Two nights is the sweet spot for a first trip to the south-west of Skye. You get three full halves of daylight, a boat trip and a walk and two dinners, plus enough time to actually sit in the window of the room for an hour doing nothing. Any less than this and you spend most of the short time you have on the road. Any more and you start adding things you were told to do rather than things you want to do.

This is a working two-night Loch-and-Sea itinerary from Coruisk House in Elgol. It is the one most of our first-time guests end up doing, shaped by weather, tides, and the six-o’clock last light in October. The plan is a template, so substitute as needed, and the weather will make some of your decisions for you.

Day 1: arrive, settle, walk the pier, dinner

Target arrival: 4pm to 5.30pm. Check-in opens at 4. If you are coming from Inverness, leave by 10am, break at Dornie for lunch, come through Kyleakin and Broadford, and you are at the house by mid-afternoon. If you are coming from Glasgow or Edinburgh, plan to arrive mid-evening and accept that the first meal is dinner.

5pm: a walk down to the pier. Turn left out of the front door and it is two minutes to the harbour. The pier is small and there is usually a boat in or out depending on the time. At low tide you can walk across to the far side of the inlet on the rocks, which is the best foreground stretch for Cuillin photographs if you have brought a camera. A half-hour walk loops you back to the house in time for a cup of tea before dinner.

7pm: dinner. Four courses, six tables, £105 a head, one sitting, so you sit down with everybody else in the house that night and the conversation across the tables is part of the evening by about course three. Bread Clare has baked in the morning. Langoustines or scallops or mussels depending on what came in at the pier. A main course built around what Iain is doing that week. Wine from the Burgundy list, which rewards spending a few minutes with before you order.

House guests are prioritised for tables so if you are staying, dinner is already arranged against your room if you have booked it. Monday is the rest day for the dining room. The cottages An Nead and Tigh Mairi have kitchens, so a Monday arrival plans for a self-catered or out-of-house dinner on the first night.

Day 2, morning: Loch Coruisk by boat

8am: breakfast. Clare’s granola. Porridge. Eggs and Iain’s herbed pancetta. Coffee. Decide which boat you are on. Most first-timers take the standard Misty Isle 3-hour trip at 10.30am with 1.5 hours ashore at the loch. Bella Jane is the alternative, with 1.5, 3, or 4.5 hours ashore. Booking ahead in season is important.

9.45am: walk to the pier. Five-minute walk, straight down the road. Warm layer. Waterproof. Boots. A small rucksack with water and a sandwich (no shop at the loch).

10.30am to 1.30pm: on the water. The boat crosses Loch Scavaig with the Cuillin ahead on. There are usually seals on the skerries in the middle of the loch, before you land on a concrete jetty at the mouth of Loch Coruisk. A short scramble up the black slabs brings you into the view of the loch itself. Walk round the south side for 20 to 30 minutes to the best vantage point, then back to the jetty for the return sailing.

1.30pm: back in Elgol. Lunch option: a sandwich at the house (Clare will do this if asked), or tea-room options in the village. [GAP 1: names of the current tea-room / cafe options in the village, if any, with opening hours.

Day 2, afternoon: a walk to Camasunary, or a slower choice

Two options for the afternoon depending on legs and weather.

Option A: walk to Camasunary. A six-kilometre round walk from the B8083 parking area four miles out of Elgol. Short drive from the house. Over the Am Mam pass (40 minutes up), down to Camasunary bay (30 minutes), an hour at the bothy and the beach, then return the same way. Total time including the drive: three and a half hours.

Option B: drive to Torrin, walk the Marble Line. The Marble Line is a flat old railway trackbed from Torrin to the Kilbride quarry, about six kilometres return and mostly level, with Blà Bheinn on your shoulder the whole way and the Red Hills to the east. This is the easier afternoon if the morning boat has used up legs. There is a tea room in Torrin at the start.

Option C: neither. Back to the house, a nap, a book by the window, and a cup of tea in the dining room. The house is built for this and so are some of the rooms. The Upper Steading Suite has the best afternoon light.

7pm: dinner, second night. Same structure, different menu. Iain writes to what he has that day. If the first night was mussels and lamb, the second might be scallop and hogget. The Burgundy list has fifty-plus bottles: pick a different one.

Day 3, morning: a short outing, then the drive

Check-out is 10.30am. If you are driving back to Inverness or the mainland you want to be on the road by 11.

8am: breakfast.

9am: a short walk before you leave. Three good choices close by.

The Spar Cave at Glasnakille. Tide-dependent. Drive ten minutes east from Elgol to Glasnakille, park in the signed layby, walk down to the shore. A head torch is helpful. Thirty to sixty minutes, depending on how deep you go in.

The Elgol peninsula short loop. Walk down to the pier and along the north-west shore of Elgol for a mile. The views of the Cuillin from the north end of the village are different from those of the harbour shore, and are quieter.

Sit in the garden with a coffee. The cheapest and often the best option. Especially if day 2 was full.

10.30am: leave. Drive north on the B8083. Coffee and a sandwich at the Torrin tea room or back in Broadford. From Broadford to Kyle it is twenty minutes. From there you are on the A87 east.

Weather contingency, the realistic version

Two nights on Skye in any month will usually contain at least one weather event. The plan above is built to accommodate it.

If the boat cancels on day 2: re-book for day 3 morning, extend the stay, or swap the boat day for the walking day. All three operators will rebook you without fuss in most weather cancellations.

If the whole of day 2 is washed out: cancel the walk. The house has fires lit in the dining room, and the day becomes reading, a long lunch, and a second nap. The shortest useful outing in heavy rain is to Torrin for the Loch Slapin view and straight back. Dinner is still on.

If day 3 is better than day 2 was: push the boat to day 3 morning and leave in the afternoon. This requires checking out of the room at 10.30 and keeping your bags in the car, but is often the best move after a wet middle day.

What you do not do on a two-night Loch-and-Sea

Do not try to add the Old Man of Storr, the Quiraing, the Fairy Pools, or Neist Point to this plan. Each of them is two and a half to three hours of round-trip driving from Elgol. A two-night stay does not have room for them without losing either the boat, the walk, or the second dinner.

If the reader wants to cover Trotternish and the Fairy Pools as well, that is a different trip. Four nights minimum, a mixed north-south itinerary, and a different booking. Ring us and we will tell you honestly what works.

Where you sleep

Coruisk House has four en-suite rooms in the main house and two thatched cottages next door. A double room with one dinner included is the usual two-night booking. An Nead takes dogs and is a two-night minimum, from £230 a night. Tigh Mairi is the second cottage.

For a small family or group: the Upper Steading Suite sleeps up to four. For a larger party, the whole property (seven en-suite king bedrooms, up to fourteen guests, the dining room, both cottages) can be taken over.

The practical close

Dinner is 7pm, four courses, £105 a head, closed Mondays. 

Two-night stays with one dinner are the most common booking. Book rooms, read about An Nead, or phone +44 (0)1471 866 330. Email info@coruiskhouse.com.