Road to Neist Point Lighthouse

We travelled this route in late August this year.
Most of the road is easy to see and there are plenty of passing places, most of which are clearly visible. I can't remember reversing more than a few metres.
But there was a lot of traffic and there were also many potholes. Concentrated and anticipatory driving is absolutely essential.
These were some of the most strenuous kilometres as a driver on our trip to Scotland, but from my point of view it was worth it.

I live along that road, drive it every single day and can tell you that it gets incredibly busy and can be problematic. This is mainly due to visitors who don't know how to drive on single track roads. This video should help you understand how to do that.

The UK Highway Code has the following advice. "Rule 155 - Single-track roads. These are only wide enough for one vehicle. They may have special passing places. If you see a vehicle coming towards you, or the driver behind wants to overtake, pull into a passing place on your left, or wait opposite a passing place on your right. Give way to road users coming uphill whenever you can. If necessary, reverse until you reach a passing place to let the other vehicle pass. Slow down when passing pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders."

The section which I have highlighted about reversing is key, especially on this stretch of single track road where there are many hilly sections. Do not force a vehicle to reverse downhill if they are coming uphill and you are facing down the hill. Many visitors seem to think it's fine to make someone reverse downhill, when in fact it is much harder to control a car reversing downhill than it is to reverse uphill.

Basically if you are nose to nose with another car, the one nearest to the passing place reverses, unless it's on a hill in which the person coming down the hill reverses.

The passing places are long enough to fit a maximum of 2 cars and a convoy of more than that, or including camper vans will mean that a log jam forms. Imagine you are in a convoy of 4 cars heading to Neist Point and there are cars coming the other way. If only 2 cars will fit into a passing place and you are car 4 in the convoy then you will be blocking the single track road meaning the traffic coming the other way has nowhere to go. So always allow at least one passing place distance between you and the 2 cars in front of you.

Another problem is that as locals we know the road well and drive faster (up to about 40mph) than many visitors who typically want to drive at 20mph, stopping to take photos of sheep and the views. Those of us who live here are commuting to our workplaces or trying to get home. The Highway Code asks drivers to use passing places to allow faster traffic to pass, so please use your mirrors to be aware of faster traffic approaching and look for the nearest passing place to allow that traffic to overtake you.

The road is basically built across a peat bog so it tends to suffer from subsidence. The edges of the road are sharp. If you have a poor sense of road positioning and go too far to the edge, or try to pull off the road not using a passing place then two things might happen. Firstly, you might shred a tyre on the sharp tarmac edge. Secondly, you might well sink into a peaty ditch. Do not leave the tarmac under any circumstances. There have been some improvements in that some of the worst potholed sections have been relaid. But other sections still have lots of pot holes. It's not in particularly great shape. The edges of the road are constantly being eroded by trucks, camper vans and cars straying too far to the side and crumbling the road surface away.

By the way Dunvegan to Neist Point is 11 miles, and it's all single track once you leave the village of Dunvegan. The absolute worst time to be on that road is when people are heading to Neist for the sunset, or away from the Neist having seen the sunset.

Hope that helps
Jacqui (Skyegirl)

There are no precarious cliffs on that route!
There are plenty of passing places, but you do get, as said, drivers who don’t anticipate on coming equally slow moving vehicles and either shoot past a passing place and then need to reverse causing everyone else behind them to have to back up a bit.
We have family on the island know it very well and most recently, drove the road in August, on a dry Sunday afternoon and got caught behind 5 other vehicles crawling along and forgetting the rule to allow those travelling faster to overtake by pulling in as soon as is practical! Very frustrating but we knew no-one was bothered about that basic courtesy so accepted it was going to be slow going.
It took us about an extra 10 mins to finally get to Neist so - hardly the end of the world.
The road edges in places have got very churned up from where multiple cars have braked sharply and pulled in to the side, probably after sailing past a passing place and anticipating on coming vehicles.These edges have often created muddy and quite deep ditches,
The road surface is potholed in places as are many roads on Skye due to their use by so many vehicles these days.Road repairs tend not to last very long.
However II really don’t think the road warrants you being scared on it.Take your time BUT if someone is coming up behind you, clearly travelling faster, then pull into a passing place and let them past..That then takes the pressure off you having cars up your back and lets you proceed at your own pace.

The is one section just after Milovaig where the road crests a hill and then steeply descends along what could be described as a cliff edge. However there is a safety barrier on the side of the steep drop and where the road crests the hill it is slightly wider to alleviate the dangers of cars coming at each head on as they approach the hill crest.

The other section to beware of is between the Three Chimneys restaurant and the turn to Upper Colbost. It’s not a cliff edge but heading towards Neist the road goes uphill with a drop on one side. There is no crash barrier, just a couple of plastic bollards to warn of the dangerous drop. I was coming home one evening and saw a car on its roof in the field. It had gone too far to the edge and toppled over, rolling down the hill. Two young Americans had managed to scramble out of the car and were miraculously unharmed, unlike their rental car. They’d been told it would be a 4 hour wait for tow truck to come from Portree to retrieve the car. I offered them shelter and meal, which they declined. When I went back to check on them, thinking they were likely in shock, they still declined.

Another time a water tanker went off the road in the same place ending up on its side in the field. The road was closed for many hours to enable recovery.

Heck, we’ve driven that road so many times Skyegirl and I’ve never noticed those two sections at all!
I was trying to think what I’d class as a precipitous section of road and two come to mind.
There is a brief section when descending the Bealach na Ba pass towards Applecross, where there is a steep drop off without a barrier. But you are past it in two seconds so although I sometimes look at it in alarm, it doesn’t feel bad as such.
The other is Calum’s Road on the Isle of Raasay where at one point, for about 50 m , there is a very unpleasant drop off into the sea, no barriers. We drove that years ago, taking my elderly mother in law out for a drive and I was mildly horrified at the potential plunge visible on the passenger side.She was quite oblivious to it, thankfully!

I know scotlandmac! We take it for granted don't we? I've driven the Bealach Na Ba many times and once met the bin lorry coming down towards the Kishorn side as I was driving up. I got into the passing place as close to the cliff edge as possible and pulled my mirrors in. The bin lorry driver didn't even need to slow down - he was that confident and obviously knew the road like the back of his hand. Not a road I'd want to drive in fog or high winds.

Hi, Skyegirl and scotlandmac,

I remember the first time I drove the Bealach - it was in 1973. The road wasn't as well maintained as it is now. I drove the pass in a heavy fog, on our way to our lodging at the Applecross Hotel. Back then, the coast road hadn't been built, so you had no choice but to return over the pass. The next day, I drove back over the pass in clear weather. After I saw what the road looked like on a clear day, I was very thankful that I hadn't been able to see it the day before!

Mike (Auchterless)

Oh Mike! Yes it's an experience driving the bealach.