The Times - UK - 04.12.2021

the times Saturday December 4 2021

40 Travel

to step outside requires being prepared for

anything. Even sniffing otter poo.

That was one of the first things I did with

Mitch Partridge once I’d had a good look at

the golden eagle that soared overhead for

a couple of minutes before its appearance

fee expired. Mitch takes guests out wildlife

tracking and foraging, and as we followed

the eagle with binoculars he filled me in on

the success story of its whitetailed cousin,

Off-season Skye: welcome to

The renowned hotel

Kinloch Lodge

still offers the finest

views and food on

the island, says

Andrew Eames

M

y mother’s family are

Macleods from the Isle

of Skye, and ever since

I was a child our return

to the island every year

was subject to a three-

line whip. For a couple

of wonderful weeks my cousins and I went

feral, rampaging around the hills, getting

munched by midges and hiking to remote

lochs to poach the laird’s fish. We are of

crofting (ie peasant) stock, among whom

it was considered fair game to take from

nature’s larder, even if it belonged to the

landed gentry. Besides, we were Macleods

and they were Macdonalds, and old clan

enmities die hard.

As I grew older our Macleod grand-

mother, Granny Cloud, came into a little

money, and on a couple of memorable

occasions she’d pick the bog myrtle out of

our hair and drag us over to tea at Kinloch

Lodge, which at that time was the only

posh place on the island. There we’d blush

a bit, my cousins and I, because circulating

with the scones was Godfrey, Lord Mac-

donald of Macdonald, on whose very land

we’d been poaching. Oops.

Well, I had the opportunity to ask God-

frey for forgiveness last weekend, when I

became poacher turned customer of what

must be the only hotel in Scotland where

you can leave your boots out overnight

and have them polished by a clan chief.

Lord Macdonald of Macdonald was

very gracious about it. Did we catch

much? Only small wild trout, I

said, but it was a delicious adven-

ture nevertheless. “I envy you

that. I would have liked to

have gone fishing more my-

self, but I had a hotel to run,”

he said. That meant septic

tanks to unblock (“the secret

was to cover myself in Jeyes

Fluid”), tables to wait on and

being nice to allcomers, even

scruffs like us.

Fifty years since they took it

on, Kinloch Lodge is now run

by their gracious daughter Isabella,

but Lord Macdonald and his wife,

Claire, the cookery writer who put Skye

on the map as a foodie desti-

nation, still put in regular

appearances. And 50 years on,

the hotel is still the most

distinguished place to stay, and

one of the best places to eat, on

the island.

To celebrate its golden anniversary

it has devised a new weekend of culi-

nary and wildlife-related activities, and

I was there to try it out. Poacher turned

guinea pig, you might say.

Kinloch sits on an inlet of the Sound of

Sleat, which divides southern Skye from

the mainland, with all the drama of the

mountains of Knoydart beyond. The wea-

ther comes scouring up the sound, paint-

ing and repainting the seascape several

times a day, like an artist who can’t decide

between oils or watercolours. Either way,

Ornsay lighthouse, just

south of Kinloch Lodge.

Right: a drawing room at

the lodge, which sits

on Loch na Dal in the

Sound of Sleat. Below:

a bedroom at the lodge

SKYE

Kinloch

Lodge

Sound of

Sleat

Knoydart

peninsula

5 miles

clan chief.

nald was

catch

ut, I

n-

u

it

run

bella,

his wife,

ho put Skye

o

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dist

one

the isl

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