ACTIVE OUTDOORS: Cuillin view is high point on walk at Plock of Kyle

By John Davidson

Published: 18:30, 04 December 2023

The Cuillin seen beyond the Skye Bridge.

The views to Skye are spectacular from Kyle of Lochalsh, but before heading over the sea to get a closer look, it’s worth spending some time here at the end of the railway route from Inverness.

The spectacular Kyle Line, built in 1897, terminates here, but for many visitors the village is somewhere that is bypassed on the journey to the popular west coast island.

I admit I’m guilty of treating it as a place to pass through on the way to the dramatic mountains and rugged coastline of Skye. However, this time I took the opportunity to take a closer look at what’s right here, and I discovered the wonderful area of parkland known as the Plock of Kyle.

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It was bequeathed to the community in 1946 but, having fallen into disuse some years ago, ownership of the 60 acres of land was taken over in February 2019 by the Kyle & Lochalsh Community Trust (KLCT).

The area has since been developed as a recreational facility for local people and visitors, and it provides an excellent range of paths and trails, as well as one of the best viewpoints to be found in the Highlands.

The calm waters look perfect for kayaking.

The viewpoint – itself a former Second World War gun battery – overlooks the eye-catching Skye Bridge, which was opened in 1995 to replace the overrun ferry service. The toll office, which collected tolls for the crossing until they were scrapped in 2004, is now used by the community trust as its headquarters.

Beginning from the railway station, this walk heads along the road towards the bridge before turning right up Main Street, passing the old bank and the Kyle Hotel before turning left at a junction. Follow this dead-end road then continue past a sign pointing to “Plock View Point and Picnic Area”.

A tall board marked The Plock directs you right, towards the viewpoint, so we followed the surfaced road around the corner – although there are also steps just off to the left which offer a shortcut.

On a fine, cold and clear day, the view over the bridge to the Cuillin mountains on Skye was breathtaking. If it wasn’t so cold, we could have stood and picked out the detail in the distant hills for hours, but we wanted to get moving and explore the rest of the area.

Sign board for The Plock close to the viewpoint.

The paths here can be a bit of a maze, and it took us a while to realise that the wooden marker posts with coloured tops were not colour-coded walks but a system of how accessible the paths were – green for all abilities, yellow for slightly narrower routes and red for those which are a bit rougher underfoot.

We returned partway down the road to the corner, taking a path left then immediately left again onto the moorland trail – slighe monaidh in the native Gaelic. This meandered across the moors, rising and falling like the tide, until it met the green all-abilities trail.

Turning right here, we followed this for a short distance before forking right onto a yellow stretch that led to Fishermen’s Bay. The water was flat calm here and the sun-kissed shore opposite was reflected beautifully in the bay, which would have made for glorious kayaking.

Turning away from the bay, we followed a different yellow stretch of path, then, after a brief visit to the boat moorings in the opposite direction, turned left to return to the green trail, where we went right to continue around the loop. A series of information panels and other points of interest can be found along the paths, including at some of the many benches along the way which offer places to stop and enjoy the variety of views.

A path through part of the old golf course, passing the newly planted community woodland.

Next, we turned right to cross a frost-covered boardwalk then an open grassy area, which used to be part of an old golf course. Passing an area of community woodland planted in the last couple of years, we arrived at a bench which marked to old ninth hole.

We kept straight on past the bench then descended to the shore for more fine views over to Skye from the rocky shoreline. Otters and seals can be seen in the area but they proved elusive this time, so we headed right on a red path which hugged the shore for a while before dropping to another little bay with a solitary bench.

After that, we followed a path through the gorse then down to the tidal bay, where even some of the sea water was frozen and there was a good view to the flat-headed Dun Caan on Raasay over to our left.

Returning to the main route, we crossed a little plank bridge and continued our way around the coast, finding ourselves at the boat moorings once again, so we followed a yellow path back to find our outward route at the corner of the all-abilities path, close to a shelter.

After taking the moorland trail back towards the viewpoint, we turned left at a marker for the village trail, which led us back – via a couple more viewpoints – to Kyle of Lochalsh, not far from Main Street.

The paths here are also accessible from a parking area off the A87 at the old toll office before the bridge, and are well worth exploring, all thanks to the efforts of some of this small community of around 750 people.