Saturday, February 14, 2009

<- Skye (Sleat)

See, I told you I'd get around to this part eventually.

Two months after I started the post is still 'getting around to it.' Very, in fact.

Wait, where is this again?

Emphasis on my laziness aside, two months ago, we started off in Carbisdale (castle youth hostel, fun) and passed through Eilean Donan (prettiest castle in Scotland, far and above). Well, we didn't. In fact, we did all this lovely stuff in September, not December.

At any rate, with the afternoon wearing on (actually, it's nearly evening now), we made our way to Skye.







You may have noticed that Scotland isn't actually very big: we arrived on Skye (there was a bridge) fairly quickly, and since we didn't particularly want to sit around the hostel for five or six hours before going to bed, we decided to wander the island a bit. Particularly, Sleat, a peninsula-ish thingy to the southwest.

Bible school has improved my geographical vocabulary.









Actually, before we got to this pretty stuff, there was quite a bit of boring stuff. There was a long stretch of clear ground with few trees, inland enough that you couldn't see the sea anymore. Red and rocky, and a bit dull on the whole. I saved my camera batteries for the pretty stuff.

Skye is the best example I can think of for the funness of Scottish roads. D'you see how it's a little one-lane thing with no shoulders? That was the condition of the road for 90% of the island, sans exaggeration.







At any rate, the boring stuff didn't last for very long. The road was fun -- we kept having to pull over to the little wobbles in the road to let people pass (everybody on Skye except the tourists waved their thanks). Also ended up pulling over to take pictures a number of times, because the shoreline came into view.













Incidentally, see all those clouds? That was what the weather was like the whole time we were on Skye.

Still pretty, though.

Because of the great entertainment that is editing Blogger posts, I've just lost one of my pictures, and I'm too lazy to put it back up. Don't worry, you're not missing anything, anyway: it was a repeat of the above.





I would tell you again how pretty it is, but do I really need to?












We wandered along this little peninsula-ish thing for, oh, I think an hour or two. Went right to the end of the road -- and when I say end, that's the word I mean. It didn't loop around or anything, just stopped at a house and a shop, and that was the end of it. Had some fun turning around, and then went to do it all over again, up and down and up and down and up and down--

I shouldn't make references most of my readers won't understand. Then again, when has that ever stopped me?






So yes. After Sleat, we went through Broadford -- I believe it's the biggest town on the island apart from Portree, but don't quote me. Before Sleat, we went through Broadford and stopped at Tourist Information and I bought a pretty bracelet of which I have no photographs. (Logical order to a post? Why?)

Then we went on to Glenbrittle. It's a walkers' youth hostel: it's inland, in the middle of a valley with easy access to any number of hills, as valleys often are. We didn't do any of the paths.






I don't think I have any pictures of the hostel -- I'll check later. It was a rattly little thing, but very nice. I believe it was Swiss in design, or possibly Swedish, but neh. We spent quite a bit of time playing Scrabble in the lounge.












This isn't all there is to Skye, by the way. We had a whole free day following, whereupon we got to see the things that will follow in the next post, or possible the next, or maybe the next if I'm being lazy.

(I still haven't done anything about my walk along the canal two weeks ago, or visiting the Falkirk Wheel last week, or seeing Mugdock Castle today.

But that's enough for one day.)

End 16 September '08.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

More Weather



Um, have some snow?