Trotternish Peninsula

Trotternish is the long northern arm of Skye, and geologically it's one of the strangest parts of the island — a landscape built by the largest landslip in Britain, still visible today as a broken line of cliffs and pinnacles running almost the full length of the peninsula.

That landslip formed the Trotternish Ridge, a basalt escarpment sitting on softer sedimentary rock below, which has slumped and slipped over thousands of years to leave isolated rock towers standing apart from the main cliff line. The best known is the Old Man of Storr, a distinctive pinnacle visible from the main road and reached by a signposted footpath from a car park a short drive north of Portree. Further north again is the Quiraing, a still-shifting section of the landslip near Staffin where the road itself has had to be repaired repeatedly over the years as the ground moves beneath it — a walking circuit here takes in features known locally as the Table, the Needle and the Prison.

On the peninsula's east coast, Kilt Rock is a sea cliff where the rock face is patterned with vertical basalt columns said to resemble tartan, with the Mealt Falls dropping directly over the cliff edge into the sea below. Further sites around the peninsula include the ruins of Duntulm Castle, once a stronghold of Clan MacDonald, and the Skye Museum of Island Life, a group of preserved thatched crofting cottages near Kilmuir.

When to visit

The Old Man of Storr and the Quiraing are both among the most visited sites on Skye, and their car parks fill early in the day through spring and summer — arriving before mid-morning, or later in the evening, makes a real difference. Outside those two spots the peninsula is much quieter, and its single-track roads and exposed clifftop paths are worth taking slowly regardless of season, as weather here can change quickly.