The Flora MacDonald Trail – In the Steps of the Prince, 1746
Two days by car, from Portree to Broadford.
The route
In the summer of 1746, with £30,000 on his head after Culloden, Charles Edward Stuart spent six days on Skye and Raasay, and most of what we know of them comes from the people who hid him.
This route follows those days. Day one goes round Trotternish from Portree to Kilmuir, where Flora MacDonald is buried, then Uig, near where they landed, and back to Portree, where they parted. Day two follows his night march south to Elgol and its cave, and ends in Broadford. Flora, a Clanranald MacDonald from South Uist, was 24. Arrested within a fortnight and held in London, she married Allan MacDonald in 1750, left for North Carolina in 1774, sailed home in 1779 and died on Skye in 1790. Of the houses of 1746 only Monkstadt, where Flora dined with the officer, still stands.
Before you go
Book a bed near Portree for night one
Day one ends in Portree, where the Prince parted from Flora. Beds on Skye go early in July, so book as soon as your dates are set, check a cottage takes a single night, and avoid the town's cruise-ship days, when it is full from the first tender to the last.
PortreeThe BosvilleA hotel
PortreeMarmalade HotelA hotel
PortreeCuillin Hills HotelA hotel
Skeabost BridgeSkeabost House HotelA hotel
6 miles awayRaasay House HotelA hotel
8 miles awaySligachan CampsiteA place to stay
9 miles awaySligachan BlackhouseSleeps 6
10 miles awaySkyewalker HostelSleeps 1
12 miles awayHalf of OneSleeps 8
13 miles awayThe Cowshed Boutique BunkhouseSleeps 1
15 miles awayThe DunveganA place to stay
15 miles awayGlenbrittle CampsiteA place to stay
LinicroMonkstadt 1745A place to stay
ColbostThe Three ChimneysA place to stay
17 miles awayLochviewSleeps 4
South ClunesTigh an TobairSleeps 8
ElgolCoruisk HouseSleeps 4
GlendaleBlack Box CabinSleeps 4
ArdheslaigThe Net StoreSleeps 4
21 miles awayRhuroinSleeps 3
MilovaigMilovaig HouseSleeps 4
22 miles awayKinloch LodgeA place to stay
24 miles awayEilean Sionnach Lighthouse CottageSleeps 8Book a bed near Broadford for night two
Day two ends in Broadford, 30 minutes back from Elgol. Some cottages round Broadford let only for three nights or more, so check a bed takes a single night before you count on it, and book as soon as your dates are set.
HeastBothan BuidheagSleeps 2
HeastBothan BeileagSleeps 26 miles awayKinloch LodgeA place to stay8 miles awayEilean Sionnach Lighthouse CottageSleeps 8ElgolCoruisk HouseSleeps 410 miles awayRaasay House HotelA hotel10 miles awaySligachan BlackhouseSleeps 611 miles awaySligachan CampsiteA place to stay15 miles awayGlenbrittle CampsiteA place to stayPortreeThe BosvilleA hotelPortreeCuillin Hills HotelA hotelPortreeMarmalade HotelA hotel20 miles awaySkyewalker HostelSleeps 1Skeabost BridgeSkeabost House HotelA hotel22 miles awayRhuroinSleeps 3ArdheslaigThe Net StoreSleeps 4Book the Armadale ferry to Mallaig, only if you leave Skye that way
CalMac says booking is essential, even on foot; with a car, check in 20 minutes before sailing.
Book supper at Monkstadt 1745, only if you want to eat in the house
Tables are few, so book ahead on its own site.
Day one
Trotternish
Round Trotternish in the footsteps of the Prince and Flora MacDonald: to her grave at Kilmuir, to Uig, near where they landed, and back to Portree, where they parted. On the way north you pass Flodigarry, where the cottage behind the hotel is thought to have been Flora and Allan's first home, from 1751; the hotel lets it to its guests now. Set off from Portree about ten.
1 hr 37 min at the wheelAbout 51 miles by carAbout 0.5 miles on foot
The Grave of Flora MacDonald
An attraction
It's 53 minutes' drive round the north end to Kilmuir, where Flora was buried in March 1790, and Allan beside her in 1792. Her granite cross of 1880 calls her the Preserver of Prince Charles Edward Stuart. It's her third memorial: visitors chipped away her son's marble slab for keepsakes, and wind wrecked the next. In 2019 the community council and Highland Council had it cleaned, with gifts from the Clan Donald Lands Trust and North Carolina. The story goes that she was buried in a sheet from the Prince's bed.
About 14 min by car
Uig
Uig pier is 14 minutes on. In June 1746 the Prince crossed from Benbecula as Flora's Irish maid, Betty Burke, and was fired on off Waternish, across Loch Snizort. They landed five minutes back down the road, below it at Totscore, on what is now Prince Charles's Point. Flora left him in the boat and went up to Monkstadt, the chief's house, where she dined with the officer hunting him: it's a restaurant with rooms now. Alexander MacDonald of Kingsburgh, the chief's factor, went looking for the Prince and found him only when some sheep ran from his hiding place.
30 min by car
Portree
An attraction
It's 30 minutes' drive back to Portree on the A87. On the way the road runs above Kingsburgh on Loch Snizort Beag, where the factor lived; the house is private now. The Prince walked there over the hills, arrived soaked at midnight and slept till one next day; the factor's wife kept his sheets unwashed for her shroud. Park at Bayfield for the Royal Hotel on Bank Street, said to stand where MacNab's inn stood. Here he ate in his shirt, repaid Flora half a crown and hoped they would 'meet in St. James's yet'. They never met again.
14 min on foot
Scorrybreac Circuit
An attraction
From Bayfield, walk 14 minutes round the harbour to the shore path off Scorrybreac Road. That night he sailed for Raasay, across the Sound, and hid for two days in a shepherds' hut at Glam, on an island the soldiers had burned. On the second evening he came back through a gale, singing to the rowers, and landed at Nicolson's Rock, which the historian Walter Biggar Blaikie placed on this shore, then slept in a byre two miles off. The loop round the headland takes an hour or two, with one steep climb.
If it rains
Kilmuir's grave and Uig pier are short stops from the car in any weather, and the Skye Museum of Island Life, a few minutes below the graveyard, is a dry hour in the morning, Monday to Saturday. The Scorrybreac path turns slippery and exposed in wind and rain: in a downpour leave it, and drive 40 minutes west from Portree to Dunvegan Castle instead, where the MacLeods show a small collection of Jacobite relics, among them Flora's stays and pincushion and the Prince's waistcoat and a lock of his hair; Flora stayed there with her daughter's family after America. Last entry is at 5pm.
Worth a detour
- Duntulm Castle
Monkstadt, where Flora faced the officer, was then the MacDonald chiefs' new house: until about 1732 they had lived here, in a castle on the cliffs at the top of Skye. It's five minutes before Kilmuir, with free roadside parking for about six cars by the viewpoint and a short, eroded coast path. Parts of the ruin have fallen: look from outside and stay back from the edges.
PortreeThe View RestaurantBay views, Cuillin Hills Hotel
PortreeThe Bar at ScorrybreacCocktails above the harbour
PortreeDulse and BroseSkye and Highland larder
PortreeAntlers Bar & GrillPub grub, Portree Hotel
PortreeBirchSkye's own coffee roasters
UigThe Ferry Inn RestaurantCosy inn at the head of Uig Bay
EarlishThe Galley CaféA caféDay two
Elgol
South the way the Prince walked through the night, past Sligachan, which by one family's tradition he skirted because soldiers were there, and down to Elgol and the cave that bears his name. Set off from Portree at half past eight with a picnic, and end the day in Broadford.
1 hr 37 min at the wheelAbout 55 miles by carAbout 1 mile on foot
1 hr 7 min by car
Elgol
An attraction
It's 67 minutes' drive to Elgol, by Broadford, the last fuel, and the top of Loch Slapin, where Strath Mòr comes down from Loch Ainort: his way through the hills, by the same tradition. He came early to Elgol as Malcolm MacLeod's servant, Lewie Caw, to the house of Malcolm's brother-in-law, John MacKinnon, where he carried John's son about, singing. Nothing of the house is left. Park at the jetty early: it fills by mid-morning. For lunch there's Cafe Elgol by the village hall, or The Creel at the jetty on a fine day.
1 hr on foot
Prince Charles's Cave
The cave is 1.7 km from the jetty, a 60-minute walk each way: a boggy path over the cliffs, a pebble bay, then slippery boulders the sea covers at high tide. Go only within two hours of low water; check the tide table. The first cave, a tunnel, isn't his: his is the next cleft, up a scramble. Boswell heard the MacKinnon chief's lady waited in a cave with cold meat and wine; the story goes it was this one. That night their boat left for the mainland.
If it rains
The boulder shore to the cave is dangerous when wet or with a swell running: in heavy rain or big seas, do not walk out. Low water comes about 50 minutes later each day, so the cave can wait for a drier day with a late-morning or midday low tide; Elgol's shore by the jetty and the viewpoint by the upper car park are there in any weather. For a roof, leave Elgol for another day and go from Portree to Dunvegan Castle, 40 minutes west, for Flora's keepsakes and the Prince's waistcoat, then on to Broadford for the night, 61 minutes.
Worth a detour
- Sligachan Old Bridge
The humped old bridge of the early 1800s, by the hotel, with the view straight up Glen Sligachan into the Cuillin. Ten minutes here, on an 8.30 start, still gets you to the cave in time on a day with a late-morning low tide.
Photograph by James Nichol via Google