Mark here: Skye tour begins

---

Our tour to Skye departed on a Friday morning. A Friday morning that saw both of us a little bleary-eyed, a little hungover and a lot tired from the night before out with my pals. Isn't that always the way.

We were booked with MacBackpackers, a company that has hostels all over the country and also runs wicked tours year-round. I had heard a lot about the 3-Day Skye and Highlands tour, and hoped that Mark would love where we were going as much as I first did last year. We caught a cab to the hostel on the Mile with all of our stuff and were off.

We were the only Canadians on a tour bus of predominately American and Parisians. Both parties were awake, caffeinated and loud. The whole weekend. I should mention that the Yanks were theatre majors studying in London, and that I'm convinced every French schoolchild has been taught a loud hand-clapping song for every and any occasion. Anyways....off we went into the highlands, our tour guide Graham in his kilt and the weather holding.

As we made our way up towards Inverness, the landscape begain to slowly change, and I knew that Mark was getting as excited as I was, maybe more!

I had arranged a private room for the two nights we were in Skye, and was nearly asleep when we finally got in. The others on the tour were just down the street in another section of the hostel, and we had every intention of going to pre-drink with them before we went out to the pub. I know you're not going to believe me, but we ended up making dinner, having a few drinks and........playing Trivial Pursuit! Honest. We just pulled random cards from the deck and spent a few hours asking each other the questions. I learned a lot, I'm such a geek.

We eventually made it out to the pub, and had a blast. Mark struck it with the locals and scored some whiskey, and we ended up getting sunk into one of those pub trivia games....I guess we were feeling bold from our newly acquired knowledge!

We were in a fairly remote and isolated part of the island, Kyleakin. There's something magical about Skye, and even though it was dark when we pulled in there was something that sparked in all of us. I had a rough idea of what we were doing the next day, but was pretty happy to just be surprised and let Skye unfold in front of me.

---

Photos

Photo 1
The first stop on the tour was Dunkeld. There's a beautiful ruined kirk that we couldn't get into, but Mark and I were pretty happy to go for a short walk.

Photo 6
Sarah the tree-hugger.

Photo 11
The Ruthven Barracks, lunch stop and first glimpse of the beginnings of the highlands!

Photo 13
Aw.

Photo 17
We passed through my favourite, Pitlochry and made our way up to the Tomatin Brewery, just south of Inverness. We were able to sample their 12 year old single malt. I loved it! Had a super sweet finish on it, which was different than any I'd tried. Definetly a purchase for my flask now the days are shorter and colder!

Photo 18
That's right, we swam in Loch Ness. Brrr. The worst part wasn't the temperature of the water, it was the fact that you were running over huge wet stones (NO sand/gravel at all) and couldn't keep your balance. More than one of us cut their feet open. How proud were we though.

Photo 19
The waves we bravely conquered. There was no hesitation from either Mark or I when Graham asked "So who's going in the water?".

Photo 2
First night in Skye, watching the Frenchies dance it up at the pub.

Comments

[Colleena]

New Character
With Mark here it's like adding a new character to a show you're watching...don't worry your ratings are great! It's so fun to see you two together...especially all wet and cold in bathing suits! ;o) Careful tho, Mark...looks like Schaazy's a tree hugger...has she been wearing berkenstocks???