Days 37 & 38 - Isle of Skye, Scotland
Saturday 20th September, 2025 - Isle of Skye, Scotland
Today was a more relaxing day with a sleep in for longer then usual. We ended up venturing out at 9.30 after a bircher breakfast. We drove into Portree to have a look around, and hopefully visit an information centre to get some pointers on what to see on the island.
Anyway, back to town to The Granary for a coffee (and it was nice), a bit of research on our phones using the cafe wi-fi, and we had decided on our driving loop for the day.
First stop was Dunvegan Castle located at Dunvegan on the western coast of Skye, and home to the strong McLeod clan. The castle had been in their family as the ancestral home for 800 years and continuously occupied. They still stop the tours from October - May and the family take down all the ropes and barriers and turn the display rooms back into family used rooms.
The castle itself was interesting and full of history and historic objects, including items owned by Bonnie Prince Charlie who was befriended by the McLeods. The extensive gardens were also very pleasant to wander around and included a number of themed gardens ... e.g. Walled Garden, Water Garden, Round Garden, hot house etc. They even had their small creek and waterfalls ! We spent about 2 hours here.
Along the driving loop was also the Fairy Pools, a well known natural tourist attraction on Skye, described as a series of crystal clear blue pools and waterfalls formed by the River Brittle at the foot of the Black Cullen Hills. "They are known for their vivid aqua-blue water" - I guess the weather has a lot to do with the colour and without fail again, there was light rain and overcast skies while we were there. Nonetheless, it was a very pleasant walk along the river seeing the various pools and falls.
The last stop on the driving loop was The Old Bridge at Sligachan, a three span bridge built in 1810 - 1812 and looks much older. A popular tourist stop, it was very attractive and nature turned on a rainbow to frame the bridge while we were there.
It wasn't until we returned and did a bit more research that we discovered we should have immersed our face for 7 seconds into the cold running water under the bridge to be granted eternal beauty - according to legend, well, tourist legend anyway. It was a missed opportunity for us though and we missed out on eternal beauty !
From being not sure what we were going to do, we had a very enjoyable day exploring some of the sites on Isle of Skye.
Sunday 21st September, 2025 - Isle of Skye, Scotland
Another relaxed day, sat in the pod until mid-morning, waiting for The Granary to open for a coffee, but we were disappointed when we arrived to find it closed, plan B we found another cafe called Birch. Coffee not as nice, but good enough to get us going for the day.
Today we did a ring route on the Uig Peninsula, by passing the Old Man Storr (raining), stopping at Lealt and Mealt falls, drove up through the Quiraing, back through Uig to Portree. A pleasant drive, Scotland has some beautiful coastlines and hills. Part of our trip was on a very narrow and winding single lane road with passing bays spaced along the way. We were glad we took out the extra car insurance to cover tyres and windscreens as the pot holes on this road were sometimes enormous and in some cases at the very passing bay points. Thankfully most drivers here are very courteous and cautious !
Nice drive, back early to catch up on blogging.
OMG – half way around the world and so close to eternal beauty. Missed it by that much. This is what you get for failing to plan. It is soooo unPoole not to have researched.
At least you didn’t miss out on rain. You will be able to wrap up your holiday blog comparing and rating rain events.