Fall Scottish Trip, Part 4

Luib Waterfall, Isle of Skye

Isle of Skye. The last post had us on the Isle of Skye and that’s where we pick up the story. On our first full day on the island we planned to expore the peninsulas of Duirinish and Waternish. Our first objective was Neist Point Lighthouse, the most easterly point on the island. 

Neist Point

To get to the lighthouse we drove about twenty miles of single-track roads, battling sheep the whole way. The last five miles of road narrows even more and there are fewer pullouts or passing places. I ended up backing up three times and had others back up a couple to get out to the parking area for the lighthouse. 

From there it is a three-quarter of a mile path down to the base of a small peninsula and then back up and finally down to the lighthouse. The lighthouse, like Buchan Ness where we had stayed a couple of days before, has converted the keeper’s cottages to self-catering. The wind, always strong here, was mild for the point—only 25-35 mph. 

Neist Point Lighthouse

Brave or Foolish Sheep

I hiked down to the point where I could view the lighthouse and then back while Anne huddled in the car out of the weather.

Portree Harbour

The Car. Next on our agenda was lunch at the Stein Inn, the oldest pub on Skye. Just as we approach the finally turnoff to the pub, the car started acting funny—actually, there was no humor in it—when I would brake the car would lurch and clunk and the same thing happened with each turn of the steering wheel. We were miles of single-track road from the main highway and about 25 miles from our B&B in Portree. I got the car turned around and nursed it back to Portree at 30 mph with flashers on. I didn’t dare pull off to let traffic by because I never knew when the steering would go completely out. Back in Portree I called our rental company, Arnold Clark, and they said they’d send a repair truck out in an hour or two to evaluate. The repair guy arrived in about 45 minutes, listened to my story, drove the car in the B&B parking lot, and said, “Wow!” We took the car to his shop (about 3 blocks away) and he put it up on the rack. The diagnosis was that front suspension bushings had fallen off and we were lucky to get back to Portree. 

Our Broken Car on the Tow truck

Arnold Clark told him and us to tow the car to Inverness in the morning (a three hour trip one way) and we’d receive a new car which we could drive back to Skye. There goes our second full day on Skye.

The next morning at 8:00AM we climbed into the cab of the tow truck with our car strapped to the truck bed and headed to Inverness. 

It felt like we were being tailgated the whole way.

The tow driver was good, but he was used to being thrown around in the truck on the narrow road—we weren’t. It was a rough ride. When we talked with the dealer in Inverness, he said this problem happens often with the Peugeot 3008 and they should all be recalled. 

Our new rental -- only the color was different.

He then gave us our new rental, another Peugeot 3008.  We transferred our remaining stuff to the new car and took off to salvage our time on Skye. 

The Storr

Meal Falls

Sligachan and the Red Cuillins

Our last day on the Isle of Skye was almost a total washout, heavy rain most of the day.

On the Way East

Aviemore. We left Skye and drove across the north part of the country to Tain and Dornoch. 

Dornoch Cathedral

Grotesques -- Like Gargoyles without the Spout

Pagan Greenman

After golf at Dornoch we took the opportunity to walk around the cathedral in Dornoch, but the sky shows we got the two nights we were in Tain were real highlights. The first night as we drove out to the Tarbat Ness Lighthouse we saw a spectacular rain squall with rainbow on the North Sea. 

The next night when we drove out of Tain to a local village pub a few miles away, the sky was on fire with a gorgeous sunset as intense as I’ve ever seen.

The next day we started our week of timeshare in Aviemore in the Cairngorm Nat’l Park. We had planned to play golf if the weather this late in the season would cooperate. Luck was with us and we had good rounds at Grantown-on-Spey GC 

Grantown-0n-Spey GC

and at Moray New in Lossiemouth

Moray New GC

NATO jets fly directly over the course.

The jets are LOUD!

—both excellent courses that we enjoy. Our non-golf time was spent continuing to look for fall colours. We were especially successful at Loch an Eilein Castle and the area around Aviemore. 

The road into Loch an Eilein

Loch an Eilein Castle

Old Scotch Pine

The End of the Trip. Finished with our Highland adventures, we ventured back to Crieff and Edinburgh to get ready to come home. We still had some chances for stunning photos in our last few days 

Rumbling Bridge Falls

Sma'Glen

and then enjoyed an afternoon in the capitol city. The trip had been the latest we’d ever been in Scotland and yet we only got rained out of golf once and had to change plans only a couple of other days. 

Veteran's Day Memorial in Princess Gardens

Sitting outside with a cider first week in November. Not too bad!

We had had the most trouble with a rental car of any of our trips, but even that made a good story. Looking back on what we did with this late 2700 mile trip in Scotland and the fantastic photos we brought home, it’s easy to say the trip was huge success.

Strathearn

NEXT: Rest and Happy Holidays.

Scotland Spring 2016, #2

I’ve finally put down my camera and my golf clubs long enough to put together a post for the travel blog, telling you and showing you a little about our trip.  Before we headed north up the A9 from our home base in Crieff, Merlindale B&B, we did have a chance to grab another of the World’s Best (so say the ads) Bacon Roll at the Horn Restaurant between Perth and Dundee.  I don’t dispute the claim since I’ve certainly had no better or bigger bacon roll (a staple of Scotland’s golfing community).  

Thus adequately fortified we trundled north.

After a night in Dornoch serenaded by the massed pipe bands [see the last blog post], 

The Pipe Major of one of the bands.

Anne and I started the day’s drive to Durness in the far northwest corner of the mainland by driving west along Loch Fleet where while stopping for a  brief look at the ruins of Skelbo Castle,

Skelbo Castle

we spotted a sea lion basking in an unusual position.  

From Loch Fleet the road to Durness goes through Lairg, the village with a world class loo [details in one of my posts of an earlier trip].  We didn’t need to stop at this loo, been there/done that, 

but we did stop to grab some shots of three wild goats just lounging by the side of the road.  

From Lairg it’s 38 miles of single track road to Laxford Bridge.  Driving on single track roads is an acquired taste.  

Typical Highland single-track road.

The narrow road has passing places every quarter mile or so and is not too difficult to drive once you get the hang of stopping or passing appropriately.  

Along Loch Shin

The passing places, though, gives you some great places to pull off for photos even though you’re really not supposed to.  The countryside in this section of Scotland, referred to mostly simply as the Highlands, is very stark yet beautiful.  

Views along River Laxford

Hills of heather and rock are dotted with lochs and lochans (small lochs) and burns or rivers.  There are very few trees left and the land is home to a few crofts (small farms) and sheep—in the spring there are lambs all over.  

At Laxford Bridge we turned north for nineteen miles of mostly single track road to get to Durness.  At this point we were ready for lunch and a real break from the driving.  The trouble is there are no villages between Lairg and Durness large enough for even a pub.  We turned off the main road for a six mile trek to Kinlochbervie, 

once a thriving seaport village.  We discovered that Kinlochbervie is fairly quiet now, but in the hamlet/burg/spot-in-the-road called Inshegra an old school had been converted into a tea room called (duh!) Old School.  We split a delicious fresh crab sandwich and recharged our batteries with lovely lattes.  

Loch na Thull

Back on the single track to Durness the landscape got even more dramatic with loch and lochans coming right up to the road and backing up to massive (for Scotland) mountains.  

This was the slowest part of the trip because of all the photos stops.

When we arrived in Durness the first thing we did was drive the couple of miles west of town to Durness GC, one of our favorites and a truly spectacular, isolated nine hole track.  Much more about the course will come in a post devoted to the golf of the trip.  

Balnaseil Beach with Seaweed Eating Cows

When we pulled into the course’s parking area we saw a herd of black cows meandering the pristine Balnakeil Beach.  We later found out that the cows come down to the beach to eat a certain type of seaweed when there are especially low tides.  After golf and before we checked in at Glengolly B&B, we stopped at a beach parking area to watch a fantastic sky show as heavy winds created beautiful patterns in the clouds.  

It’s times like these that I am so thankful for digital cameras—I couldn’t have packed enough film to capture what nature provided.

That evening we ate at the Oasis Pub at Sango Sands a little east of the village.  

Then we drove back to Balnakeil Beach for a second sky show.  This one featured a rainbow and beach reflections.  

       

       

       It was a glorious day!  It ended with torrential rains pushed by 40-50 mph winds hitting the town just as we tucked in to bed at the B&B.  I was already looking forward to the morning’s porridge—a special of Martin Mackay’s—Scottish oats porridge topped with burnt sugar and single malt whisky.  

Oyster Catcher in flight

NOTE: I’m going to be entering shows with some of the photos from this trip and selling them at Highland Games and would like some feedback on which ones are your favorites.  Pick two or three and let me know which ones you’d chose.