Sleat
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-> Skye and the Western Isles
-> Skye
-> Sleat
Ferry services from Mallaig (Mon-Sat 6-7 daily; June to mid-Sept also Sun; 30min) connect with the Sleat (pronounced "slate") peninsula, Skye's southern tip, an uncharacteristically fertile area that has earned it the sobriquet "The Garden of Skye". The CalMac ferry terminal is at ARMADALE (Armadal), an elongated hamlet stretching along the wooded shoreline. If you're leaving Skye on the early-morning ferry and you need accommodation near Armadale, head a mile southwest to neighbouring Ardvasar, where the traditional, whitewashed Ardvasar Hotel (tel 01471/844223, www.ardvasarhotel.com; £70-90; March-Dec) has an excellent seafood restaurant, and a lively bar; or for B&B try Holme Leigh (tel 01471/844361, www.homeleigh.plus.com; under £40). Of the three hostels on the peninsula, Armadale SYHA hostel (tel 01471/844260, www.syha.org.uk; mid-March to Sept) is a convenient ten-minute walk up the A851 towards Broadford and has a good position overlooking the bay; the hostel rents bikes, as does the local petrol station (tel 01471/844249), close to the pier.
A little further along the A851, past the SYHA hostel, you'll find the Armadale Castle Gardens & Museum of the Isles (April-Oct daily 9.30am-5.30pm; www.highlandconnection.org/clandonaldcentre.htm; £3.90), housed in the neo-Gothic Armadale Castle, which was built by the MacDonalds as their clan seat in 1815. Part of the castle has been restored to create a touristy museum that traces the history of the Gaels, concentrating on medieval times when the MacDonalds were in their glory as the Lords of the Isles. There's a lot of fairly confusing historical text on the walls, and the romantic sound effects - the cries of seabirds and battle songs - don't really compensate for the lack of original artefacts, but the handsome forty-acre gardens (April-Oct daily 9.30am-5.30pm; Nov-March dawn-dusk; free) are the highlight, with guided nature walks in the grounds.
Continuing northeast, it's another eight miles to ISLEORNSAY (Eilean Iarmain), a secluded little village of whitewashed cottages that was once Skye's main fishing port. With the mountains of the mainland on the horizon, the views out across the bay are wonderful, overlooking a necklace of seaweed-encrusted rocks and the tidal Isle of Ornsay, which sports a trim lighthouse built by Robert Louis Stevenson's father. You can stay at the mid-nineteenth-century Isleornsay Hotel - also known by its Gaelic name Hotel Eilean Iarmain - a pricey place with excellent service, whose restaurant serves great seafood (tel 01471/833332, www.eilean-iarmain.com; £90-110). Another couple of miles brings you to the turning for Kinloch Lodge Hotel (tel 01471/833333, www.kinloch-lodge.co.uk; £110-150), centred on an old hunting lodge still in the possession of Lord Macdonald of Macdonald with excellent food guaranteed by wife Claire whose cookery books are internationally famous.
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