Isle of Skye

First trip on Skye was to the Talisker whisky distillery! The distillery isn’t in Talisker but in the neighbouring village of Carbost. We had a look around the small visitor centre before going into the shop where Phil bought a wee bottle to try later. We then drove over the glen into Talisker itself where we’d seen a small beach marked on the map. Parking up at the end of the road, the beach is a mile walk away, on the way we passed lots of people heading the other way, this meant when we got there we had the place to ourselves. Talisker Bay is a lovely spot with the beach hugged by high cliffs, one of which has a waterfall falling straight into the sea.

The next day was bright and sunny, so we did some boring jobs like laundry and Phil gave his bike a clean with the mobi wash (a 12v pressure washer we won in a competition – it’s brilliant!). In the afternoon we went for a wander round Portree, the ‘capital’ of Skye. It’s a lovely, pretty little town with lots of busy shops and hotels. The town hugs the hillside and at the bottom of the hill is a lovely little harbour with a line of multicoloured buildings that looked fantastic in the summer sun. We popped into the only bike shop in Skye, a tiny shop with more fishing gear than bike gear, and Phil bought an extortionately priced tin of degreaser! We drove a bit further down the road back to the Aros centre, which is mainly a shop and a café, but there is also a sea eagle exhibition, a gallery and a lovely little theatre/cinema which we sneaked into and had a sit in the comfy seats in the dark!
We drove back around to North West Skye to Waternish where Stella McCartney is rumoured to be looking to buy a 30 acre estate. The Skye Skyns tannery in Waternish is one of only 3 remaining tanneries in Britain, and Linda went in and had a lovely chat to the girl working in there. Not necessarily about the leathers and sheepskin rugs they had on offer, but more about our trip and her story of being made redundant and coming to Sky for a 2 week holiday only to end up staying for 20 years! After this we drove down to the Stein Inn, the oldest Inn on Skye. We got the dogs out and Prince got wet in the sea while we found a bench at the front of the pub and had a pint. That evening we went for an Indian in Portree, not recommended, expensive and not that good!

The next morning a couple from Dundee arrived next to us who are touring around for a little while and heading over to Lewis tomorrow, we were booked on the same ferry! We wanted to see north Skye today, so first we headed to Uig, there was a ferry on it’s way in so we walked out onto the rocky beach to have lunch and watch it sail in. Unfortunately Linda broke her tooth on the incredibly hard butties we were eating, and after feeling faint had to lie down while the ferry sailed past.. From there we headed North up to Flora Macdonald’s memorial, who saved Bonnie Prince Charlie from certain death after the battle of Culloden by hiding him on Skye before he sailed for France. A bit further round we passed the ruin of Duntulm Castle, and got out for a walk further on where there is a viewpoint of the castle ruin from a distance. Where we parked there was a film crew filming some crazy dude on a bike riding over a red telephone box with the aid of a ramp made of peat, very entertaining! We stopped again on the way around at a viewpoint over the Sound of Raasay, which also had a great view of the Old Man of Storr, a freestanding column of rock at the end of the Storr Cliffs. Back at the van we had a drink sat outside chatting to our new neighbours, Nigel and Anne, before it got a bit too cool and we headed in.

The next morning Phil took the dogs up to The Old Man of Storr. There is a walk which rises steeply from the road and goes up to the Old Man before heading back down. The car park was quite busy, and we passed about 4 sets of people on the way up. Luckily when we got to the Old Man there was no-one about and we managed to enjoy the views in peace before making our way back down. We took the dodgy route down, very steep with lots of loose rocks, but once on the main path it became like a motorway, passing loads of people and constantly saying “hello!”. While Phil was out Linda went on her bike into Portree, downhill all the way with the wind in her hair going “Weeeeeeee!”, meant uphill all the way back, and not enough gears on the bike! We packed up the ‘van (and left the awning, unicycle, oven and Linda’s bike at the site, as we’ll be back here after visiting the Hebrides) before heading off for Uig for the ferry. It was a big ferry and driving on was easy-peasy, Nigel and Anne were on the ferry too so after we had a look around we joined them for a drink in the lounge and passed the journey chatting, this meant the journey went so quick we were sad to wave them bye!