The Raasay Road – A Castle Ruin, Calum's Road and Hallaig
A day by car, from Portree and back.
The route
Raasay is the long, quiet island across the Sound from Portree, and most people on Skye only ever look at it.
From Portree it's a short drive past Sligachan to the ferry at Sconser, and the car comes too, because the island's two great stories lie far apart on it. In the north is Calum's Road, the almost two miles from Brochel to Arnish that Calum MacLeod built, nearly all of it by hand. In the east is Hallaig, a township emptied in the clearances, and the cairn that carries Sorley MacLean's poem about it. By the ferry, south-west of Hallaig, are the walled garden behind Raasay House at Clachan and the miners' village of Inverarish, and the day ends at the Isle of Raasay Distillery, a minute from the boat home.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
Book Isle of Raasay Distillery
Book the Tour and Tasting online before you cross, for about 4pm, after the Hallaig walk: at most 10 people go on each tour, tickets are on sale until five minutes before it starts but can sell out, and it is for ages 8 and over, each child with an adult.
The day
Raasay
Over the Sound to Raasay on the morning ferry from Sconser, for the ruin of Brochel Castle and the road Calum MacLeod built by hand. The afternoon is for the walk to Hallaig's cairn and the island's distillery, a minute from the boat home.
2 hr 14 min at the wheelAbout 52 miles
The ferry from Sconser to Raasay
It's 22 minutes' drive past Sligachan to the slip at Sconser. Fill the tank in Portree first, as there's no petrol on Raasay. CalMac asks drivers to check in 10 minutes before a sailing, so leave Portree by twenty to nine and be in the car lane by a quarter past for the 9.25am. No sailing can be reserved: buy a ticket online beforehand or pay on board. The boat, MV Hallaig, takes 23 cars and is named after the poem you'll walk to this afternoon.
25 min by boat, 27 min by car
Brochel Castle
An attraction
It's a 25-minute crossing, then 27 minutes' drive north on single track, steep in places, past Oskaig, where Sorley MacLean was born in 1911. Park in the small space by the road just above the castle, which the first MacLeod chief of Raasay is thought to have built on its stack of rock above the Inner Sound. Look from the road and the path round the rock's foot: the walls are unsafe and fenced off. Just south is Screapadal, cleared like Hallaig, and the subject of another MacLean poem.
10 min by car
Calum's Road
An attraction
Calum's Road starts at Brochel. It's 10 minutes' drive past Calum's cairn to the road end at Arnish, on bends and blind crests. In 1931 north Raasay asked for a road and was refused. In 1964 Calum MacLeod began this one himself: after the Department of Agriculture paid for the first blasting, he built nearly all of its almost two miles by hand over about ten years. By then he and his wife, Lexie, were the last left in the north. Park at the road end and walk back.
30 min by car
Raasay Walled Garden
An attraction
Drive 30 minutes back to Clachan and the walled garden behind Raasay House, built by the MacLeods of Raasay after Culloden; Johnson and Boswell stayed there in 1773. Lunch is in the house's café from noon, first come, first served: beat the 1pm boat's passengers, in at about 1.20. The garden is free and open every day. Close by are the roofless St Moluag's Chapel, the Pictish stone at the foot of Temptation Hill, carved about 1,300 years ago, and two stone mermaids at the old battery.
3 min by car
Inverarish
Inverarish, the island's village, is 3 minutes' drive away; its terraces were built for the ironstone mine Baird's opened just before the First World War. German prisoners of war worked it from 1916; it had stopped by 1920. Its pier and great concrete hopper still stand at Suisnish, down the road to the south. The community shop is open Monday to Saturday, 9am to 5pm: stock up for the walk.
9 min by car
Hallaig
A walk
It's 9 minutes' drive east to the road end at North Fearns, where seven crofters from Rona, the Raasay Raiders, took land in 1921. A grassy track runs 2.2 km above the Inner Sound to a cairn carrying Sorley MacLean's poem Hallaig, from 1952: about an hour and a half there and back, wet in places. The township, emptied in the clearances, lies 500 to 800 metres past the cairn, up the slope, over rough, pathless ground. Dùn Caan, the island's flat-topped hill, needs a day of its own.
10 min by car
Isle of Raasay Distillery
An attraction
It's 10 minutes' drive back to Borodale House above the pier, where the Isle of Raasay Distillery opened in 2017, the island's first legal one. Book its Tour and Tasting for about 4pm: under an hour, three spirits, £22 in 2026. The slip is a minute away: be there by five to six for the 6.05pm, the last boat on a weekday. If it's full or cancelled, the next is at 7.55 the following morning, so if wind is forecast, take the 5pm instead, which means missing the tour.
If it rains
Rain seldom stops the Raasay ferry; wind is what cancels it, so check CalMac's status page that morning, before you leave Portree. Brochel Castle and Calum's Road are seen from the car and a few steps from it, so they stand up to a shower. The Hallaig track is wet underfoot at the best of times, and the cliffs above it are no place in a downpour: turn back at the cairn, or leave Hallaig for a drier day and give the distillery longer, with the tour and then its bar, and Raasay House's bar from 11am. Wear boots all day.
Make it a weekend
More days out on the Isle of Skye.
Photograph by P. G. via Google