Orbost is notable for Orbost House, another of Skye's great houses which offers self catering accommodation. We have not stayed there, so we don't know what it is like.
The house was once owned by Otta Swire, a Skye authoress who wrote the delightful book "Skye, the Island and its Legends." According to Otta Swire, the word Orbost is of Scandinavian origin and means "the homestead of the seals."
Of Orbost House, she says:
"Orbost, of course has a ghost, and rather a curious one for the Hebrides, for it is the ghost of a coach and six, which is heard but never seen. It drives up to the front door not infrequently, with considerable noise and rattle and champing of bits, stamping of hooves &c., but everyone does not hear it. I have been in a room with four others; three of us heard it loud and clear, two could hear nothing. One of those who heard it did not know of the ghost at the time. Of late however, it has been mechanized, which is most upsetting. Now it is a powerful car or lorry which drives up: the brakes are applied, later the clutch is let in and gears and acceleration can be heard as it departs. Only one sound we never hear, the door of car or coach is never opened or shut. What the story behind the coach and six was, I never heard."
I was once on foot away over the moor half way to Idrigill Point when I heard an engine where a vehicle could not possibly, be, or so I thought. Disappointingly, it was not the Orbost ghost but a forestry commission owned Argo, a brilliant little vehicle which looks like a bathtub with wheels on it, but can go anywhere, including water.
From Orbost it is possible to walk south to Idrigill point, just around which are two magnificent rock stacks, Macleod's maidens. I have never walked that far, but I have walked as far as the natural rock arches beyond Brandarsaig Bay.
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Copyright © Gareth Boote 2000