Full Day Tour of Skye

---

This morning we were up and organised early. Brekkie at our B&B didn’t start until 8am and our bus was picking us up at 8.20, so we downstairs and ready when brekkie started. I had scrambled eggs with Skye smoked salmon - really thick and so rich in flavour! Fiona, our hostess, said that the salmon is smoked down near Armadale where our ferry came in last night.

Natalie, our bus driver/guide, told us stories of fairies and giants as she drove us around Skye this morning, taking us to Fairy Pools and waterfalls and pointing out sleeping giants (The Old Man of Storr) in the geographical features around us. She also showed us heather and the beautiful scenery looking back to the mainland at the Quiraing. We saw the red Cuillin Mountains, and the black Cuillin Mountains, made from red and black granite respectively. The mountains were formed by volcanic action and shaped by the ice. We also saw Kilt Rock, the area where dinosaur tracks were discovered in 1982, and a beautiful waterfall that falls over a cliff into the sea. Natalie took us to a beach made of black sand, washed down from the Black Cuillins, and across the road there was a paddock of sheep grazing with geese!

Lunch was in Portree - Natalie recommended The Oyster Bar which does lobster tail in a cheese sauce on top of chips! We though it sounded interesting but found they’d already closed for the season! So we used google maps and found our way down to the Lower Deck Resataurant that Jess and Pete recommended from 3 years ago! They had a sign outside for patrons to make a line to wait for a table. We were really lucky because there was a table for two immediately available (other people were told quite decidedly to wait outside). We ordered a bowl of soup to share, called Cullen Skink, which was absolutely marvellous (I shall google the recipe once I’m home), and then I had some scampi (it’s been a looooong loooong time), and Tom had fish and chips (that means we can just have snacks for dinner).

We had noticed a sign pointing to the Talisker distillery and although it wasn’t on our itinerary, when asked by the nice Canadian man Natalie took us there. Quite a few of us bought some wee bottles. Our next stop was a brewery where we bought a bottle of local beer each and also visited the pottery shop next door (where I might have bought a wee highland coo).

it was about 7.30pm when Natalie dropped us off at our B&B, and we were glad to retire to our room with our beer, snacks and whisky!

---