The Isle of Skye-Scotland

It was my turn to drive as we headed to the Isle of Skye. It took a number of miles before I relaxed and felt confident about taking the wheel and I only did a couple of curb bounces on some tight corners. Leaving Fort Williams we took a short detour to an old stone church that was used in a BBC television series “Monarch of the Glen” that provided a great setting for some photos. The drive to Skye took a couple of hours and having a bridge for access rather than a ferry made the day fairly easy. We met Nigel at a prearranged village parking area where we discussed the days plan. Nigel wanted to do another hill but both Tim and I were feeling the last three days of hiking and decided to drive around the top of the island for the day (we were later informed by the youth hostel attendant that we had driven the wrong way around which seemed rather silly to us). The weather was fantastic. The rugged coastline of the Atlantic ocean and green craggy hills provided a spectacular backdrop. Seemed like every viewpoint would require a stop with one finally allowing us to have a lunch off the tailgate of  cheese, salami, crackers and beer. Later , we stopped when we spotted a bench along side of the road with a view of a bay. We sat, relaxed and smoked a cigar. For entertainment a sheep which had somehow gotten on the wrong side of the fence kept walking up towards us but maybe due to the cigar smoke warily moved away then back towards us several times. It was nice sitting for awhile in the sun, a light wind bending the tall grass and the sunlight reflecting off the water. We continued our journey at some point and arrived at the remote Glen brittle Youth Hostel around 5pm. Nigel arrived just before dark. That night the big storm as forecast came in and shook the metal roof of the Hostel. Not sure if I’ve ever seen it rain that hard. Nigel decided to head back to Edinburgh. Tim and I would spend one more night, though the weather stayed the same. Our window of time to climb the Inaccessible Pinnacle was closed so after another driving detour in the windy rain to another ocean viewpoint and a roads dead end we left the Isle of Skye. Tim repeated a quote ” that the summer on Skye was one of their coldest and wet winters”, well something to that effect. Journal: “As I was the only Yank I got some teasing. Nigel repeated a Sir Winston Churchill quote that I really couldn’t argue with, “Americans always do the right thing, once they’ve tried everything else.”