From the end of the road at Trumpan it is possible to leave one's car and walk to Waternish Point. Please park carefully and be mindful that farm gates and the entrance to fields are not parking places. The locals wish to be about their business when the rest of us are on holiday.
The walk to the unmanned lighthouse is along a good track. It is not technically difficult but is long and requires stamina, being at least four miles each way.
This part of the island feels as if it is stuck in a time warp. Because the track is unsuitable for cars the point is little visited. Along the way are two tumbledown brochs, Dun Borrafiach and Dun Gearymore. There are also two more recently constructed cairns, placed in 1985 by the Clan Macleod Society of the USA, memorials to the apparently eternal battles between the MacLeods and the MacDonalds.
The brochs, which as with most of Skye's antiquities are dilapidated, were Iron age fortifications and were round towers with a hollow centre and a double wall. Between the walls were the stairs giving access to the top and containing various small rooms. It is difficult to assess the architecture of the hollow centre, which was probably of wooden construction and of which no trace remains.
Eventually the track peters out at Unish House, a ruin, and from there it is possible to descend across the moor to the little unmanned lighthouse, a nice place for a picnic and ship, seal and bird watching on a fine day.
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Copyright © Gareth Boote 2000