Harlosh Point – A Headland Walk on Loch Bracadale

The walk

This walk goes from the end of the single-track road at Ardmore out to Harlosh Point and back, about 1½ miles (2.4 km) in all. Allow about an hour and a quarter, with time at the point. A track leads from the road end to a gate; after that there is no path, only croft ground, rough grass and rock, wet in places, ending on a low cliff.

The croft land is still worked, so shut gates behind you and give any sheep room. Just through the gate, the small hill on the right holds the low foundations of a chapel and its burial ground; no graves are left, and local tradition says they were moved to Kilmuir in Dunvegan. About a quarter of a mile from the road, Dun Neill crowns a rock by the shore with cliffs on every side. It is an Iron Age dun, a small stone fort, oval and about 24 metres long, with walls almost 3 metres thick in places. The way in was on the north-east, climbing through a cleft in the crag, where a single step of the old stair survives. A faint outer wall round the seaward side may have been built to stop people and livestock falling off the rock. Like the chapel, it is a scheduled monument, so leave its stones as they lie. Beyond the dun, on the west side of the inlet before the point, lie the remains of four houses and two enclosures, an old township. One walking group came back along the seaward edge instead, past more ruins and two old sheep dips; there is no path either way.

Below the point a weathered pillar of rock, about 30 feet high by one travel writer's account, stands in the tidal pools. Harlosh Island lies across a narrow sound, with cliffs round most of it and a pale sandy bay on the shore facing you. On a clear day the Cuillin line the skyline to the south-east beyond the loch; when cloud sits on them, walkers come to low ground like this instead.

Nobody lives on Loch Bracadale's islands, which leaves them to seals, otters and birds. Seals haul out on the rocks round the point and the island, and on Harlosh Skerry, the low rock off to the west. Otters are likely to feed in the kelp shallows round the islands, so bring binoculars.

Afterwards

1. 14 min by car

   

   Bog Myrtle Café

   Lunch

   Lunch is 14 minutes' drive east round the loch at Bog Myrtle in Struan, a café, bakery and secondhand bookshop in one, with big stained-glass windows and stools by the glass looking out to sea. The owners put sourdough into nearly everything, the scones and waffles as well as the sandwiches, and there's soup and a special or two on the blackboard. Take a book down from the shelves while you wait.

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