• Saturday 25th August 2018
• Isle of Eigg

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We were told today’s weather was going to be the finest so we kept this hike for today…we were heading to An Sgurr.

An Sgurr is the Islands highest point, it’s only 393 metres but is one of the most imposing hills in Scotland.

It was formed millions of years ago, the result of one of the last eruptions of a volcano, the core of which now forms the Isle of Rum.

This volcanic plug struts her rock stuff up to a towering summit with a shear drop facing you as you approach her.

From certain angles it looks like she is untouchable, even something out of a movie…King Kong possibly.

It is vertical on three sides but by ascending it on the fourth you have access to some amazing views…360 degrees of amazing views.

The route most of the way up was boggy and eyes had to be on the ground. So we stopped on numerous occasions taking in the view…we could have stopped every 3 seconds as views were so stunning.

I say it every single time but pictures cannot capture the beauty of the naked eye.

We kept on strolling which was actually rather nice as we had a whole day of time on our side…I like this feeling.

We hit the top and we had truly fantastic views over the other Small Isles and across to Skye and Ardnamurchan…we actually stayed here for almost an hour…such a good use of time I’d say.

Isle of Skye in the distance

Isle of Muck

Isle of Rum in background

Looking across to Ardnamurchan peninsula

Then we headed down at the same speed we headed up…slowly and leisurely.

The community hall

This is the house I want, more so the backdrop than the house although the house was beautiful

Such clean sheep with nice haircuts

We hit the community hub to mingle with the locals and hopefully hear about some island life but other than the odd one…and I honestly mean that…one…they don’t mingle or at least not with ‘tourists’ or us anyway…slightly disappointing!

The one and only local guy we got chatting to was saying he grew up on the Island, left and returned 7 years ago. He leaves the Island winter time to travel then returns although his parents and sister remain here and his gran who is resident on the Island is the oldest of the islanders…in her 80’s.

He was also telling us that the secondary school kids travel to school on the mainland in Mallaig staying in a hostel which got built 7 years ago for this purpose and they return home every 2nd week!

We saw the small primary school which I think educates about 5 kids on the Island.

The guy we spoke to was Scottish and was born here on the Island…and he must be one of the rare indiginous families like this now here on Eigg.

I may or may not visit this topic tomorrow as I may cause some controversy but Eigg has certainly made me think (read:before visiting my initial thinking was about the inhabitants of the island, their nationalities, culture, heritage etc; lifestyles being all healthy, outdoors and green, a hippy, organic, free spreading love kind of people. I’m now changing my thinking…there are very few Scots left on this Island so the culture and heritage is being lost in a sense, it isn’t so much tourist friendly and the lifestyle is one of ‘socialising’ in the bar (I use this term very loosely) whilst drinking very heavily. I am an optimistic kind of person, passionate about Scotland so I have thought long and hard before writing the above as I am usually a non-judgemental kind of person and believe that people/ communities etc etc have their reason for being who and what they are and change can be a good thing but I do feel this had to be said or I wouldn’t be being true to myself…this however is just my opinion but interestingly enough I have conversed with rather friendly tourists of all nationalities and guess what…they say the same…could it just be us mainlanders being imposing and opinionated?!

This picture is to try and prove I am a happy go fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl!

HOWEVER…and this is very very important…the Island of Eigg as a whole is very beautiful and very tranquil and for sure worth the visit.

Some more inspiring scenic photos that show Eigg is worth a visit