Day 5, Heavy Rain Forecast

Day 5 and I woke up in a Scottish baronial mansion. Yeah, I could get used to that. I had been sleeping well, although I had been waking up at 1:30, then 2:30 and then 3:30 in the morning before going back to sleep. Later, after the trip I got in to a discussion with the 4 about the medieval practice of Second Sleep. I would think that I was getting in to that practice, but its way more likely that the rich food of Edinburgh, especially the fantastic meal at the Witchery was catching up to me. Or the Macallan that I had before bed. Whatever.

I performed my morning ablutions in the facilities that were not en suite but charming nonetheless. I dressed and packed before making my way to the dining room for breakfast. I was surprised to not see Lady Mary there, but D and K joined me for a traditional Scottish breakfast. Yep, I got to tick blood sausage off the to eat list. It wasn't that bad.

That's the blood sausage, the dark circle at the top of the plate. Also the eggs on a potato scone, tomato, bacon and a banger or what I know as a sausage link. Toast, OJ and of course tea round out the traditional breakfast. Mushrooms are also frequently added to the plate.

 Fortified for the day we took a few moments to tour the grounds of Invergarry House, which is what the Hotel used to be called when it was the baronial mansion. Outside the skies were leaden and spitting rain. I was loving every minute of it.

The view from my window. Loch Oich is just beyond those trees and there are sheep in the meadow in the middle of the picture.

The other lounge or library of the Glengarry Castle Hotel.

"With thy blessing, let the house house of thy servant be blessed for ever."

The ruins of the Castle.

We took our leave of Invergarry and headed west to our ultimate destination of the Isle of Skye. Along the way we passed at least five Lochs: Garry, Loyne, Cluanie, Duich and Alsh. We were quite in the midst of the Highlands and it was so scenic pictures would hardly do it justice. The heather (I'm pretty sure, but I'm no botanist.) was in full bloom painting the hillsides purple. The planned stop along the way was Eilean Donan Castle. One of the most photographed castles in Scotland, it is worth the stop, although they don't permit pictures inside the Castle.

Now this is what I think of when the Scottish Highlands come to mind. I was loving it! That might be Shiel Bridge below.

We had seen this same message the day before on the M9 outside of Stirling. I can't say it was ever really heavy rain, but there was one short downpour just as we were leaving Eilean Donan.

We stopped at this bridge across a small inlet to Loch Duich and I hiked up this path that led to this ruin of a church.

Back down on the bridge I snapped this D90 heading back east.

A lot of family history in this graveyard.

Eilean Donan herself.

The picture is a little dark, but the skies were what I was going for here. Just about to pour rain any minute.

I believe the tide was out when we visited, but now that I look at the map, I don't know if this Loch is open to the sea!

After the skies opened up and we were safely sheltered by Sage, we continued west through the town of Kyle of Lochalsh, across the Skye Bridge and on to the Isle of Skye itself. We were getting hungry so we tried out the Watermill, which is a small cafe and serpentarium? I had a nice ham and cheddar roll with of course, tea and chocolate ice cream for dessert. Mmm, mmm, good.

We explored the town of Broadford, one of the larger towns on Skye and found a neat grouping of shops with a hand spinner making sweaters and such, and an art gallery.

The old pier in Broadford.

A Scottish Electric D110.

Not far along we encountered a jewelry store next to the grocery store car park. Inside we met Sean Cameron, a native of Skye and quite the accomplished silversmith. He has some really nice pieces and I made plans to stop by the next day. In addition to being a silversmith he is also a "retained" firefighter which is their way of saying volunteer. He has a sign he puts on his door that says "out on a fire call". He told me all about the Broadford station of the Highlands and Islands Fire Brigade. He is especially proud of their Scania fire engine that sounds like a Rescue Engine because they have a good many RTCs, roadway traffic collision, on Skye. Wow, as an aside, I got in to their website a little more and I'm sad that I missed some of the other small stations on Skye. Maybe I'll reschedule a fire buff trip there! Sean did invite me down to the station for their training night, but unfortunately we had dinner reservations around that time. I'll be back though!

We also stopped in Woodrising Gallery, a photographic studio by Alan Campbell. A really nice place, I highly recommend a stop. I picked up a couple of framed photos, one of Eilean Donan, that I plan to display at home.

After the Gallery, we returned to the area east of Broadford to look for our B&B for the next two nights. Tir Alainn is a wonderful house operated by Ron and Pam Davison. If you get to Skye, you have to stay here. They both are magnificent hosts, Pam is a great cook and Ron is an accomplished hill walker, climber, mountaineer and story teller among many other things. Ron and Pam got us sorted with our rooms, I was in the Seathrift. They also helped us with dinner plans as Ron described that there were only a few restaurants in Broadford that employed an actual chef. The other establishments were good, but served mainly pub food. Luckily, Red Skye was just a five minute walk away and they could fit us in. It was a good thing Ron suggested reservations as they were packed!

Before dinner though, I discovered the library of mountaineering books in their lounge. A good book and a couple of Scottish Mountaineer magazines and I was set. I laid my head down and started to read, only to wake up an hour later! Refreshed, I dressed for dinner and we set out to walk to Red Skye. Ron loaned me a torch (flashlight) and we set out. The weather was perfect or at least I thought it was. Wind and a light rain, it was just what I wanted. It reminded me of the magic weather I have experienced in other places I've visited such as the Kepler Track in New Zealand. I did make a tactical error in that I didn't wear an insulating layer under my shell jacket, but I survived. 

Red Skye was fantastic, with warm service and wonderful food. 

We started with haggis bon bons. Haggis, check. It was actually very good and reminded me of risotto fritters from Fireworks.

I had the polenta cakes. Not very Scottish, but after last night's monster fish and chips, I was looking for something a little lighter. It was very good!

Blue berry brulee. Sooooo good.

Red Skye, worth the stop.

We bundled ourselves up and began the march back to Tir Alainn. The wind was tearing off the Inner Sound, but Pam assured us that this meant better weather tomorrow. She was right, the next day was spectacular! Stay tuned as I have many photos and stories to process.