The MacLeod Trail – Castle, Cairns and Clan Graves
Two days by car, from Dunvegan and back.
The route
Leod's descendants have held Dunvegan since the 1200s, and the castle is still their family's home.
Every four years MacLeods come back to it from Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand for the clan's own Parliament. This trail follows the clan's story on the ground over two days, based in Dunvegan, 40 minutes from Portree. The first day stays near the village: the old burial ground of St Mary's, Kilmuir, by Dunvegan, the castle and its Fairy Flag, and Borreraig across the loch, where the MacCrimmons, the chiefs' pipers, kept their school. The second goes up Waternish, by the Fairy Bridge to Trumpan, where MacDonald raiders from Uist burned a church, then out on foot to a cairn on the moor. The last Parliament met in August 2026, and the next isn't announced yet.
Before you go
Book two nights near Dunvegan
Dunvegan is the base both nights: the night before day one, which starts in the village at 9.30, and the night between the two days.
A mile awayThe DunveganA place to stay
2 miles awayLochviewSleeps 4
South ClunesTigh an TobairSleeps 8
ColbostThe Three ChimneysA place to stay
GlendaleBlack Box CabinSleeps 4
MilovaigMilovaig HouseSleeps 4
Skeabost BridgeSkeabost House HotelA hotel
10 miles awaySkyewalker HostelSleeps 1
13 miles awayThe Cowshed Boutique BunkhouseSleeps 1
PortreeMarmalade HotelA hotel
PortreeThe BosvilleA hotel
LinicroMonkstadt 1745A place to stay
PortreeCuillin Hills HotelA hotel
18 miles awaySligachan CampsiteA place to stay
18 miles awaySligachan BlackhouseSleeps 6
19 miles awayHalf of OneSleeps 8
20 miles awayRaasay House HotelA hotel
20 miles awayGlenbrittle CampsiteA place to stayLunch is served from noon to 2pm in the season, and the clan's own guide to Skye advises booking.
Book dinner at the Three Chimneys
Its tables go well ahead in summer: book online for up to four, or ring 01470 511258 for more.
Day one
Dunvegan
The clan's graves, its castle and its pipers' ground, all within half an hour of Dunvegan, and back in the village by mid-afternoon. Set off at half past nine for St Mary's, Kilmuir, to be at the castle as its doors open.
48 min at the wheelAbout 19 miles
St Mary's Old Church
It's 2 minutes' drive to the lay-by below St Mary's on the A850, the Portree road: four cars, on the left. On a phone map, search for St Mary's by Dunvegan: Kilmuir on its own finds the other Kilmuir, in Trotternish. A 100-metre path climbs over a footbridge to the kirkyard. If it's full, come back after the castle: from Duirinish church's car park the Two Churches Walk runs 2.2 km through the woods, half an hour each way. A tablet of 1933 remembers the MacCrimmons, the chiefs' pipers: ten generations lie here, it says. Dame Flora, the 28th chief, who called the first Parliament, was buried here in 1976.
About 4 min by car
Dunvegan Castle
An attraction
The castle car park, free in the season, is 4 minutes up the road. MacLeods are invited to sign the clan's own visitors' book: ask the guides where it is. The clan says the Dunvegan Cup was the O'Neills' gift of 1596 to Sir Rory Mòr; its inscription is dated 1493. Sir Reginald, the 27th chief, told a museum expert the Fairy Flag was the fairies' gift. The clan societies' gazebo of 2014 in the Walled Garden remembers the 29th chief. The clan's Emigration Wall of 2018, of stones brought home by emigrants' descendants, is near Orbost, south of the village, unmarked and on no map: ask in Dunvegan.
22 min by car
The MacCrimmon cairn
It's 22 minutes' drive through Colbost, with MacLeod's Tables, two flat-topped hills, to the south; then right to Borreraig, and right again past the bridge. Near here the MacCrimmons, the chiefs' pipers, kept their school. The road in is a narrow dead end lined with house gates, with nowhere to leave a car, so see the cairn from the road end, about 170 metres off, and turn in the turning circle. Whether walkers may use the path to it since the land was sold in 2023 is not known.
If it rains
The castle carries a wet day: its rooms, the Fairy Flag in its frame and the small St Kilda exhibition are all indoors, and the MacLeod Tables Café is by the car park. In high wind the castle can shut at short notice and the seal boats stay in, so check its social media before you set out. St Mary's is a short climb from the lay-by, but the Two Churches Walk through the woods is muddy after rain. At Borreraig the cairn is seen from the road end, so in low cloud leave it for a clearer afternoon. In the village, the small museum to the giant Angus MacAskill keeps no set hours: try the door as you pass.
Worth a detour
- Coral Beach
The clan's own guide to Skye counts this white beach as MacLeod ground. Drive on 10 minutes beyond the castle to Claigan, where the road ends, then it's about half an hour's walk each way out beside Loch Dunvegan, on a farm track and then a grassy path. Its car park is small and there's nowhere else to leave a car: on a fine day it fills early.
Day two
Waternish
Up the Waternish peninsula by the Fairy Bridge to Trumpan, where raiders from Uist burned the church, then out on foot over the moor to a clan cairn. Set off from Dunvegan by half past nine.
50 min at the wheelAbout 23 miles by carAbout 1.5 miles on foot
8 min by car
Fairy Bridge
A walk
Drive 8 minutes on the Portree road to the Waternish turning, the B886, and the lay-by just along it. The castle tells three stories of how the Fairy Flag came, and one is set here: the story goes that a chief's fairy wife stayed a year and a day, and gave him the flag as they parted. The organiser of the clan's own Parliament rates it 'probably one of the least credible'. Still, its handbook sends MacLeods here to sit where the fairies sat.
17 min by car
Trumpan Church
An attraction
It's 17 minutes' drive up through Hallin and Halistra. In 1578, most accounts say, Clanranald MacDonalds from Uist landed in the bay below, shut the congregation in the church and set the thatch alight. The MacLeods caught them at their galleys. It was revenge, the story goes, for the MacLeods' deed in a cave on Eigg, and a girl escaped by a window to raise Dunvegan. The Fairy Flag was waved, and a dyke was pulled down over the raiders, which gave the fight its name: the Spoiling of the Dyke.
About 30 min on foot
Roderick MacLeod's cairn
From Trumpan's car park it's half an hour's walk up the road and a track over the moor to the cairn. The clan's guide names it for the Battle of Waternish, about 1530, a MacLeod victory; it's said to mark where Roderick MacLeod of Unish fell fighting the MacDonalds of Trotternish. The track is boggy: keep dogs on a lead. Allow an hour and a quarter there and back; the broch of Dùn Borrafiach is 800 metres on.
If it rains
Trumpan's kirkyard stands open to the weather, and after heavy rain the track to Roderick MacLeod's cairn is a bog: in a downpour, see the church, leave the walk for a drier day and go down to the Stein Inn, 11 minutes away, to eat indoors. Near Stein, Skyeskyns is under a roof, and shows how sheepskin rugs are made.
Worth a detour
- Skio Pottery
Five minutes on from the Fairy Bridge, two potters who came from York in 2023 throw stoneware above Loch Bay. The studio usually opens on weekdays from 10 till 4 (its Instagram stories give each day's hours), and a self-service croft box of mugs, bowls and vases stands open all day, every day.
Photographs by Tom W, Ryan Praskovich, Un Vagabundo, George D and Morgan Evans via Google