The Isle of Skye is one of those places which has attained an almost mythical status in the minds of travellers all over the world. Nowhere in the UK have we met quite so many French, Dutch, German and American travellers – in fact, I think I could probably count the number of Scots we met on my fingers! I was also taken aback by how many people try and cram all of the sights on the island into a short visit of two days or less: there’s such a staggering amount of things to see on Skye, if you ask me it simply can’t be done. Lots of people seem content to limit their visit to the ‘iconic’ sites of Skye: the Quiraing, the Old Man of Storr, the Fairy Glen and the Fairy Pools.
While we visited all four of these sites during our visit to Skye back in April, the Fairy Pools didn’t make it into either of the blog posts I wrote at the time. We simply visited too many places for me to fit them all into a few blog posts, and the Fairy Pools were, to put it simply, not as amazing as most of the other places we visited. Yes, they were very pretty, but so were all of the other places we went to. And those other places didn’t have coaches arriving every twenty minutes to disgorge another busload of visitors coming to see the site.
I accept that that sounds very hypocritical, as we also drove over to see the Fairy Pools. And I’m absolutely not faulting anyone for wanting to see the beautiful scenery of Scotland – I’m just saying that I like places which are on the quieter side better. I like to be able to sit and enjoy a view without worrying that I’m getting in the way of someone taking a photo, or without a group waiting behind me to stand where I’m standing. Alas, this is to some extent unavoidable at the Fairy Pools.
We arrived fairly early at around 9.30 in an effort to avoid the crowds. It worked to a certain degree: while it was busier than literally every single other place we’ve ever visited in Scotland, there weren’t actual hordes of people. There is a large car park with toilets which was starting to fill up as we left an hour later – I believe it’s been expanded in the last few years in an effort to stop people abandoning their cars at the side of the road. Please don’t do this, as it’s not a road designed for roadside parking, and it makes an already twisty, pot-hole filled drive even more stressful – and bear in mind that a lot of the people driving around here aren’t used to driving on the left hand side of the road anyway. If the car park is full, you could easily carry on to the much quieter Glenbrittle where there is a pretty beach, or you could walk up to Coire Lagan.
From the car park, it’s a short and easy walk along a well surfaced track to the Fairy Pools. It’s a steady, gradual climb up to the classic view point, and then you can either retrace your steps or continue on a short circular walk. We chose to retrace our steps, as we weren’t hugely enamoured with the number of people wandering around, and we wanted to have ample time to complete the walk up to Coire Lagan after we were finished. It was a quick walk back to the car, but it did make me question my classification of gradients on this blog, as the short uphill stretch to get back to the road had a lot of people huffing and puffing and stopping for a rest. It’s definitely not flat but I was able to power walk up it without any issues, and I’m not the fittest by any means!
Dog friendly rating: 3/5. At first, the Fairy Pools seem like a very dog friendly walk. There are no stiles and there are lots of opportunities for water loving dogs to have a swim, and we saw lots of off lead dogs doing just that. We kept ours on the lead as it was fairly busy and we didn’t want them to get underfoot, plus with a reactive dog it wasn’t the best environment for off lead. The main reason I’ve knocked this down to a 3/5 is that lots of the people there without dogs wanted to interact with ours – which is fine until your dog is reactive, scared of strangers and they won’t take no or being barked at as a sign to stop advancing while cooing ‘hello, aren’t you a cutie pie’. Maybe I’m overreacting, but at least you have been warned…
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I recently went to the Fairy Pools with my dog and shared your feelings about the busyness of them. The other reason I wouldn’t recommend it is because they’ve laid down gravel on the path, no doubt to protect agains erosion with all that footfall. But the next day my dog was limping and had awfully sore paws. He would only walk on grass and soil but even crossing a road cause him pain. And I’ve done a LOT of walking with him and never had anything like this happen before. It took him quite a few days to recover.
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Oh bless him. Luckily our dogs didn’t have any issues with the surface but I’ve heard of others who had a similar experience!