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Published: September 25th 2007
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View from the Hostel
The view out our window of Kyleachan. Well! Day 2 commenced at 9:00. I'd slept well the night before at the hostel (no one snoring in the room this time!) so I was ready to go. It was a little chilly, but then it's usually a little chilly up here, so I didn't think anything of it. The bus stopped to gas up, and then we were off. Our first stop was at the river Sligachan. The story goes that if you dunk your face under the water, you'll become eternally beautiful and youthful...until you have a drink of whisky. We all dipped our faces under, even me. Surprisingly, it wasn't that cold! Of course, our bus full of beautiful people was undermined that afternoon by the bottle of punch passed around, but still. It was nice while it lasted. 😉
We stopped for an early lunch in Portree, the largest town on Skye. It was a lovely little place, full of tourist shops (naturally) and commanding a lovely harbor view. But after lunch is when things started getting interesting. We went to visit the Old Man of Storr, a large oblong rock perched on the very top of a mountain. Don't let anybody tell you it's
a hill. According to our guide, though, it was "a week bit of a walk," so we all trooped out of the bus. Of course, I didn't have anything waterproof on, but it was only lightly misting at that point, so I thought I'd be okay.
By the time we'd passed the "Travellers are STRONGLY advised not to go beyond this point due to dangerous wind currents!" sign the girl I was hiking with and I were ready to quit. The rain was coming down nearly in sheets, and at times I had to stop walking until the wind died down, bracing myself so i wouldn't be blown off the steep path. Not to mention my thighs were burning from climbing for forty minutes. So we never made it quite to the top, but we went far enough to get an excellent view of the surrounding countryside, mist-shrouded though it was. We made it down OK, though, and had a little time to dry off on the bus before the majority of the tour group got back...although we certainly weren't the only ones who took the "Chicken Exit," I hasten to add.
The next stop was Kilt Rock,
a huge waterfall pouring into the sea from a cliff that resembles the pleated back of a kilt. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the waterfall itself, but I did get some of the cliffs around it. We were only there for about three minutes, anyway, and I only spent about 30 seconds of them outside the bus due to the fact that I was soaking wet and it was very very cold.
After that, though, we arrived at what would turn out to be the highlight of the trip for me: the ruins of Duntuln Castle at the northern tip of Skye. According to legend, Duntuln was once the seat of the Lord of the Isles, a highly coveted title that the clan chiefs vied for in an infamous footrace (or boat race, depending on who's telling the story). I won't retell the whole thing here, but I'm sure if you Google Duntuln Castle or Lord of the Isles you'll find the story easily enough. Anyway. The ruins themselves weren't anything special, just a pile of rocks that vaguely resembled an old fort, but the view. My god the view! It was AMAZING! Literally like standing on
the very edge of the world. The wind must have been blowing 70 miles per hour in off the ocean. We felt like those guys on the Weather Channel who stand around in hurricanes talking about how wild the wind is. I can't even describe it, but being out there on a cliff over the ocean in the middle of nowhere...wow. So powerful. And the wind helped dry out our clothes.
From there we went up to a pub in Uig for a cup of coffee and a much-needed sit in a centrally heated non-bus environment. And afterwards we went to the Faerie Glen (or Fairy Glen, who knows?). I can only describe it as a miniature mountain range. I suppose they'd technically be hills, because they weren't very tall, but they LOOKED like mountains, if that makes any sense. There were old stone walls, and a couple old benches, and people had left "offerings" to the fairies there, too. Some had taken rocks and made crosses or hearts or spirals out of them. We climbed up to the highest hill, the "Fairy Castle," and the view from it was outstanding as well, although somewhat diminished by my fear:
to get up there you have to crawl through this narrow chink in rock, finding your own footholds where you can. Which is all well and good on the way UP, but not so much fun when you're going DOWN. It was fun, though, and quite beautiful.
After that we headed back to Kyleachan and our hostel. We had a quick dinner at the pub, and then sat in front of the fire for awhile before bed. With a mug of hot chocolate, of course 😊
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