Day 3: The Road to Skye

I want to describe our trip from Glascow to Skye which took us about 8 hours with all our stops. I’m afraid though, that more than anything I’ve ever seen before, I have no words suitable for description of this place.

I’ve seen pictures before. I’ve seen movies, and car commercials. But in person, I was unprepared for the majesty of Scottish land. The night before we left for Skye, my brother and I stayed up late, assuming we would have many hours of car ride ahead of us to sleep the next day.

This “car ride” has been the most amazing part of my experience so far.

Despite the pictures, despite the Ford commercials, despite having spent at least 16 hours of my life viewing New Zealand via Lord of the Rings, I never really believed a place like this existed anywhere on earth. ‘Shocking’ is not an adjective usually used to describe beauty, landscape least of all. Truly, though, if I’d had my hands on my cheeks I probably would have fit right into Home Alone most of the trip. I couldn’t take my eyes off the land.

The trip yielded thin, winding roads snaking around small mountains up the emerald peaks. Around them, the plains were filled with bodies of water too immense for me to feel comfortable calling them ponds. We pulled over at Loch Loman, the largest Loch in Scotland. There, the sun and vibrantly clear sky turned the water a deep blue with its reflection. In front of us, was Ben Loman, one of the largest mountains in Scotland, still surrounded by other mountains, hills, and valleys. The view, as with almost every other view we saw that day, was spectacular. It was of one of these sites that I took my first picture here. Sadly, with the snap of every camera coming into focus, came my sudden understanding that a picture could never express the grandeur of the landscape to any, but only serve as a poor reminder to those who had experienced it before.

After stopping for lunch (the waitress was a very thin and nimble woman, about half my size. It’s true that there are faye in Scotland, and that they are can be quite alluring) the scenery only got more intense as we drove the Glencoe. Hills upon hills upon waterfalls and mountains and plains even more vast, more vibrant, and more plentiful then what had come before.

I have, at this point, emphasized the scenery, I hope! Far more than the roads themselves, though rest assured the roads will be long in my memory, cars throughout the UK are much smaller than in America. Gas is also far more expensive (likely not an unrelated fact). When gas hit $2 a gallon in the US, I almost cried. If a Scots had come to America, they would probably cry too, but tears of joy. Try $6.80 a gallon, that’s about the average I’ve seen here. Good thing the scenery is so nice to walk through I guess.

In any case, because the cars are smaller, the roads are also smaller. Curly mountain roads, of course, they make as thin as they can manage. So picture driving down lanes that are roughly half the size you’re used to, with cars, trucks, and buses coming towards you at high speeds from the wrong side of the road. To make things worse, you’ve got stone walls, steep drops, and other rough terrain to the other side of you. You may understand, then, why I do not fault my father for the frequency with which our wheels found unpaved road, or the side of the car was violently brushed by roadside hedge. Having a mack truck pop from around the bend at you, barreling down at you from what your first instinct says in your lane, will do that to you. I think the constant adrenaline rush as much as the lack of sleep caused for my father’s weariness when traffic cleared away to solitude.

We pulled over in Glencoe in front of a rather majestic peak so that my father could stretch his legs and wake up. It was only upon getting out of the car that we realized that just behind the car, in a cove on the side of the road, was a waterfall. We took the 5 minutes to climb down and sit by the pool, and Scott was most helpful in getting me across the slippery rocks safely. The water was freezing cold, of course, since it was probably melted snow from the mountains.

It wasn’t a particularly grand waterfall (as waterfall standards go). Every year I go to the getaway, and there’s a waterfall about the same size a bit of a walk from the campsite. This was a waterfall maybe twice or thrice my height onto a pool of water, bottomed by some kind of stone which, when wet, uncannily resembled brick.

I’m not entirely sure why, in the midst of a land of such astounding beauty, a waterfall that pales in both size and grandeur to much of what I’ve seen here was able to effect me as much as it did. I think it was because in another time, another place, I would take great lengths to trek to such a waterfall and admire its beauty. In this land, such beauty is hardly a thing of notice, shoved behind a roadside where few people are likely to notice it. It’s a semi-precious stone in a land of diamonds; astoundingly serene yet unworthy of notice.

As we drove, the beauty of Glencoe was emphasized by the dramatically shifting weather. Apparently a common saying in Scotland is “Don’t like the weather? Wait 5 minutes”. The weather seemed to be on a cycle, from clear, warm, sun-filled skies to overcast, to pouring rain at least six full times in the hours we were driving. The erratic weather simply added to my overall feeling of bafflement.

It was late in the evening when we arrived in Edinbane, the town in the island of Skye where we were staying. It didn’t feel late. I would have guessed it was around 4 in the afternoon when we pulled in, but I was surprised to learn it was already well past 8. It simply looked like mid-afternoon. At the recommendation of Hillary, our bed & breakfast hostess, we went to dinner at the “Old School” restaurant.

Old School was quite pricey, a good deal fancy, and very tasty. They had an appetizer of duck that was at least ten times better than my actual meal, though my chicken normandy was quite good. On draft they had Tennets and Tennets amber. I did not, under any circumstance, wish to try Tennets again after my taste in Glasgow. However, after much cajoling from my family, I reluctantly gave Tennet’s Amber a chance. I’m glad I did. It was among the tastier beers I’ve had here, though I didn’t love it, I hold it in high regard. I downed the first pint and immediately ordered a second.

As a side note, I find it funny that of the places we’ve eaten in Scotland, the two best by far have been the Kama Sutra and Old School. Not places I’d have eaten at by their name.

After dinner we went back to our hotel we went back to our hotel, and eventually, at 11pm, went out for a walk to watch the sunset. As we walked out to the pond nearby, a great blue heron descended a good distance in front of us and landed on the edge of the pond. He looked to us, regarded us for a moment, and departed as quickly as he’d come. I stood there shocked, having no idea that herons were native to the island, but very glad of it.

The Isle of Skye

The next day was the sole day we had to spend in Skye, a fact I have great regret in reporting. In any case, it meant we had a full day’s worth ahead of us without question. We started out with a tour of Dunvegan’s island to spot wild seals. The tour, which left from Dunvegan Castle, also sported a marvelous view of the surrounding islands, mountains, and ocean. The boat tour guide was quirky, friendly, and full of knowledge. I was lucky enough to be the first to spot a seal.

When I loudly and excitedly pointed out a seal far in the distance, I think our guide almost laughed at me. Once we got into the cove I realized why. There, the notion that there would be a challenge to spotting seals became ludicrous. They practically lined the shores of the many tiny islands, basking in the sun (which we were fortunate to have much of) without a care in the world. Because they aren’t exactly dangerous creatures, the man was able to bring us within a few yards of them on several occasions. For the life of me I’ll never understand how those ovular tubes of blubber manage to look so cute. I think maybe it’s the whiskers or the large black eyes.

Apparently the females had all given birth only three days earlier. Our guide informed us that female seals give birth on a predictable synchronized fashion. Kind of creepy, isn’t it? So we were lucky enough to see many tiny tiny baby seal pups. We even saw one in the process of giving birth, though we didn’t stay to see the entire process. Honestly, it wasn’t as pleasant to watch as you might think.

If I got one thing out of the trip, it was the most envy I’ve ever had for an animal. These Scotland seals get to spend day after day lying on these rocks that have one of the world’s most astounding views, basking in the sun (when there is sun) with their shellfish prey lying on the bottom of the water in abundance. Their only predator is man and the occasional killer whale that wanders its way into the cove. Why do people talk like heaven and reincarnation or diametrically opposed ideas?

Afterwards, we walked around the castle gardens a bit. They were pretty enough, and I enjoyed some of the more bizarre plants, but it’s hard for a garden to impress me. For all the gardens diversity, the most fascinating plant I saw was not even in the garden. Just by the docks where the tour boats launched, was a batch of trees leaning on the cliff. Their branches and leaves and even the entire trees leaned dramatically backwards, away from the cliff, not toward the ground, but perfectly parallel to it. Leaves and all, it looked perfectly as if it were held there by hurricane winds coming from the opposite direction. There was barely a breeze, but I fully plan on using the picture I took to convince people that we got caught in a hurricane. .

With a quick stop for lunch at a local pub, I once again made the mistake of ordering a hot dish with cheese in it with the assumption that the cheese would come melted. I’ve done this several times now. Before, I ordered a cheese and onion jacket baked potato in Glasgow. I envisioned a steaming baked potato with melted cheddar and friend onions. What I got was a steaming baked potato with cold lightly shredded cheese and raw onion. Without tasting it, I knew I wouldn’t finish it. In any case I ordered a Tetley’s with my dish, and much like Tennet’s, I’d be hard pressed to differentiate it from bud or miller.

Our hostess, Hillary, had recommended an hour long walking path that brought us around a very hilly area to find a wonderful view of a cove, with blue waters and islands right out of Pirates of the Caribbean, while also bringing us quite near the aptly named Coral Beaches. All this time, gazing at the scenery, I had fantasies of what it must have been like to have been a member of the highland clans. To climb, wander, and roam these hills and call them home. It would have been a rough life by any estimate, but I couldn’t stop looking up at the hills and picturing the people who used to claim them. Odd to think in such a peaceful magnificent land were people who led such harsh lives.

So when we decided to part from the path and make our way to the white sand beaches via some hill climbing, I was all for it. The hills had been calling me to climb them since we set out anyway. I’m not sure I can quite express the joy I took in climbing them either. I have never been much for hiking – oh I love being in serene places and longs walks through them, but only rarely hiking. It had just never appealed to me overly much, and indeed I am not in the shape a hiker must be (last time I went hiking, the entire group had to turn back because I couldn’t go on any further). But there was something about the hills that kept calling to me to play with them, climb them, bask in their majesty and wondrous views they provide. When I wasn’t climbing them, I was staring at them and day-dreaming of climbing them. It may sound a little dramatic in the description, but I was feeling quite dramatic at the time.

The point of all this is that I took a great deal of joy in perusing the hills on our path to the coral beaches. When we finally arrived there, the beach provided a most wonderful and unique view of the vast ocean, obscured almost entirely by a myriad of tiny islands, some rising abruptly with steep emerald cliffs from the water. It is a view I sincerely hope I will never forget.

The Coral Beaches of Skye

Once there, there was nothing that was not spectacular about the coral beaches. To start with, the beach itself was covered in a variety of bizarre and sometimes quite large seaweed. I never expected, of all the things to be fascinated with, that I would find myself enthralled with seaweed, but then until that day I never had an idea that seaweeds like these existed.

One type was found in ball-like clumps, and for all intents and purposes just looked like a large ball of suction cups. I’ve seen toys very much like it, means to stick to windows when thrown. Apparently nature made those first. Who knew?

Another type grew out from the highest point of a rock and covered the rocks entirely with very fine, thin, strands of light green seaweed that could not possibly have resembled dyed-green human hair than it did. I actually spent a deal of time considering the feasibility of taking the seaweed as a wig. Unfortunately there were little problems like the seaweed shriveling up and dying, but if I had been able to place that seaweed over my head as it grew naturally on the rocks, I would have had a wig that could rival anything a wig-maker could produce.

The most remarkable spectacle of the trip, however, was the beach itself. The white sands of the beach turned out not to be sand at all. Instead, the entire beach was made up of very tiny fragments of white coral, each bit the size of perhaps 10 grains of sand. The bigger pieces even had tiny little branches. But the fragments resembled sand so well, both in texture, size, and appearance, that no one in my family realized we were not standing on a beach of sand until we had been there for at least 20 minutes. I eventually discovered the truth of it after staring at the “sand” in an effort to find shells, and even then it wasn’t quickly apparent. I must have been shell hunting for 5 minutes or more before I noticed.

The shells, of course, were as amazing as everything else. It was not without good reason I was looking for them. There were more fully intact, elaborately spiraling shells on this beach than I have ever seen in one place in my life. Staring at just a small spot on the beach I found far more delicate things than I could ever dare remove. It was an enchanting beach, and if I have not fully expressed it by now, there is nothing for it. If pictures won’t express it, neither will a thousand words.

Eventually we left the Coral beaches of Skye. It was hard. But my brother’s inclination toward highland frolicking led him to persuade my family that there was an easy shortcut to the path by bypassing the trail and going over the hills. I was fairly certain that what he proposed was incorrect, and while my family took off for the shortcut, I uncompromisingly took the path back. Boy, am I glad I did! My family discovered that bog can blend almost flawlessly into a hilltop, and by the time I was back at the car, my parents and brother were not half the distance there. My brother took the wrong step and had his shoe sucked off, and I can only imagine what it was like getting it back, but the rest of the walk was probably not fun, even putting aside the constant need to estimate where the ground would be sturdy and where it would provide only a very thick mud with grass growing on top. In the end, I ended up leaving the car, and very slowly met them half way, chided them, and led them back to the path. After stepping in that crap, I doubt my brother’s left shoe, or his left foot for that matter, will ever be the same. *

*This story is entirely true, providing you switch the places of me and my brother

Graveyard of the MacLeods

We had a tasty dinner that night, though I enjoyed most the feeling of utter exhaustion and sunburn melded with utter contentedness. I had a pint of Fraoch’s with dinner. I believe Fraoch is the other Scottish import I’ve spotted several times in America. It was a pretty tasty heather beer, though it couldn’t hold a candle to skull splitter or dark island.

It was my parent’s anniversary, so there were several heartfelt toasts (actually we’ve had toasts every night since we came here, to think of it). After dinner my parents took some alone time, and my brother and I went for pints at the local bar across the street. We had a very enjoyable night talking about friends, politics, psychology, and the like. My brother started with a McEwen’s a fairly tasty light brown beer. I myself had a beer called “Monk’s ale”, a beer as dark as Guinness, but somehow utterly without any flavor. I didn’t much like it. For dessert, we both had a pint of a mediocre dry cider called “Scrumpy Jack’s”. As cider goes, it was definitely drinkable, but not lovely by any means.

But wait! Before I end the story of this day, I forgot something very important. Early in the day, even before the seal boat trip, we were driving on the road when we saw a site that caused us to pull over. What we saw was what appeared to be a very old church, roof gone and walls crumbling with a large graveyard behind it. When we went to explore further, we realized what we took for an old church was actually an indoor section for the honored dead in this large gravesite. The stone marker outside informed us that within this part was buried the bodies of the clan MacLean who had, for 10 generations, served as pipers for the MacLeod chiefs. The stone made no mention of the even more fascinating find within, where we found not one, but four former chiefs of the clan MacLeod were buried, along with several of their sons and daughters. Each of their graves bore their name and how many chiefs had come before them (I think the buried were all between the 40^th chief and the 55^th though some stones were hard to read).

Also in this graveyard, outside with the lesser notable MacLeods, standing about as tall as I do, was an elaborate albeit very worn Celtic cross gravestone. The inscription of this magnificent stone read “here lies the body of [can’t remember] MacLeod, who died at the age of 75, founder of the first Celtic club, San Francisco, Ca., USA.” I thought that was pretty funny.

A small bit away, at the top of a much steeper hill, my father noticed a gaunt stone arising abruptly from the ground – that is, a standing stone. It was clear to all of us that we had to see it up close.

We walked rudely past the sheep grazing by the church to climb the crumbly rocks and sometimes quite steep terrain, and near the top it became very clear that we were, indeed, looking at a standing stone. It wasn’t a pretty thing. In fact, it looked more than a little ugly, bending over backwards more than slightly with a warped, discolored texture. At its base, still out of breath from our climb, we read the plaque at the stone’s base with wide eyes. “Millennium Stone: put here in the year 2000 to commemorate the new millennium”

Needless to say, we began abruptly talking about what a nice view of the surrounding towns and lakes the hill provided for us. From the crest of this hill we could look down and see a huge portion of the small town, at least half a dozen mountains, and three large bodies of water at varying points in the distance. We were definitely disappointed with out faux relic, but writing about it now, I’m still glad we went. Of course we joked about it a lot later, but honestly, if we hadn’t had such high expectations, the climb really would have been worth it for the view alone.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, actually does finish my long and glorious day on the Isle of Skye.

The Tote Stone

The next day was to be a day of travel. We aimed to leave Skye and make our way to the Hebrides, and our boat was scheduled to leave at 2pm. Our boat was a good distance away from where we were, so we resolved to keep our site seeing stops close to our route for the day. Sadly, we couldn’t find most of the sites we were looking for. Most everything we’d seen in Scotland is utterly unmarked for or by tourists. We’ve rarely seen any other tourists, and we have tended to consider ourselves pretty lucky if we happen to see a sign to direct us to what we’re looking for. I really like that, to be able to see these sites and ruins that don’t seem particularly marked as tourist attractions, but that they are simply a part of the land. However, the downside of this is that you basically have to spot what you’re looking for, likely as not to be a good distance from a road and surrounded by grazing sheep in some farmer’s back yard.

At any rate, we only found one site we were looking for, the Tote stone, so named because it was a standing stone in Tote. As standing stones go, it was rather unremarkable, standing about half my height, surrounded closely by a wooden fence that formed a tight box around it. It did, however, have some ornate, though very faded, Celtic circles carves across it, assumably done by whomever took it upon themselves to put the stone there thousands of years ago. I believe this stone is thought to have been done by the Picts, and is the only standing stone I saw with any sort of ancient engravings.

On our way driving to our boat, we lucked out when we happened to find what looked to be the ruins of an old outpost turret guarding the water. However there was a sign on the gate reading “private property: Keep off!” and on the door of the tower we could read (using our binoculars) a sign reading “danger”. Thus we assumed it was deemed unsafe for visitors.

We picked up our tickets to the boat trip, but our lack of scenic distraction led us there a good hour or so early. So we set off on a scenic trop recommended to us by the boat’s ticket man.

Two-Way One-Lane Roads

I thought we’d seen winding, twisty roads before. But the road to Skye was nothing compared to this two-way road with only one lane, which snaked and coiled its way across the vast mountains. In order to allow cars to go two opposite directions in this one lane road, there were frequently placed “passing places” which were essentially small bits of shoulder which appeared here and there, sometimes barely the length of our car, to allow one of the cars to pull over and let another pass.

This system works fine and dandy in theory, and thankfully even in practice it worked for us. For the life of me, though, I don’t know how it did. The roads frequently and consistently wrap through and around mountains allowing only extremely limited visibility, and cars drive around many of these curves at such speeds that, while not high by beltway standards, are certainly not slow either. Courtesy procedure is to honk when going around one of these curves, theoretically letting anyone coming the opposite direction from around the corner know there’s someone coming the opposite direction in their lane. This system did not prevent a good number of very close encounters whereby everyone in the car collectively inhaled a sharp breath, but for all we know the horn honking may have prevented an actual accident from occurring.

Though I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, there have been infrequent sheep randomly walking on the side of the roads ever since we arrived in Skye. Here, the sheep and cow placement was upgraded to frequent. We had seen several sheep crossing signs before. I suppose there were too many sheep here for them to bother with, or perhaps instead the sheep were given the periodic Human Xing sign, because they truly seemed to think it was their road. Many was the time I thought we might actually ram a ram, but still it seemed that the bulls remained entirely uncowed. Wool the notion of hitting a sheep might not be enough to make one fold to sheer terror, it is definitely enough to make ewe think.

For the life of me, I had trouble thinking these were all domesticated sheep, because while I saw sheep everywhere, I saw no homes in these mountainous hills. There were an awful lot of sheep to be lost though, and I suspect some sheep dogs simply get lots of exercise running around the hills to round up their fold.

The view though… once again, the view was splendid. Yes, I know, Emerald mountains, blue mountain streams, yada yada yada,. I’ve written at length of the scenery already, but each viewing of it restored the sense of majesty, awe, and beauty anew.

Along the route, we came to Duntulm castle, or the ruins thereof. Castle is really kind of an overstatement. It was just a tad bigger than an outpost, which I suspect was its primary function, since it was overlooking the ocean by some pretty dramatic cliffs. It seemed like a place that, when the castle was fully built, would have been pleasant for about a day before the combination of harsh winds and a drafty quarters would have made it an unpleasant place to stay, despite the view.

We couldn’t stay long there, sadly, on account of not wanting to miss our boat. So I don’t remember it all that well. The cliff, so dramatic, I remember clearly. The ruins were pretty sparse though; no roof, and only bits of wall, and a small section still preserved dug into the ground. One bit of wall held up a window with a great view of the ocean and an island in the distance. It was a cool place, but for such a small and unpreserved set of ruins, it was pretty touristy, and there were crowds swarming in and around them. I had thought the MacLeod graveyard was far more interesting of a find, but that place didn’t even have a sign, let alone a swarm of tourists. Perhaps this place got such attention because it was so close to the Skye ferry.

We caught our boat fine and on time, though a few times this was in doubt. On our one lane road we came to a traffic jam, where a young lady on a bike had hurt herself somehow. The lady we gleamed this information from said that some had been waiting over an hour for the jam to clear, so it was fortunate that we weren’t stalled for more than 10 minutes. We also had the entertaining encounter of having a sheep fold charging down a hill at our car.