The ins and outs of western Skye

Skye is only 60 miles long, but it has a huge coastline as it's incised by many sea lochs.  Exploring it is like tracing your fingers, but the roads don't go round the fingers, so there's a lot of going somewhere and then retracing your steps. And up and over the 'fingers'.
It was a chilly start from Glenbrittle, but a four mile climb out of the valley soon warmed me up.  A short hilly ride took me to Talisker, with a dramatic approach overshadowed by rocky bluffs.  In this case it was better to journey than to arrive.  Talisker is by the sea, but the road stops short, with an array of unfriendly signs.  "Private road." "No cars." "Dogs will be shot."   Talisker whisky is made in nearby Carbost.  Next I cycled along Loch Drynoch to Fiskavaig: maybe a dozen houses round a lovely bay with great views to McLeod's Tables.  And a brand new community hall with public toilets.  Then back to Carbost, for the fourth time.

After visiting several inlets and their dividing hills, it was that time of day, or just past it, and I found a café/craft shop/book shop in tiny Struan, somewhere there really shouldn't be a café.  A very limited menu of mostly cake, plus cheese scone, but all home baked and enticing.  The florentine seemed to have a base of a bar of chocolate - lovely. 

My target for  today is the Duirinish peninsula, the top of western Skye.   No hostels, so a fairly remote farmhouse B&B.  Had a nice meal in the Dunvegan petrol station cafe - better than it sounds - and set off to tour the peninsula.  A nice lighthouse at Neist point, with good views to the outer Hebrides and the quite dramdramatic cliffs in this part of Skye.  Plenty of big hills, and hardly any traffic. Nice.