Stein, Waternish

[nigheandonn]

In spite of the forecast, Monday was an even worse day for the hills than Sunday - not just grey and dull, but with the clouds down so low that there was nothing to be seen across Portree Bay - and the MWIS forecast had changed to giving predictions of visibility 'except on Skye'! So there was no point going for a real walk, and I didn't feel either particularly touristy, or particularly like a lazy day in Portree.

So at least that left me free to be odd. I've been having a bit of a facination with Thomas Telford recently - he seems to keep turning up everywhere I go, and I'm patiently waiting to work my way up from number 19 on the library's reservation list for a new book about him - and I knew that as well as Portree harbour, he'd been responsible for a grand plan for a model fishing village at Stein, about 4 miles off the Dunvegan bus route, in Waternish, which also had fliers everywhere I went advertising the oldest pub in Skye!.

So although I knew there wasn't much to be seen, I felt like I might as well go and see anyway - it was a new part of the island, the pub would presumably give me tea if I was cold and wet, and the amount of road walking felt about right for a day of doubtful weather and wetness underfoot, when I really just wanted some exercise.

The Dunvegan bus took me as far as the road junction at the Fairy Bridge, where I saw no fairies in spite of looking out for them - it was a slightly uncanny place on a grey day.

The Fairy Bridge

The first part of the walk was lonely road - no houses and no sea, but occasional cars, and not too much rain. The first houses are well off the main road at the head of the loch

Lochbay

Further on Stein became distinctly visible, a much more definite cluster of buildings than the houses scattered over the crofting divisions. The odd almost-islands at Trumpan also looked intriguing, but I knew I didn't have time to go so far.

Stein

I liked the incongruity of a thatched house with a satellite dish!

Thatched house with satellite dish

The junction at the top of the Stein road had a very good collection of signs.

A plethora of signs

Stein now is mainly a row of buildings along the shore - built in the 1790s by the British Fisheries Society, but not to Telford's original and much grander design, which would have spread further north.

The main surviving part of Telford's plan is the ruined pier to the north of the bay, and the house beside it, originally a storehouse.

Along the bay

The Telford pier

Rows of houses

On the way out of the village I finally saw the dragon I'd been promised in Raasay!

A dragon!

Having both stopped for lunch at the inn - which was not nearly as posh as I expected - and gone wandering along the shore to look at the old pier, I was a bit late starting back and hurried up the road, only for the skies to finally open - it had even been sunny for a while, but changed its mind again! Fortunately a kind lady stopped and offered me a lift back to the junction even though I was soaking wet.