Isle of Skye

The weather on Thursday was predicted to be sunny and pleasant, so the plan was to brave the long drive to the isle of Skye, and look around there. The drive, as usual, was billed as having spectacular views, albeit long at ~3 hours or so.

After a brief stop to pick up sandwiches, the narrator managed to fall asleep, and missed most of the beautiful scenery until the next stop on the shores of Loch Duich, with views of the Eilean Donan Castle, and the nearby town of Dornie. Some pictures, snacks and coffee later, we continued our drive, crossing over the Skye Bridge, and onto the Isle of Skye.

The plan was to make a clockwise loop around the island as suggested by an itinerary found online. The first stop was at the Fairy Glen, near Uig. Some adventures involving stuck vehicles, single lane roads and traffic policing later, we found a parking spot near the fairy glen, and picnic’ed on our sandwiches and snacks.

A short hike led us to the fairy glen, which had spectacular views and iconic landscapes.

After climbing all over the glen, and enjoying the view, we navigated our way back to Uig for a brief pit stop, and coffee.

We continued driving around the island on single track roads, and continuously playing chicken with oncoming traffic. Beautiful views of sheep, rockey scenery and the north atlantic were thoroughly enjoyed (as well as a brief incident involving Mahesh attempting to off-road our mercedes 9 seater, and the loss of a wheel well insert. 😲

We missed the turn-off / parking spot to … but carried on to our next stop of Kilt Rock and Mealt Falls. The crowds here were noteworthy, and we ended up competing with several busloads of tourists as well as completely full parking lots, but enjoyed the views of the meager falls, and lovely cliffs and ocean.

Our next stop was the Old man of Storr. We underestimated the approach to this, by quite a bit, seeing the whole group dwindling along the hike to the Storr. Jayu fell back to the car first, followed by the cousins, and Suba. Mahesh braved several rounds of ferrying people back and forth before finally abandoning the climb, leaving Purni, the boys, and myself to climb about 2/3rds of the way to the storr. The view kept getting more spectacular the more we climbed, but the incessant whinging wore down even Purni’s infinite reserves of patience, and we hiked back down the way we came.

Faced with a 3+ hour drive back, we decided to start driving back to ballachulish, stopping on the way at Kyleakin, at “Taste of India” with unexpectedly amazing food and wonderful service. Stomachs full, we drove almost non stop back to the river mill house, and wonderful beds.

Suba was truly the hero of this day, driving the vast majority of the day, and braving all the twisty windy roads, although Mahesh did most of the circuit around skye, and a good distance on the way back.