Macleods Maidens lie just west of Idrigill Point on the North West coast of Skye. As I said in my last notes I needed to paint a picture of our third day spent walking on Skye. Well it is finished and is a painting featuring the Maidens. In the attached photo you can just see David collecting Pixie dust and stuffing it in his rucksack (he’s getting his flask and sandwiches out really – it was lunchtime). It had been a reasonable walk to get to the Maidens, about 12 miles, especially after the evenings celebrations at our hotel. They had been so good that David could not eat his breakfast sausages so I had to eat them for him. My father-in-law does, however, say I can probably suck worms because he once saw me eat a big plate of sausages at 3.00am in the morning on a very rough channel crossing while everyone else was turning quite green.

But less of sausages and back to walking.

The walk was through some amazing scenery with the culmination being the three sea stacks called Macleod’s Maidens. The largest one, not seen in the photo, is known as the mother with the smaller two being the daughters. To see the big one you will have to see my painting of the Maidens that is hanging in Reboot bookshop in Accrington (see my website for details) or take a trip to Skye. The coastline here is a wild place with its basalt cliffs containing caves, arches and some impressive waterfalls plummeting into the sea. Well worth a visit and well worthy of some more paintings.

M

P.S. – this was 16 years ago so I doubt you can still do a climbing traverse the dartboard at the in at Carbost as part of your post breakfast training for those excellent Skye climbs