollers\u2019 group, escorted by kindly Kate to see local attractions like Inverewe Gardens, Flora MacDonald\u2019s grave and Skye\u2019s Talisker distillery.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s challenge is the Quiraing trail, a tilted wall of ancient lava that forms part of a long fault line. Like An Sgurr, it\u2019s a huge slab of rock, this time reached through a hidden valley littered with giant boulders, each one brilliant with patches of yellow lichen. We squelch through bright green moss (proper walking boots are essential for this trip) until the path becomes steep and narrow, with a big drop-off on one side. Once again, we\u2019re rewarded with dazzling views, this time as far as Cape Wrath in Scotland\u2019s far north, a hazy headland shimmering in the hot afternoon sun.<\/p>\n

Life on board settles quickly into a comfortable routine, mainly consisting of eating everything in sight, as all the fresh air and activity makes us hungry. We get back to the ship in the afternoons, glowing and muddy, kick our boots off and flop in the cosy lounge with tea and chocolate cake before wallowing in long, hot baths.<\/p>\n

Dinner is a communal affair in the ship\u2019s dining room, all fresh, local ingredients; lamb, beef, fish and Scottish cheeses and whisky-laced puddings. One night, a haggis is produced, addressed with great panache by Ted, sporting full kilted regalia. After supper, everybody retires to the lounge for further appreciation of single malts and the occasional talk by the guides on Scotland. I miss most of it, though, as I fall into the deepest sleep imaginable as Hebridean Princess hauls anchor and potters slowly to the next island.<\/p>\n

The furthest north we reach is Harris in Outer Hebrides, quite a contrast to the lushness of Eigg and Loch Torridan, bleak and bare. This is our only grey day and the gloomy town of Tarbert is hunkered down, with nobody on the streets. We warm ourselves with swigs of the \u2018wee drams\u2019 \u2013 miniature bottles of whisky \u2013 that sit in a \u2018help yourself\u2019 basket at the ship\u2019s reception desk. Today\u2019s trail, the Postman\u2019s Route, turns out to be a long march up a scrubby hill and down an incredibly steep, zig-zagging path to a narrow inlet where the royal yacht Britannia apparently used to drop in for a \u2018wee barbecue\u2019 on the beach, observed only by seals. (In fact, the Queen has chartered Hebridean Princess twice since her beloved yacht was decommissioned, revisiting old haunts in the islands.) The path is called the Postman\u2019s Route because it used to lead to two hillside villages, now just sad, empty shells. The silence of the ruins and the overgrown, crumbling walls are a chilling reminder of the brutal land clearance of the islands in the 19th<\/sup>\u00a0century.<\/p>\n

Tonight, the sky clears and there\u2019s a special treat. We\u2019re invited to assemble on deck after dinner, just as the sun is setting. Nobody knows why. But as the champagne corks pop and the sun begins to sink towards the horizon in a blaze of burnt orange, Mendelssohn\u2019s Hebridean Overture begins to echo out across the deck. We are sailing right past Fingal\u2019s Cave, a sea cave on the end of Staffa, formed from perfectly symmetrical hexagonal rock columns. Mendelssohn visited from Oban in 1829 and despite his seasickness, was inspired by the geometric shapes and the shafts of sunlight penetrating the turquoise water at the mouth of the cave and immediately scribbled down the beginning of the score. It\u2019s an unforgettable moment; just our little boat, the fading light and the haunting music echoing across the deck. Everybody falls silent.<\/p>\n

Our final walk on the penultimate day is on the lushly wooded island of Ulva. We\u2019re lacing up our boots when a fellow walker says to me: \u201cLook at you. You\u2019re a different person from a week ago.\u201d I reaslise she\u2019s right. I arrived stressed and tired and in just six days, I feel tanned and fit. We set off, stepping around piles of lobster pots cluttered on the jetty, along country lanes framed with purple and scarlet wildlflowers, passing a solitary phone box that\u2019s doubling up as a greenhouse for growing tomatoes in a Gro-Bag. We see buzzards, fat, basking seals and views of the much browner, bleaker hulk of Mull across the water. I don\u2019t want to leave. So many things have surprised me about the Hebrides. The dazzling sunshine. The contrasts between the islands \u2013 some bleak and rocky, others carpeted with flowers. And the sheer ease of this trip; essentially, I haven\u2019t had to make a decision all week other than whether breakfast is too early have whisky with my porridge. You can keep the Caribbean. I\u2019ll take Scotland any day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published in Sunday Times Travel magazine, September 2013 At the base of the cliff, the sea is a brilliant, incandescent turquoise, smooth, white rocks gleaming just beneath the surface. We are strolling along the cliff path towards a distant beach, the sand an amazing shade of pinky-yellow. As we get closer, we can see that there’s nobody […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[13,21,18,23,17,16,15,14,24,20,19,22],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure-cruising","tag-cruise","tag-eigg","tag-footloose","tag-harris","tag-hebridean-island-cruises","tag-hebridean-princess","tag-hebrides","tag-hiking","tag-luxury-cruise","tag-mull","tag-scotland","tag-skye"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42,"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions\/42"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}