Trotternish
Protruding 20 miles north from Portree, the Trotternish peninsula boasts some of the Skye’s most bizarre scenery.
The scenery is particularly impressive on the east coast, where volcanic basalt has pressed down on the softer sandstone and limestone underneath, causing massive landslides. These, in turn, have created sheer cliffs, peppered with outcrops of hard, wizened basalt, which run the full length of the peninsula.
Six miles north of Portree along the A855, is the Old Man of Storr, a distinctive column of rock, shaped like a willow leaf, which, along with its neighbours, is part of a massive land-slip. Five miles further north are the Lealt Falls, then there's Kilt Rock, whose tubelike, basaltic columns rise precipitously from the sea, into which falls a 300ft waterfall.
Fossilized dinosaur footprints were discovered in 1996 at Gaelic-speaking Staffin, famed for its 'spotty houses'. From here, half way across the pensinsula, is the awesome forest of mighty pinnacles and savage rock formations of the Quiraing. At the tip of the Trotternish peninsula are the spectacular sea stacks of Rubha Hunish, the most northerly point on Skye.
