Isle of Skye: The land of fairies and sheep
It was a long and winding drive from Edinburgh out to Portree, but it was a beautiful one. I have to say I am thoroughly impressed with bus drivers in Scotland. At one point during our drive we had to stop entirely and reverse so another bus could fit around the corner. The first leg of the trip was to the familiar town of Fort William where I loaded up on snacks before jumping back on the bus for a nap. I didn’t visit Loc Ness while in Scotland, but when I sent a picture from the bus to my Dad, he promptly sent back this edited version. I essentially saw Nessie.
I arrived in Portree, took a breath of fresh air and quickly found my hostel. Here is where I have to stop and admit just how far behind I am with this blog: I arrived in Portree on November 1st 2015 (shameful I know). I’m now living and working in New Zealand and making an earnest attempt to catch up on blogging, but there are so many distracting hikes in New Zealand, so it may yet take some time. Back to Portree. I learned after arriving that the tourist season comes close to a full stop around October 31st. Regular tours stop running at the end of the month as there are fewer tourists, and fewer tourists come as the regular tours stop running (also probably because it gets colder). This meant that for my three nights in Portree, I had a four bed dorm to myself. It was eerily quiet.
As there was only one tour of Skye available in the winter I signed up, loaded up on snacks and hopped on the bus. Due to the slow tourist season there was only one other girl on the bus. We both said hello to the friendly driver, Annie, before awkwardly sitting on opposite sides of the bus in silence for a couple minutes. I offered the girl one of my granola bars, she offered me a South Korean chocolate, and as easy as that, we were friends (never underestimate the power of snacks). Geehee is from South Korea but was taking time off work to travel through Scotland and Ireland. As we had both been travelling for some time, we had a fair amount to talk about during the long drives between stops.
Our first stop was the Fairy pools. We didn’t see any fairies, but Scotland continued to impress me with how beautiful it is.
Throughout the day we stopped at the Fairy Glen, Kilt Rock, and at a farm called “Island at the Edge” which is owned by Annie’s friends. A fire had destroyed their original farm years before so they moved to the Isle of Skye to rebuild. Their prize male named Big Fella was away making babies so they introduced us to their other sheep, let us feed them, and showed us the products they make from the wool. If you’re looking for a warm winter gift to give someone for the holidays I would recommend checking out their website. The quality of their products is amazing, they treat their sheep better than most people treat their children and you would be supporting a small business which is always a plus. You can check out their blog here.
The roads on Skye are definitely more narrow than those on the main land. In many places they are actually just one lane. When you encounter a car coming towards you one of you pulls off into a passing bay on the side of the road to allow the other car by. As we were often the larger vehicle on the road many people would pull over to let us pass and Annie would wave to everyone. Turns out she knows most people she passes on the island in the winter. The population of Skye is roughly 10,000 in the winter however this doubles in the summer months when tourism is at it’s highest. While I do want to check out Skye in the summer one day, it was nice to be there in a slower season partly for the tranquillity, but also because it was easier to take photos without being photo bombed by selfie sticks.
Back in Portree I spent two days wandering around the small town and went on a local hike called the Scorrybreac circuit. The circuit wasn’t a long or particularly difficult hike, but it was beautiful and largely unoccupied. If you do the Scorrybreac circuit you will quickly walk through a large open area with a bench to sit on and overlook the water. Don’t stop here. Wander up to the top left hand side of the clearing and find the small trailhead in the corner. While this is marked on the map at the beginning of the circuit, it appears not many choose to walk up the trail as plants are starting to claim back the space. After fighting through branches and a couple spiky bushes you reach another bench, higher up and hidden from view where you can look over the water. As I was re-reading the Harry Potter series at the time, I stopped here to read a couple chapters until I needed to move again to warm up.
The hike runs along a cow pasture. I think I saw more cows than people the entire day.
At the end of my restful time in Skye it was time to move on again, this time leaving Scotland and heading for Belfast.
