Category Archives: Isle of Skye

Tuesday, May 12 — Moving Day

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Rise ‘n shine, it’s moving day!

Last night I checked the map and did a bit of research to figure out our route to the next destination. One place we could drive to on our way might be one of those at the edge of a cliff drives. Something I’d never do, but something I could see Dan was tempted to do. I’m not one to say “absolutely not!” so I had to just breathe deep and let him decide.

But first, breakfast. Being here for three nights meant three breakfasts (see how fabulous my math skills are?) and I do something different each day. Today was my simplest: scrambled eggs and smashed avocado on toast. As it turned out, there were two pieces of toast, one with the avocado and one with the eggs. I wasn’t even tempted by the sweet rolls or croissants today. Yep, I was a good girl. For once.

As we were sitting at the table I noticed my watch band was breaking. Again. I had noticed a few days ago that it wasn’t in good shape, but managed to push things back together. Showing it to Dan he suggested I would lose the Apple watch if I kept attempting to use the band, so I had to switch to my “night watch” band. (Yeah, I brought both — I have been tracking my sleep.) Well, the night watch band is pink. PINK. I do not wear pink. Pink is not me. But I guess it is now, and I will stop tracking my sleep (which is probably a good thing anyway since my watch tells me I’m not doing a good job sleeping and I don’t like being reprimanded).

Okay … rambling over … as was breakfast.

Back to the room we went, to get ready to head on out. Packing this trip has been quite easy: when I packed at home I had room to spare which means that even as things in the suitcase get larger as we go (ever notice how everything expands when you travel? Not just one’s body, but everything in the suitcase as well!) I have no issue zipping it up. I was quickly packed, although I had to wait for someone to brush his teeth since I’m the Carrier Of The Toothbrush. (This is one very important assignment and I carry it out perfectly, just so you know.)

Packing done, we checked out of Redwood House and went on our way.

We had to stop one last time on our little 1 lane road to the Redwood House … I mean, really, how could we not say goodbye to a lamb or two, and the tree said, “Shoot me, shoot me!” so I complied. And that sign? Well DUH!

Goodbye Isle of Skye!

Well, sort of. We did have to get petrol (see how British I’ve become already — maybe they’ll let us stay?!). As Dan filled the tank I took a few shots of these little cars. Just because.

A few shots in what the iPhone tells me was Carbost.

One small waterfall image after a short bit of driving:

I had read about Lean To Coffee when I was planning our trip, so we opted to stop there. Besides, the coffee at the Redwood House was less than stellar. Now we are supposed to do a two meal a day thing, but a “tiny” pastry and coffee don’t count as anything at all, right? Um. Right.

And over the bridge we went.

We drove on. First it was Duirinish …

Then Plockton …

Then somewhere above Loch Carran.

Here we are, according to the iPhone anyway, at Ardheslaig …

And then Shieldaig, where I made another pink flower photo which the phone identified at Pedicularis Sylvatica or, commonly, small lousewort. Poor flower. I think it deserves a better name.

We pulled over at Benin Eighe and Lock Marie Islands National Nature Reserve. Now don’t worry, I won’t test any readers on the names of these spots later. But of course I’m sure you’re trying to memorize them.

Because our watch’s weather apps told us it wouldn’t rain it rained. This was at Lochrosque if my map GPS on the phone was correct.

Lochluichart was a bit before we arrived at our next village.

And then … hello Ullapool! Our room is very simple, with two small twin beds. We take what we can get, and if I can’t tell if the bed is queen size or larger I go for two twins.

After settling in, we went off in search of dinner. We headed down toward the water.

We could have done pizza, but that just felt oh so wrong when one is in a place that has seafood. The next place we looked at had no spot for us for over an hour. So we walked more, and finally landed at The Seaforth. We had a short wait, and that was fine. I finally had my Cullen Skink soup (thanks to a recommendation by my friend “DK” … thanks!), and Dan had salmon. It was all yummy!

After dinner we walked just a short bit.

And now we are in the little lounge area of our small hotel. It’s peaceful and quiet, and I can finish up this blog and post it. For me this is pretty early to get it finished. Whew!

As to walking … wellllll … I certainly didn’t do well today, and while we have the rental car who knows what will happen. So it goes.

Tomorrow I’m assuming we will do some of what they call the NC500 (North Coast 500). Stay tuned … and now goodnight!

6,568 steps, 2.71 miles, 5 flights climbed

Sunday, May 10 … With Photos & Stories

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We began the day with breakfast at Redwood House. ALL that salmon they put on the plate is rather amazing. But that’s Scotland for you.

Then we readied ourselves to drive the north part of Skye, and off we went. I had set up a map and then we connected that to CarPlay. Quite handy!

I took a quick video as we headed out.

We drove first to Portree to get a few snacks since we weren’t sure what we’d find in the way of food on our drive. I’d read about the drive, about having to pay for parking at each of the places we’d visit, about the small number of bathrooms (or should I write “toilets” since that’s what they are called here for the most part), and few or no restaurants. Being as it was Sunday, I wondered if even more might be closed.

After the grocery store we started on our route. I’m getting more comfortable being on the “wrong” side of the car, and Dan is getting better at driving.

Until that huge pothole.

That really scared me! He had pulled over in the passing spot (they have these frequently on the roads here, since the roads are narrow), and at the start of that passing spot there was a hole he didn’t see and I didn’t have time to point out. (I do try to point things out sometimes, since I have his encouragement to do so.) I was just sure there would be damage, but all was well. (We did get out to check on the car.) Whew! But these potholes are one of several reasons we are encouraged to purchase insurance in Scotland!

And then … wonder of wonders! We spotted the “hairy coos”. I hadn’t expected that, since while I’d read they might be on the island I’d also seen a video of some women searching for the cows and they found it difficult to find them. Not so for us!

Next up was this little waterfall. Sweet, but when you’ve seen falls in Yosemite … well ….

One destination we knew we had to get to was The Old Man of Storr. Not that we would do the entire hike, but one never knows. We arrived, found parking (for £6 … parking isn’t exactly cheap here), and prior to starting out some sprinkling started up. We popped into the gift shop and spent a short time there, but decided, finally, to put on rain gear (including rain pants). I’m sure glad we did, although we probably would have been wiser to put everything on before the rain got harder! You can see the weather pretty clearly. Or maybe “rainily”.

Up the trail we went. It was a pretty good climb, and it really felt great to get a bit of a workout.

Photos along the way:

I wasn’t willing to do the final climb. It was just too wet, and I figured we’d done enough. I’m sure going up all the way would have been super, but I know my limits, and I also didn’t want to deal with slippery walks due to all the rain.

We then went back down a different route.

Next up was the spot below, near Lealt Falls. We saw a sign for coffee so figured we’d grab some. But first photos:

We got to the coffee/hot dog truck and they were out of hot dogs, and the coffee grinder had broken. So never mind. On to Kilt Rock.

After a short drive we found a coffee shop that actually had coffee.

Some of the houses have this great stone work:

Next we drove to Duntulm Castle.

It was tremendously windy. I couldn’t shoot flowers very well, so I thought I’d try a video. I have no clue how it will sound so perhaps turn down the volume!

Yes, I tend to like the sheep and sweet lambs.

We have to pull over at times. You can see that below if you can see the video. (Let me know if it works … I keep seeing a notice that it’s set to private but It most certainly is not!)

We drove back to Portree to see the rather well-known colorful buildings. I’m pretty sure the Redwood House (where we are staying) painted the buildings to mimic Portree. We saw some more coos there … well … stuffed ones, anyway.

As we drove for our evening meal it of course had to rain. And the sheep had to stand there looking as if they owned the road.

Our dinner … our very expensive Mother’s Day dinner … was at Monkstadt 1745 and it was delicious. I will share photos, but honestly they look rotten and it was such a fine meal!

So that’s the story of our day with photos and videos.

14,072 steps, 5.64 miles, 55 flights climbed (I’m skeptical of this last bit!)

Sunday, May 10

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We are finally home and it’s been a very long day. A good day, mind you, but so long! It’s now 10:54 and I can’t really write much because we do have to get up at a decent hour tomorrow.

I will just quickly say we did a lot of the northern part of Isle of Skye. We dealt with one whopping pothole that scared me a ton. We dealt with temperatures in the 40°s. We dealt with crazy wild winds. We dealt with rain. That’s a lot of dealing!

If I could post my photos I would. For some reason it takes time for the iPhone photos to appear on my iPad so maybe it will be tomorrow when I get them up here. I’ll wait a few minutes to see.

BUT … well … um … the best/worst story of all. Dan and I went to a fabulous (and very costly) dinner. It was about 45 minutes away from our lodging. (It’s Mother’s Day, after all … so I guess I was celebrating me or some such thing since I made the reservation. Hah!) What with the light sky it wasn’t bad getting home rather late (especially for me since I’m not behind the wheel!). When we arrived at the Redwood House (our lodging) we were busy gathering our things and I grabbed coats and the like. Suddenly Dan asks, “Where’s my bag?” That’s the bag that holds his wallet, passport, phone … you know, all that important stuff.

Uh-oh.

We looked and looked I mean we searched everywhere. Dan swore up and down (not literally swearing but you know what I mean!) Finally Dan used my phone and the FindMy app. But it was so curious. It showed that his phone was in the car. Nope. NOWHERE! I suggested it just hadn’t updated and he must have left it at the restaurant. FORTYFIVE minutes away. Sigh. I told him to try and buzz it. No sound. I finally was annoyed and said I should call the restaurant.

Gee … well … um … I was putting what I was holding into the trunk as I was preparing to give up and call when I realized there was something heavy around my neck.

Yep. Me. I was the culprit. I had picked up his bag and put it around my neck. NO clue why.

He was relieved. I was just annoyed with myself.

But I guess all’s well that ends well.

Except my pride. It ended poorly. Heh!

And darn … photos still haven’t appeared on the iPad so I guess you only get my embarrassing story and nothing else. Rats! I hope I can find a few minutes tomorrow morning to post things. So sorry!

Saturday, May 9 — Moving Day

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We woke at 7:00: we had to be packed and checked out by 10:00 and I don’t like to worry about time. After showering and packing we decided to go out and get coffee and a small bite to eat.

We walked a very short way to The Milk Bar, ordered our coffees and croissants, and had a relaxing time there.

Even so, after returning to our room we had forty minutes to spare. Dan knows me well, though: I get nervous about time!

When we took our bags downstairs Dan attempted to set up an Uber pick up. The app just sat there saying it was locating a driver. I figured I could try while he looked up taxis, so I set about trying to get an Uber as well. It did the same thing it did for him. (And I can’t even recall seeing one Uber here so perhaps it’s just wishful thinking on Uber’s part, suggesting they are in Inverness.) Meanwhile Dan tried to call a taxi but couldn’t get a phone call to go through, so he finally did what we probably should have done in the first place: he contacted our invisible lodging hosts. The woman answered and she was happy to get a taxi set up for us. Fifteen minutes later our driver, Greg (from Poland) joyfully greeted us and gave us a rather exciting ride to Enterprise, all the while talking about our crazy president and the crazy things in Poland as well. He also offered to help us move to Scotland. Heh. He was quite entertaining.

And then we got the car. Time for Dan to learn how to drive on the left side of the road!

Both of us were tense, of course. For me it was that I felt he was too close to my side of the road and there was no shoulder. In addition when there were cars parked on the road I kept feeling as if he would hit them! For him it was worrying about the oncoming traffic and my side. But he did amazingly well. He only turned into the wrong lane once when making a right turn. In my typical, non-confrontational way, I said, “Do you really mean to be in this lane?” Or something like that, anyway. He of course didn’t mean to do that at all, and he also suggested I go ahead and say “Wrong lane!”

In any case, he did a great job.

We went past Loch Ness, which brought back great memories of our Great Glen Way walk. We also passed through Drumnadrochit and saw the Fiddler’s restaurant that we enjoyed so much.


Lunch was nothing special, but we did stop to eat. And I finally remembered to get a photo of the car we have.

We saw very small lambs (or as I first called them, “baby sheep”) a number of times … so darn cute and I hope to get some good photos while we are here.

We eventually reached Eilean Donan Castle. We decided to pay the fee and go look at it. I took iPhone photos where I could, but they didn’t allow it in the upstairs, where the family actually lived in the summers after it was restored in 1932.

From there we continued on our way to our next spot to lodge and from which we will tour. As I mentioned to Dan, we are really hitting different sorts of spots on this trip: so far a big city (London), a smaller one (Inverness) and now … an island.

Hello, Isle of Skye!

When I was finding lodging for this trip I read that Portree was the place to stay. Nothing there was affordable. Then perhaps Broadford. Nope. So I located a place that was outside of Dunvegan near Edinbane, with a drive of 2 miles down a one lane, sort of rough but not too bad road. SO many lambs on this road!

We are lodging at the Redwood House, in a somewhat large room. I think it will be just right. One day we can tour going north and the other south. We are hoping the weather will be somewhat cooperative, but it is Scotland, so who knows?

We got to our room at about 5:30 and dinner here was scheduled for 7:00, so Dan spent time typing (I suspect doing his journal) and I began this blog. We both enjoyed some Walker’s shortbread and I made a cup of tea with milk. (Yes, Carolyn … tea! It’s the UK, after all. 😊)

We walked to dinner and found a nearly empty dining room. The entire time we were there I think maybe there were five tables occupied besides ours. I suspect this place is rather new, and of course being a distance away from things a lot of people won’t drive out for dinner. I do hope it survives. I had sea bass and Dan had chicken and they were both very tasty. Oh, and to start with we had calamari which very well might be the best I’ve ever had.

We walked out on to the lawn and the lambs and parents were still out so I attempted to get some photos. The lambs were quite skittish, though.

Then back to our room. I took a few photos of the place as we went back.

Dan checked the maps as I finished this blog entry. It’s now 9:35 PM and it’s rather light outside still. Dan is considering getting up at some horrendously early hour to do photography. He seems to think I’ll want to skip it. He might be right.

After breakfast tomorrow (he plans on getting back for that IF he really goes out) we head north to see what we can see.

All for now!

It’s hardly worth reporting but:

6563 steps, 2.7 miles, 4 flights climbed (I suspect that while we have a car we won’t be getting as much exercise.)