Skye High and Loving It!

"Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the sailors cry;
Carry the lad that's born to be King
Over the sea to Skye." - The Skye Boat Song

Foodie moment

At the top end of our journey on the Isle of Skye, we stopped off in a town known as Portree. It's a nice little fishing town on the coast of the island with many restaurants and cafes. We ordered a large serving of chips with vinegar from the local fish 'n' chip shop and sat down to eat them by the seaside, watching the seagulls.

Cultural moment

Although we just missed the "heat wave" by a few weeks, Summer in Scotland is not what we would associate with typical summer weather. It was quite cloudy and gloomy, especially on the Isle of Skye and rained a fair bit, however this enhanced the true highland experience. Even when the sun did make an appearance, the temperature barely ever topped the low twenties and the wind in the mountains stripped any sunshine heat away anyway. Lisa stated a few times that she would never be able to live without a Summer. I wonder what it is like in the wintery parts of the year!

The highland cow (coo with a Scottish accent) is a globally recognised symbol of Scotland. They are hairy beasts with long horns and appear to look big and friendly. We were lucky enough to spot some on the side of the road and get up close for some photos. I was soon reminded that they are in fact bulls and aren't as friendly as they look when I tried to pat one on the head and he got a bit skittish!

Wow moment

Today we drove to the Isle of Skye (we left from our accommodation in Fort Augustus) and it took two hours of driving just to get to the bridge crossing. The roads on the way to Skye were really windy (that's windy as in twisting) and fun to drive, but not great for Lisa's travel sickness. The scenery was beautiful, with the roads taking us through forests, mountains and around the edges of lochs. However, once we reached Skye the scenery took on a different look, with most of the forests gone, there were grassy and craggy mountains all around that were tall enough that the clouds had to flow around them. It was really spectacular and amazing, a type of scenery I had never seen anything like before.

Whilst on Skye we took a hike to the Fairy Pools, which are a group of many small waterfalls that flow from the base of mountains and across a wide and long glen. The hike was easy to begin with, flat with a few stream crossings and was quite busy with lots of other fellow hikers. The scenery was surreal, with clouds like I had never seen before, flowing in fast and around the huge mountains, I have never seen clouds move that fast and low. The waterfalls and river were beautiful, with rock pools all along the river. When the path started to disappear I started to get adventurous and decided we should walk all the way to the beginning of the river at the base of the mountains. It looked a lot closer that it was, and before long we were the only ones hiking. Eventually we reached the base of the mountains and discovered many piles of rocks that were left by previous hikers. We left our own rocks and began to walk back. We could see our car in the distance as a tiny speck, and it took a good 2 hours to get back!

What we learnt today

Wasn't much of a lesson today, but more of an experience. The drive on the way to Skye was actually more spectacular than on Skye itself. Driving around the Lochs on the mainland was definitely the driving highlight with breathtaking views at many points. Although Skye is amazing in its own way, it has a more barren and craggy landscape.