Isle of Skye 2

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In the end we decided on going to Armadale Castle. Well, not exactly. It was decided for us. Upon further investigation of the bus timetable - a lengthy tome to be sure, we found that the only bus to Talisker left Portree before the first bus to Portree arrived... and the last bus back from Dunvegan arrived in Portree after the last bus from Portree left for Kyleakin (where we're staying)... If we didn't take the last bus from Dunvegan, it would mean we could only stay there an hour, which hardly seems long enough. So, by process of elimination, Armadale Castle won. We hopped on the bus, expecting to have to wait in Broadford for about an hour to get our transfer to Armaadale. When we got to Broadford, the driver informed us that the next bus to Armadale should be here in about 5 minutes and he settled down to read his book. I checked the timetable again to make sure I hadn't made a mistake - and I hadn't, according to the timetable we should have to wait for an hour. Well, I thought, there is only two options, either the busses aren't actually running to the timetable (highly possible) or the driver is wrong (also possible). So I asked the driver if he was sure and then showed him my timetable. He looks at it and then says "huh, will you look at that. Sorry to put you wrong, you're exactly right, there won't be a bus here for another hour, and here on my sheet it says I'm supposed to be waiting for it. Well that'll be a long wait. Let's see now, where should I be... <> oh ok, right then, better be off." and he was gone. An hour later and we caught the bus to Armadale castle.
Armadale is the ancestral home of the Donald clan. The gardens were superb, the castle ruin looked pretty cool and they had a nice museum. The Donald clan gave rise to the McDonald clan and in the museum they had a section on Glencoe, interestingly they place the blame of the massacre not on the Campbell's but rather on the government. They also went so far as to say that the Campbell's gave them some warning that the attack was going to happen, helped some of the McDonalds to escape and were "less than zealous" in performing their orders. In the last part of the museum they had a descendants room showing where the Donalds, McDonalds etc had settled. A large contingent had settled in Waipu "however it took a long time as they followed the Reverend Norman McLeod...", well there's a name I remember. How weird, there's a bit of a chance that I'm related to the people the museum was commemorating.
Having looked at the castle, gardens and museum we walked in to Armadale to wait for the next bus back to Kyleakin. When first bus arrived, I asked him if he was going to Kyleakin, he said no, but there was another one after him mind you he didn't think it was going there either. I whipped out my timetable and he whipped out his and we compared notes and decided that there might be a bus in about 20 mins that was going there. I'm not sure if it's good or bad or just funny that the drivers use the same timetables as the public to figure where they're going and when they should be there.
While here in Skye I just want to mention Scottish sport because one of them is very popular in Skye. The Scottish have a couple of sports peculiar to themselves. One of them is Shinty (imagine Rugby with hockey sticks) which I shall not be trying. The other major one is Munro Bagging. It turns out a guy called Munro compiled a list of all the hills in Scotland which are over 800 foot tall. In all there's about two thousand of them. They are called Munro's. To bag a Munro you have to get to the top. The brouchures about places to visit in Scotland often list Munro Bagging as one of the activities you can do in the area. Local walks sometimes list the Munro's you can bag when you take the walk. Eg 4km return (yes walks are listed in km not miles), sturdy footwear, 3 Munro's. It seems a lot safer than getting takled by a guy with a hockey stick, so I think I'll give it a bash if I get the chance.

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Comments

[Richard]

Munro's & Corbet's
A munro is a hill or Mountain the summit of which is over 3000 feet. A Corbet is a hill whose summit is under 3000ft but over 2500 feet. I'm not sure where the writer got the height of 800 ft from.