snapshots from isle of skye, scotland.
made it to the isle of skye; the old man of storr in the distance.
after we left edinburgh, we drove north through the scottish highlands to get to the isle of skye! we really only had 4 days in scotland, so we did one day in edinburgh, drove one day to isle of skye, explored the isle for one day, then drove back to edinburgh to catch a plane to london.
portree
our base of operations in isle of skye was the town of portree. it had the cutest little harbor, with several restaurants and hotels. we stayed at an airbnb that was a 10 minute walk from the harbor and businesses, but was a better jumping off point for driving out to see the isles.
of course the one day we were going to be outside was the worst weather of the entire trip. it was cold, rainy and windy, but we set out anyway. since it was raining in the morning, we decided to drive past old man of storr as it’s a bit of a hike and attempt it later in the day.
driving past old man of storr.
kilt rock and mealt falls viewpoint
we decided to go to our furthest planned point away from portree and work our way back. the first stop was kilt rock and mealt falls. the wind was SO crazy here, it felt like the waterfall was defying gravity and flowing up.
it was really pretty, but impossible to capture properly, or even spend the time to really appreciate. the video below kind of shows how insane the wind was. the point where i’m backing up in the video was not voluntary, i was being PUSHED by the wind.
crazy winds.
lealt falls viewpoint
sheep at lealt falls.
our next stop was lealt falls, where it was still rainy but thankfully less windy. we still didn’t really venture far at all from the parking lot though, the small hike one could take down the cliffside just didn’t look very appealing or safe.
even with our water resistant clothing, we were pretty soaked through and cold. at this point, we kind of gave up. it was still just mid-morning, but we drove back to our airbnb to dry off and warm up until lunchtime. after that we had scheduled a tour of talisker distillery, but both of those are for another post.
highland cow.
after talisker, the weather did actually get better. while it stayed overcast and foggy, the rain and wind basically stopped, so we then ventured out to the fairy pools.
fairy pools
the natural pools and waterfalls formed by the river brittle are the loveliest shade of teal. i can only imagine how beautiful this area is during the spring when all the grasses are bright green.
old man of storr
after the fairy pools, we decided to finally stop by the old man of storr. the hike up was gorgeous, and the views looking back out over the sound to different scottish isles was breathtaking. unfortunately, the clouds were so low we couldn’t actually see the old man!
where we were able to see it from the road just driving past it earlier in the morning, even after hiking toward it for half an hour we saw NOTHING. we got to the point that we were right up in the clouds and basically right next to it but still couldn’t see it. we started heading back down just for safety reasons - the sun was setting and we couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of us. we tried waiting out the clouds a few times, but it wasn’t until we were quite a ways down that the rock formations started peeking through.
of course by the time we got back down to the car, we could see it perfectly. facepalm oh well, even though the weather really didn’t cooperate with us for our time in isle of skye, we’re still really glad we went and enjoyed our time there.
