Always take a compass

Needle rock in the foreground and the Old Man of Storr behind September 2014, Skye, Scotland A year or so after getting married there in 2013 we found ourselves back on the Isle of Skye (Scottish Highlands) and, with both my parents and our new daughter Isabelle along this time, we wanted to head back up to the North of the island and walk up to Needle Rock and The Old Man of Storr. It was a perfect day and the slight haze off Loch Leathan and the Sound of Raasay seemed to bring out the detail in the surrounding hills and forests giving it an almost HD quality (sadly not really  done justice by the pictures from my phone!) The basic plan was not to retrace our walk from 2013 ( here ), as the final ascent over and onto The Storr is not really suitable for babies, but to simply walk from the car park on the A855 up to the area around The Old Man of Storr and Needle Rock, have a bite to eat and then head back down to the car - hopefully without too many tears or tantrums, from

Morning sun trying to break through over Byland Abbey It was back in Feb of 2013 that Donna and I first walked this route ( read about that here ) and on that walk we took along a friends dog, Jinny.  This time, in October 2016, we were retracing our steps with our own dog, Monty. Monty, waiting for us to catch up as always! Distance - 8.5 miles Duration - 3hr 20m Difficulty - Medium Starting point - Kilburn Nearest pub - Forresters Arms, Kilburn, YO61 4AH Route map and pdf from ViewRanger - here GPX file from walk - here OS Map - OL26 Notes - route can be very muddy in winter/after rain and watch out for the stream crossing the just after Byland Abbey New friends The walk starts from the main car park in the middle of the village of Kilburn and while the parking is free its limited so we started early to avoid the hassle of looking for alternative parking spots - the car park has the added benefit of being next to a great pub, the Forresters Arms, which