We left Fort William on Monday morning and headed for the Isle of Skye. It was a rocky start to the day as first the car wouldn't start, due to the steering wheel being in the wrong place for this to occur, and then when getting gas we couldn't get the gas cap off. See, the car needed to use the key to get it off, but we weren't adept at doing this. Luckily a nice man from the truck beside us aided us in this task, and showed us what we were doing wrong. Still loving the friendly, helpful people in this country.
Before long we were off to the Isle of Skye, with a few planned stops along the way. It felt like home for as we drove we had to pass a couple of different farm machinery on the road. As the road wound along and through the mountains and hills we got a magnificent view of the coast. So singing along to our newly downloaded Scottish party song album, well singing along really wasn't the case, we casually enjoyed the scenery of the western Scottish coastland.
Windy road ahead
The landscape changes quickly and sometimes dramatically
A little waterfall spurting out by the road
This has been a life saver this trip. Never have I read a guide
book so much in my entire life, lol.
Found many a "swing bridge" for boats in this country
Creepily, the song that was playing at this moment
was "Ghostriders in the Sky" :o
We paused periodically for pictures.
There are many places to pull out to do so along this drive.
Our first stop was at the Eilean Donan Castle. This castle still belongs to the MacRae family and is one of the most iconic images related to Scotland today. And yes, John McCrae, author of "In Flander's Fields" is related to this family. We bought tickets and walked along the bridge that connected the castle to the mainland. It was a beautiful castle in an amazing location, perfectly situated with open views to the waterways on all sides. This castle was bombed in the late 1700s and left to ruins until 1912 when restoration started. 20 yrs later, the castle was restored although the lead man in charge of the restoration died before its completion. We walked around, through, and up in the castle; marvelling in the wonders of it's creation and revelling in the stone architecture.
We followed our castle visit with a quick bite in the cafe and then were on our way once more.
Next it was on to the Glenbrittle area to see the Fairy Pools. We weren't quite sure what they were, but were curious to find out. Along our way we encountered interesting signs, most traditional to Scotland I would believe: "Feral Goats 2 miles" and signs with a single sheep image.
When we finally found the road to the Fairy Pools, indicated to by only a small wooden hand-painted sign, we were in for a bit of a shock. Prior to coming for the trip, Whitney had read up on Scotland driving. In her reads she came upon information about single lane roads, meaning roads with only one lane for BOTH vehicles. These did however have passing pull out spots, but you had to pay close attention to oncoming traffic so one of you could pull into these places while the other drove past. And yes, this is exactly what we came upon on the broken paved then only dirt road. Well needless to say it wouldn't have been as tense as it was had the road not been windy and up and over a hill. However, we prevailed! Also, I believe that most of the drivers were tourists and everybody was very understanding of one another.
Passing lane coming up
When we reached the parking area, another shock came to us. To get to the fairy pools it was going to be a bit of a hike. LOL. At this point, we felt that perhaps we should have read up on this a bit more prior to coming. Nevertheless, a challenge was presented to us and we took it head on. So we parked, jumped out of the car and proceeded to follow the path to the Fairy Pools. After some rock hopping, jumping over creeks and enduring a wet dog who shook his water off on me we made it to the Fairy Pools. It was neat to see how the water could be so still in one area, and then rapidly throwing itself haphazardly over rocks in the next. And the water was crystal clear!
All the way down and up to get to the Fairy Pools
A little leap
The cars are WAY up there on the hill
Fairy Pools
This crossing was more of a hop, skip and a leap!
On our way to our next stop, we had another classic Scottish moment: there was a rogue sheep on the road! Yep, and not just on a sign but in real, wooly fashion. Of course we stopped at one of many pull out places for picture taking, and I ran back to get a quick pic. As soon as it saw me though it started to meander towards me, so I hightailed it out of there pretty quick. I wasn't up to date on my sheep knowledge and wasn't sure how it would react to me if we met.
The next point of interest we reached this day was Dunvegan Castle. Another castle in Scotland that is still owned by one of the clans, the MacLeods. This castle is actually still a residence to the current Chief of the Clan MacLeod. After purchasing tickets, we first entered the very modernized castle and perused the various rooms. Of course some rooms are set up for tourist viewing while others are closed off; I'm assuming those are the rooms in current use by the family. Then we ambled through the marvellous grounds which consisted of different gardens - the Water Garden, the Round Garden and the Walled Garden. It was amazing to see how lush the landscape was complete with flowers, waterfalls and grassy and woodsy areas. Just darling!
Dunvegan Castle.
We couldn't take pictures inside. :/
Water Garden
Round Garden
Walled Garden
Now we were on to Portree. Along the way we luckily found our hotel for the night, The Skeabost Hotel. When booking this hotel last night on Booking.com, it had said that it was in Portree. But this was not correct. It was actually 10 minutes OUTSIDE of the town of Portree, but thankfully it was on our drive there and that we had a car so we could go into Portree to explore and eat after checking in.
Portree was a quaint little town. After locating parking in the centre, we meandered through the streets for a bit, stopping to pick up a couple of souvenirs. On our trip, probably due to missing on lunches, that we spend a good portion of our day driving, and we get early starts so as not to have to drive in the night, we sometimes arrive in places too early for dinner. Thankfully though dinner service usually started at 5:30pm, whereas if we were back in Italy we would be waiting until 7:00pm. So the Antler Bar & Grill promptly served us a delicious meal, chicken tikka curry of all things, and had us back in our hotel for an early evening of bevies and card games while we relaxed after a very busy day.
Really wish this was applied in other places
Counting up all her coins
Found another rogue sheep on the way back to the hotel.
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