Neist Point Lighthouse

Neist Point is one of the most westerly points of the Isle of Skye, a narrow finger of land that runs out into the Minch, and its lighthouse sits right at the tip. The classic view is not from the lighthouse but towards it: from the clifftop above the car park, the whole point unrolls below — a grassy ridge falling to a sheer wall of dark cliffs, the white tower and its keepers' cottages at the far end, and beyond them open sea with the Outer Hebrides lying low on the horizon across the Minch. At sunset, when the light catches the cliffs and the tower flashes against the fading sky, it is one of the defining images of Skye.

The lighthouse was designed by David Alan Stevenson, of the famous Scottish lighthouse-building family, and first lit on 1 November 1909. The tower is 19 metres tall, its light standing 43 metres above the sea and visible for about 16 nautical miles. Supplies for the lighthouse and cottages were once hauled in by an aerial cableway. Since 1990 the light has been operated remotely by the Northern Lighthouse Board from Edinburgh, and the former keepers' cottages are now in private hands; the tower is a listed building.

The walk out is short but dramatic: a concrete path with steps and handrails drops steeply down the cliff and then follows the ridge to the lighthouse, about a mile and a half there and back, with two long climbs on the return. The cliffs are home to nesting fulmars, and in autumn the sea off the point is a highway for seabirds — birdwatchers have counted gannets streaming past at hundreds an hour. Beyond the path the ground turns boggy, and the rock drops straight into the sea, so the views are best enjoyed from the track and the high ground above the car park, or from the clifftops of Waterstein Head, about 4 km from the car park.

Getting there

Neist Point is about 12 miles (19 km) west of Dunvegan and some 34 miles (55 km) west of Portree, at the end of a single-track road through Glendale, where the car park lies. There is no airport on Skye; the nearest is Inverness (INV), about 112 miles by road from Portree. The Benbecula airport in the Outer Hebrides is closer as the crow flies but lies across the Minch.