To reach the Isle of Skye is to wind through the Highlands and to skim the waves of the Minch, to sit aboard a train chugging north at precisely its own pace and to be whipped by a stiff breeze on the ferry deck. The method of reaching this misty island hasn't changed much through the centuries - it's still necessary to watch the country roll by you, becoming wilder and more desolate and rising upwards. It's essential to lay aside a day of your precious time to become immersed in the twists of roads or the wiles of the public transport system. It's important to do this, perhaps because it makes the destination all the more precious. Arriving in Skye, you almost immediately roll by some reminder that this island has been here for much longer than you have – hills and mountains looming as they have since being scraped out of molten rock; the ruined castles and monuments of the clan chiefs in their glory days; mossy and crumbling foundations of countless house...