Skye Adventure

Sunday, the weather had brightened up, it wasn't raining and the forecast was for it to get better and better as the day went on, so we packed the van and headed over to Skye for the day.  As soon as the road headed down we were in thick fog, so much so that you couldn't see the water below the Skye bridge as we went over.  Oh well, we drove up towards Portree - as we got closer, the clouds were beginning to lift.  

I had found an itinerary for Skye on the internet which we followed - full of places we hadn't explored before. First was the Old Man Storr which is very famous, huge cores of stone sticking out of the earth.  It was still a little foggy when we arrived, but as we walked up towards it, the clouds started to clear.  It was a hard and steep walk, but worth it and literally as we arrived the mist rolled back and we had blue sky.  

The formations were certainly quite a site.  We walked around them and then discovered a path up the back which took you further up, we went up - oh my, it was a scary path - basically vertical loose earth!  I had my pole so stuck that in to help me up, Tom was on all fours clinging to any rock sticking out the earth - I don't know how he did it, but he made it and I was very proud - he said if it wasn't for climbing club he wouldn't have been able to do it.  

We spent some time up there before heading back down again - a different route - still a bit scary but not half as bad as the route up.  By the time we left we were under blue skies.  It stayed that for the rest of the day - deep blue sky and no wind at all.  Just perfect weather for exploring.

We then headed back to the car and hopped in to our next stop: Lealt Falls - an impressive set of waterfalls right on the side of the road.  By now our tummies were starting to rumble, so we skipped the next site (Kilt Rock) hoping to find an establishment in the next village, Staffin.  We had googled whether things would be open in Skye on a Sunday and had found that it wasn't like the Outer Hebrides, and things were pretty much as normal on a Sunday.  We found 2 cafes and a little supermarket - they were all closed!!!  This is where having the van makes life a bit easier.  We drove back to kilt rock and parked up, turned the gas on and boiled some water for the 3 pots of dried noodles we had in the van for emergency.  They were spot on and helped revive us all.  As we were clearing up, a young piper turned up, dressed in full kilt etc and started to play.  Fantastic (I always like a man in a kilt), really added to the occasion.  The rocks were pretty impressive too.

Next on the itinerary was Quiraing which was an area towards the top of the island, famed for wonderful scenery we headed up a narrow one track road to see it.  

Got there to find a huge car park and  a burger van in it!  Oh well, not sure a burger would have sat well with all the walking.  We decided to do a short walk here - so instead of the 4 mile suggested route we thought we would walk as far as the big rock formation we could see - turns out it was about 2 miles there so although we didn't do the whole circuit, we did do another 4 miles (however, doing it that way we missed the steep bit of the route which was pretty lucky).  

It was a grand walk, with good views and interesting formations. 

We were pretty parched when we got back, so sank a bottle of pop and chocolate bar each before heading back south again to the Fairy Glen.  This wasn't even sign posted so we were a little unsure if it was a 'place' but luckily after passing a holiday cottage called Fairy Glen Cottage we thought we were in the right place and suddenly after a mile or two of very narrow road we found a decent sized car park.  We parked up and explored.  It was a shame we had tired legs (well when I say we - I mean Matt and I) the place was certainly very special. 

Lots of green hillocks which reminded me of Hobbiton and then in the centre of them another rock formation which looked like a turret and a perfect circle of miniature standing stones.  It certainly had an effect on Tom who went a bit loopy running around and around and up and down the hillocks - he made us tired to watch him!  Maybe he was a fairy in a previous life (or maybe he still had the spirit of the tooth fairy upon him - another one came out on Friday).  I was a little to sad to leave the place, could have spent half a day there just soaking up the atmosphere.  However, it was getting late and we had no food!

We made our way to Portree where we found the Co-op open - phew.  We bought some provisions, but then decided to head into the centre of Portree to see if we could get fish and chips as we were all mega hungry.  We could, we had to stand in line for over half an hour, but it was worth it to not have to cook or find a restaurant with space for us.  We sat on by the water eating them in sunshine.  They didn't touch the side!

Then the long drive home, I took over the driving at this point, figured Matt had done enough.  The roads are surprisingly good on Skye - better than on the mainland!  We were home sooner than we thought, stopped to take a pic of the bridge on the way home as the water was clearly visible this time round!

A fabulous day out, but we were shattered!