So it’s about time I gave a quick summary of our week on Skye.
We had a lovely cottage, not wheelie friendly but within a short enough walk to the car. It was a little bit cosy, the boy bumped his head at least once on the low entrance, but perfect for the two of us. No tv meant we spent a lot of time looking out at the stunning view, and as well as the birds we had at least two resident otters which fed regularly in the estuary, and at one point chased each other right past the cottage window.
There is a lot to do on Skye, and the island is surprisingly large. Sunday saw us chilling out and nipping out to the local pub in the evening for the rugby (England v France in the World Cup semi-final no less, with the local population predominantly supporting France…). Monday we went off to Dunvegan Castle. Dunvegan is pretty, but completely inaccessible (there are steps to the very front entrance, the gardens are also very steep), but at least they let wheelies in for free. I parked wheelie in the entrance hall and went round on crutches, and it wasn’t worth the £7 or so it should have cost me to get in! In fact it’s quite a sad place – it’s quite run down, there are obvious problems with damp and the family are hardly there any more. I think inheritance tax hits them hard. We saw the Clan chief on tv earlier in the week (the castle is the ancient seat of the Clan McLeod), who is a film director and has no hint of a Scottish accent.
On Tuesday we headed North and visited the Quiraing – a really spectacular landscape. We had been told the previous day to take a certain road out of Uig and cross the island, and were totally unprepared for what we saw. We passed a very full car park, wondered why there were so many people there, and then turned a corner to see one of the most dramatic natural panoramas on the island. Apparently the landscape is Jurassic sediments covered by Tertiary basalt lava flows, weathered over the years to form high peaks and vertical cliff faces, including the Old Man of Storr, which I would love to have seen from closer up. Definitely on my list of places to go back to should I suddenly recover the ability to walk…
