A Spectacular Walk, A Spectacular Castle, Spectacular Waterfalls

We awoke to another dry day; I hope you can imagine how joyful that makes us.  Two days in a row and not a drop of rain, yippee!  We spent the day driving right round the Totternish Peninsula, the most northern part of Skye.  We took the road up the west coast through Uig, Balgown, Hungladder and Duntulm, stopping regularly to marvel at the beautiful scenery.

 

Then we drove around the top point and back down the eastern side, past the dramatic Quiraing above Digg and around Staffin Bay.  I could have sat there above the beach all day, gazing out to sea in watery contemplation and listening to the waves, but we had plans for after our lunch.

 

We parked Eileen at the northern end of Loch Leathan and walked up through the forest to The Storr.  The Old Man of Storr is a major landmark in the Trotternish Hills range that runs along this coast.  It looks really precarious leaning out and away from the cliffs behind and the other rock formations that surround it are equally spectacular.

 

 

The walk up to the base of the Old Man of Storr and back down took us about two hours and it was a real scramble in places, but it was definitely worth it.  It has to be one of the most striking short walks we have ever done and, apart from the deep squidgy mud at the start and finish, we really would recommend you do it, if you’re ever in the area.

 

 

After the good butt exercise, we drove down in to Portree for a roam around the town centre and harbour.  We stocked up on the necessities; bread, milk and a big, very, sticky date pudding and then checked in to the Torvaig campsite nearby.  We dined on a fabulous main course of Loch Toridon hot smoked salmon steaks with four veggies.  When Rodney was out stalking on Beinn Damph last week, I went into Shieldaig with Claire and met Mary who smokes the salmons and sells them locally. Claire highly recommended them and she was right, they are absolutely delicious, we now wish we had bought more……

 

Despite it being wet and windy, Thursday morning started very well.  Rodney cooked up a big breakfast of black pudding (yum), baked beans, fried cherry tomatoes, hot buttered toast and lovely thick smoky bacon.  I sometimes think he could have been a chef if he hadn’t chosen to be a sailor.

With such awful weather and the rain clouds hanging so low, we decided it wasn’t worth driving down to Elgol, because there wouldn’t be any views of the Cuillin Mountains at all.  So we drove across to Kyleakin and then back over the Skye Bridge to the mainland.

 

We drove up to Plockton which is the village that was used for filming the TV series ‘Hamish Macbeth’.  We didn’t spot Robert Carlisle, Wee Jock, or even a café open, so we shook out the wet raincoats and hopped back in to Eileen to continue west.

 

The next stop was Eilean Donan Castle where we had tea and cake to warm us up before we roamed around the chilly castle.  The original, ancient, castle fell down many centuries ago and the current castle was completed in 1932, but it feels old and the setting, across a bridge on to a tiny island at the junction of three lochs, Alsh, Long and Duich, makes it rather extraordinary.  I can see why they used it as a setting in ‘Highlander’, Entrapment’ and the Bond film ‘ The World Is Not Enough’ and now I want to watch all those movies and see how they used it….

 

After raining all night, we left the campsite late in the morning with the wet stuff still falling from the sky.  However, there is one beautiful side effect; the mountains here are now littered with white streaks, as endless streams cascade down their sides.  Each waterfall seems to be literally bursting down through narrow crevices and surging over rocks and the rivers that they flow in to, are exploding with huge energy.

 

We stopped so many times along the scenic road through Glen Shiel, just to look up in awe and to try to get one photo that just might be as spectacular as what we were actually seeing.

 

 

We continued on to Fort William, after a big hot lunch in the Stronlossit Inn in Roy Bridge and after stocking up the fridge and cupboards, we settled in for the evening, too full for more than soup for dinner.

In Scotland, with the wind blowing through you, this country can make you feel very small, but also gives you a real sense of freedom.  There is something raw and pure about these beautiful lochs and mountains.  The space they fill seems huge, and there always seems to be a need, in the two of us, to drive around each one to see what’s on the other side, or to view the next one.  Then, with each village or mountain, loch or coastline, we’re always saying “oh, it’s so beautiful, but it’s different again”, yet I can never come up with the words to explain those differences.  We have witnessed so much wilderness and habitations, in so many shades and colours that I am lost for all the words I need.  We’ll just have to keep looking around each corner and enjoying the moments.