Landscapes, Landscapes, Landscapes
It was a bathtub that brought us to the Isle of Skye. Seriously.
A few years ago a friend was showing me pictures from their trip to Scotland and I was captivated by one of her son in the bath with a picture window overlooking a vast wild landscape of mountain and meadow and sheep and endless sky and the North Atlantic Ocean and isles beyond what already seemed like land’s end. It was a place I had to visit. And so I booked The Old Croft House in the Trotternish Peninsula in the north-east corner of the Isle of Skye, Scotland’s second largest Isle with a permanent population of just 10,000.
But first we had to get there. Leaving Edinburgh we rented a car, actually a largish SUV big enough for a family of 5 with 5 suitcases and 5 backpacks travelling for 5 months. We knew not to expect North American style roads but it was an adjustment. Narrow roads, no shoulders, curbs and hedgerows saw us kissing the edges from time to time. While there was no damage to the body of our vehicle those poor hubcaps sure took a beating. Each day one of us got the role of curb police.
Just before we crossed the bridge to Skye we stopped at the Eilean Donan Castle ( eilean means island) which is one of the most photographed and iconic castles in Scotland. ( It had a starring role in the Bond film The World is Not Enough) Perched on an islet at the confluence of three lochs it dates back to the 14th century. Unlike the fairy tale castles of the Rhine river ( or of Walt Disney) these castles with their massive stone walls were meant for one thing - repelling the enemy. This one was originally built to defend against the Vikings and ultimately destroyed in battle against the Jacobite ( Catholic) rebellion in the early 1700s. It sat in ruins for 200 years until it was purchased and restored by the McCrae family whose stewardship of the Castle had dated back to the 16th century. In Flanders Fields, the poem by noted Canadian John McCrae adorns a war memorial on the property honouring men of the McCrae Clan who died in the First World War.
After we crossed the bridge to Skye a we encountered a new challenge we hadn’t anticipated: the single track road. That’s a road with only a single lane but meant for two way traffic. Huh? First encountering such a road on the west coast near the town of Uig I was a little terrified not knowing how to maneuver such a challenge. My first instinct was to double back and head to the east coast of Skye adding over 30 kms to our journey. So that’s exactly what I did and you can guess what happened. There are single track roads on the other side too and there’s only the one road. .There is however a protocol and an etiquette that once learned diminishes the stress levels. Every few hundred metres there are “ passing places” , small half circles that allow you just enough room to pull over to let oncoming traffic through or the parade of cars that have accumulated behind you because of your “ cautious” driving to pass. And always a thank-you wave when someone has stopped to let you through.
So on and on we went and some time later after passing some quite stunning geological formations, crossing the cattle grid and heading up the rather bumpy track we reached our destination. A stunning cottage with massive picture windows with a powerful mounted binocular to view the wild landscapes, the passing freighters on the North Atlantic and other assorted flora and fauna, two wood burning stoves, an infrared sauna and a well-equipped kitchen. Dinner and a show! The cost of food generally (and restaurants in particular) in Great Britain is quite “dear” as they say especially for a family of five and combined with a rather lengthy white-knuckle drive to the nearest restaurant made us happily eat most of our meals at home. Although there is a Michelin starred restaurant in the town of Portree about 45 minutes away.
Despite the rain that lasted for the majority of our stay we set out the next morning for the Fairy Pools, described as crystal clear blue pools on the River Brittle fed by a series of waterfalls. ( Think of this as waking up in Toronto on a 12 degree day in the pounding rain and thinking, let’s get in the car and drive for two hours for a hike along the Bruce Trail and oh yes let’s take the baby and our other 4 children under the age of 5). The Scots love it , the Bulls a little less so - we’ve never been so wet and the fairy pools aren’t so blue and crystal clear in the rain and mist. They say there is no bad weather in Scotland only inappropriate clothing choices. I was sure my new $200 Eddie Bauer shell was waterproof.
We stopped by The Oyster Shed after our hike, another find from Somebody Feed Phil. It is exactly what the name implies except they now sell more than just oysters ready to takeaway or sit at one of the few picnic tables. We ate our feast of fish and scallops and chips, smoked fish soup and crab claws in the car. We took home the oysters to have with champagne at dinner along with some lovely local cheeses we picked up along the way.
We spent the rest of our time closer to home taking walks through the raw landscapes, occasionally stymied by the need to ford the many streams made deeper by the summer’s record rainfalls and our lack of 5 sturdy pair of Wellington boots. At Mia’s urging we attempted to befriend the myriad of sheep we met along the way. There are over 7 million sheep in Scotland and I think we met most of them. Luckily for the sheep their numbers only decreased by one during our stay as a result of our culinary adventures.
I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that throughout our trip to Skye ( and the rest of Scotland) we drank not even a wee dram of Scotch whisky. Although we are not whisky drinkers it’s not that we weren’t open to such an opportunity but thought it would be best done through a distillery tour in order to fully appreciate the experience. However, ( and I’m going to sound like a really old person here) travelling is not as simple as it used to be when you could just show up instead of booking weeks and weeks ahead on the internet. If we’d been staying another three weeks in Skye we could have scored ourselves a tour.
After three nights in Skye it was time for these city mice to head back to their urban habitat.
