A Definitive Guide to Elgol Isle of Skye

Elgol sits at the end of a winding single-track road out of Broadford, on the south-west corner of the Isle of Skye. About a hundred people live here throughout the year. The road drops steeply into the village, descends to the harbour at the bottom, and stops. There is one road in and the same road out.

Every summer, thousands of visitors put Elgol into their sat nav and set off, most of them on the way to a boat trip into Loch Coruisk, many to stay with us at Coruisk House. Some of them arrive with the day fully planned, knowing where the parking is, have booked the boat six weeks ago, and get everything they came for. Others arrive at 11am on a July Saturday having assumed the drive would take fifteen minutes rather than fifty.

This is the guide for the first group. Everything below is what we tell guests at the house before they come down the road. Coruisk House is a mile from the pier. If you are staying with us, you can walk to almost everything in this piece.

A little on Elgol itself 

Elgol is a crofting and fishing village on the west side of the Strathaird peninsula, facing Loch Scavaig and the Cuillin ridge across the water. The MacKinnon family have lived in the area since the fourteenth century and have run boats trips from the pier since 1969. There is a working pier, a slipway, a small parking area, a public restrooms, and about thirty houses scattered up the hill. The primary school sits on the road as you come down. The harbour still lands langoustines and creel-caught lobster most mornings.

Elgol is not a resort, not a large town, and not a base for touring the rest of Skye. This is a place to get away from the hustle and bustle of city and island life, a place to escape to, relax and recharge.

The Cuillin view, no walk required

The single reason most people come to Elgol is the view of the Cuillin ridge from sea level, across Loch Scavaig. It is visible directly from the car park, the pier, and the road down to the harbour. You do not need to walk anywhere to see it.

The classic photographic vantage is on the rocky foreshore about a hundred and fifty metres south of the pier. The foreshore is a stretch of layered sandstone that has been weathered into honeycomb patterns, with tidal pools at low water and a foreground of dark rock that photographers use to lead the eye across the loch to the mountains. The best light is late afternoon to sunset, when the sun drops toward the ridge from the south-west and puts burning light on the Cuillin faces. In midsummer that is 10pm or later. In October it is around 6.30pm, even earlier, 3.30pm in winter. 

If the mountains are in cloud, the foreground is still there. Long-exposure wave shots on the sandstone shelves, or the fishing boats moving in the harbour, give you a piece of the trip regardless.

The three boat operators

Three commercial operators work out of the pier. All three take walk-ons in shoulder season, but book ahead for June through August.

Misty Isle Boat Trips. Run by the MacKinnon family. Traditional passenger launch with a covered cabin, open deck, and a marine toilet on board. Standard three-hour trip to Loch Coruisk with about ninety minutes ashore. Reliable, steady, and the operator most families with older children or grandparents pick. Sailings April to October, with occasional winter trips.

Bella Jane. A larger passenger boat with similar shelter and facilities to the Misty Isle. Offers 1.5, 3, or 4.5 hours ashore at Loch Coruisk, and dedicated one-way walker fares for hillwalkers coming back along the coast. If you want more time at the loch than the standard trip, or you are planning to walk back via the Bad Step, this is the operator.

AquaXplore. Fast open RIBs. Their flagship route is the Puffin Run to Canna’s sea-cliff colony, four hours in total, with a chance of Rum and Soay on the same trip. Also does high-speed transfers to Loch Coruisk. The RIB is faster, colder, and wetter than the passenger boats, with no toilet on board and thermal suits provided in the shoulder season. The wildlife specialist of the three operators.

Loch Coruisk itself is a glacial loch inside the Cuillin ridge, two and a half miles long, with the main peaks standing on three sides. The landing is on a concrete jetty at the mouth. A short scramble up the black slabs brings you to the first view of the inland loch, and a twenty-minute walk round the south shore takes you to the best photograph. Grey seals on the skerries in Loch Scavaig on the way out and back are close to guaranteed. Puffins on the Canna cliffs are guaranteed May to July on the AquaXplore Puffin Run. Whales, dolphins and basking sharks pass through in summer but are not on any operator’s promise.

If the weather is up and boats do not sail, the operators refund or rebook without fuss. Check the morning of the sailing.

Walks from Elgol

Four walks start from or near the village. They range from a half-hour stroll to a full day.

The foreshore south of the pier. About twenty to forty minutes. Walk down to the harbour, take the path left along the shore, and pick your way over the sandstone shelves. Good in any weather. Suitable for anybody in reasonable footwear who does not mind uneven rock.

The Elgol coastal headland walk. About two to three miles round trip, one to one and a half hours. The path above the harbour climbs onto a grassy shelf that runs south along the coast toward Camasunary. In the first mile the path is broad and the ground is not exposed. There is a grassy headland with a wide Cuillin view that makes a natural turnaround for a shorter walk. If you push past this point the path narrows onto steep coastal ground with real drops into the sea, and this section is a genuine cliff traverse that is not for walkers uncomfortable with heights or for walkers in wet weather. Turn back at the headland if you have any doubt.

Elgol to Camasunary via the coast path. Around six miles each way. Serious walkers only. Narrow single-track path across sheep-grazed grass shelves with sections above cliffs. Some walkers reach Camasunary and turn back. Others continue west along the further coastal shelf toward Loch Coruisk, which is where the Bad Step lies. This is a full day and it is not the walk to add on a whim to a day trip.

Spar Cave. See the next section. It is not from Elgol village itself, but from Glasnakille a mile east.

Spar Cave, tides, and safety

Spar Cave, or An Sloc Altraim, is a limestone sea cave on the coast at Glasnakille, about a mile east of Elgol village. The cave runs some eighty metres into the cliff and is lined with pale calcite flowstone that has formed over thousands of years from mineral-rich water dripping from the roof. It is one of the more atmospheric places on the island, and it is entirely dependent on the tide.

You reach it by driving out of Elgol to Glasnakille and parking in the small layby near the cattle grid. Walk through the gate opposite the house and follow the steep, often muddy path down through the field to the shore. The entrance to the cave is at the end of a narrow rock canyon that only opens up at low tide. From the bottom of the path you scramble over slippery kelp-covered boulders into the canyon, and the cave opens on the left.

The tide window. You want to arrive at the shore about two hours before low water and be back out of the canyon and up the path no later than one hour after low water. Any later than that and the sea has already begun to close off the canyon entrance. Walkers have been trapped inside the cave by rising tides. If in any doubt, do not go in.

Inside the cave you need two independent light sources per person. Head torches are the practical minimum. 

This is not a walk for young children, for pushchairs, or for anyone who is not confident on wet rock. If the day is windy and there is a swell, the canyon becomes actively dangerous even inside the tide window.

Check tide tables for Kyle of Lochalsh, or use the RNLI’s tide app, and add fifteen minutes for local variance at Glasnakille. 

History, briefly

The Strathaird peninsula is Clan MacKinnon land by long tradition. Dùn Ringill, a couple of miles up the coast, is an Iron Age fortified dun that later became a medieval MacKinnon stronghold. In 1746, after the defeat at Culloden, Bonnie Prince Charlie was sheltered by Captain John MacKinnon at a cave a short distance from Elgol before being whisked across to the mainland. The Kilchrist church ruins on the drive down date from the fifteenth or sixteenth century. The nineteenth-century clearances emptied several small settlements on the peninsula, and their outlines are still visible on the hillsides above Camasunary and Boreraig.

If you want to walk on the clearance ground, the Boreraig and Suisnish loop from Kilchrist is one of the most affecting walks in the south of the island. Around eight miles, three to four hours.

When to come

May and early June are the best window for a first visit. Long light, few midges, boats running, all the walks in condition, restaurants open. Late September and October are the other sweet spot, with autumn light on the ridge and the tourist volume falling off after the first week of September. July and August are the busiest months. Even in high summer, Elgol filters hard because the road is single-track, and by seven in the evening the harbour is your own again.

In winter the main house closes from the second week of December to the last week of January. Boat operators run on reduced or on-request schedules through November and February. The cottages, An Nead and Tigh Mairi, run through. Days are short: sunrise around 8.30am, sunset around 3.30pm in mid-December. Most of the walks are still there in weather that is not icy, though the Bad Step is not a winter route for the general walker.

Eating

Two places to eat on the peninsula for a day visit.

Amy’s Place in Torrin, on the B8083 eight miles up from Elgol. Specialty coffee, cakes and light lunches. Daytime hours only. Good stop on the drive in or out.

Coruisk House, in Elgol village. Four courses at 7pm, £105 a head, one sitting, six tables, by reservation with twenty-four hours’ notice. House guests are prioritised. 1 March to 30 October, closed Mondays. The menu builds around what the pier has landed that morning and what the estates and crofts have that week: Peter MacAskill’s Loch Eishort mussels, Sconser scallops, Linicro lamb, Ross MacRae’s Edinbane venison, langoustines from Loch Scavaig. Bread baked by Clare in the morning, herbed pancetta cured by Iain in-house. A wine list of over seventy Burgundies.

Right by the jetty is The Creel, a seafood shack working straight off the boats. Crab, lobster, and prawn or salmon rolls. Mackerel toasties with horseradish and cream cheese, coffee, soft-serve ice cream, and a squat lobster sandwich with Marie Rose they call the Elgolian. Up in the village there is also Cafe Elgol. Both are small and seasonal, so have a look at their pages before you drive down.

Staying in Elgol

If you are picking a base on Skye and you want a day at Elgol without the drive, staying in the village makes the day easier. Coruisk House has four en-suite rooms in the main house, plus two thatched cottages next door: An Nead (dog-friendly, sleeps three, from £230 a night, two-night minimum) and Tigh Mairi (sleeps two, views across the Sound of Sleat to Rum). The Upper Steading Suite sleeps up to four. For a larger group, the whole property (seven en-suite king bedrooms, up to fourteen guests, both cottages, the dining room) can be taken over.

Staying at the house means you walk to the pier in fifteen minutes for the first boat and walk back for dinner at seven, with the car parked from Friday afternoon until Sunday morning.

The drive from Broadford

Sat nav will tell you it is a twenty-five to thirty minute drive to Elgol. In practice, allow forty-five minutes and more if you plan to stop and enjoy any of the spectacular views the road offers. The road is single-track for most of the way, with passing places marked by white diamond signs. Take your time and the journey will be part of the adventure far from home.

You’ll find sheep on the road, particularly in the lambing season from March to June. Sheep do not move in a hurry. Slow down, wait and they will walk off. In warm weather, ewes lie on the warm tarmac and can be hard to coax off it. Be kind to our woolly neighbours!

A note on cars behind you when the road ahead is empty: they are not tailgating you. They know every passing place. Let them through if you can. You will drive the rest of the way calmer, and so will they.

About three miles in, on the left, is the ruin of Kilchrist church, fifteenth or sixteenth century, the burial ground of many of Clan MacKinnon. There is a layby and a five-minute stop is worth it. From there the road runs along the north shore of Loch Slapin, with the north face of Blà Bheinn (928m) rising to the west. In clear weather this is one of the most direct Cuillin views on the island from a car window. Eight miles in you pass through the small village of Torrin, where Amy’s Place tea room is on your left at the entrance to the village. Stop for coffee on the way in or the way out.

The last two miles into Elgol drop steeply. Take the descent slowly. Come round the final bend and the view opens onto Loch Scavaig and the full Cuillin across the water.

Why not plan to stay a few nights at Courisk House?

Before you leave Broadford: full tank of fuel, water and food in the car, offline maps downloaded, tide table checked if you are heading for Spar Cave, boat trip booking confirmed and screenshotted. Allow fifty minutes for the drive down.

At the harbour: park in the harbour lot if space is free, otherwise the Community Centre overflow. Public toilets by the pier. Boat check-in at the operator kiosk. Bring waterproofs and a warm layer for any sailing.

Dinner at Coruisk House is by reservation with twenty-four hours’ notice, £105 a head, 7pm, 1 March to 30 October, closed Mondays. Book rooms, read about An Nead, read about Tigh Mairi, or phone +44 (0)1471 866 330. Email info@coruiskhouse.com.