Skye Trip

 I did a thing.

October break rolled around just before Halloween meaning that I had no classes and a country to myself. At first, it was a little rough finding something to do but then my wonderful flatmate Lexie offered to drive from her place to the isle of Skye. And after booking hostels and finding a route, we set off on our little adventure.

My adventure started on Saturday the 21st. I woke up early to catch the train into the Highlands to a wonderful little city called Inverness. It was pretty cool, was pretty chill. The train trip was about three hours long, was super misty and I was prepared to have a stormy trip because well... Storm Babbet had passed through and was making its way east. I was scared the train wouldn't even run but luckily it did. I stayed the night with Lexie's family so we could get up early and take off. She had so many routes planned, honestly thankful for her because she knew what was actually worth seeing and what was not.

Sunday morning we left. the first thing we went to was Loch Ness. Yup, the one with the little sea creature in it? Yup, I did not see anything that looked like it would take my head off. We didn't actually go down to the water, just drove by it but it was beautiful and actually a lot bigger than I had initially thought it would be. Kinda reminded me of some of the lakes in BC if I'm being honest. Actually, a lot of Scotland kinda looks like BC, kinda crazy the resemblance but then the highlands took me out of this world. That was something truly amazing. They are super beautiful, nothing like the Rockies but Lexie told me that they were once volcanos which made a whole lot of sense. It's amazing. And what else is amazing is this little castle called Eilean Donan. It was built on a little island and you have to walk this tiny bridge to get out to it, which made the whole experience so much better because it felt like you were walking in the steps of people who had long since been dead. Which was also true. The castle itself has only been rebuilt since the 1930s, however, it was still cool to think about what it looked like so many centuries ago. Lexie then took me somewhere deep into the hills before Skye. It was one of those places that I never would have found if she had not taken me there. It's a little place called Plockton and to get there, you had to take a one-carriageway road. That is currently my least favourite thing about being here. I would panic if I had to drive down one of those. Anyhow, this little place was so quiet. Not a single sound was made by the birds or by the sea. The buildings were stunning alabaster white and it was so beautiful. Completely worth it and I do recommend it. There's nothing there to do though, absolutely nothing, but it's worth the detour for the view. Then we ran into some feral goats, had a good laugh and kept going. We made the journey across the Skye Bridge and to Skye. Through this place called Sligachan where once again, the hills took my breath away. Lexie was a homie, every time I wanted to take a picture she would slow the car down if she could. Stunning. We ate in Portree, a harbour town, with colourful buildings and lots of live music. After dark, we made our way to the Cowshed hostel. This place was so nice and so pretty but there was no warning to the actual death trap that we had to go through to get there. Now, the car we were driving was... operational. But that's it. It could not handle the 180 turn up a super steep hill on a single-car road! Lexie freaked out, put the pedal to the metal and then we laughed about almost dying. Great times. We played Uno and other card games and went to bed, super excited for the next day.

Woke up early got out of the hostel and was welcomed with a stunningly beautiful morning. No rain yet, though I expected it would be coming. The first thing we did was head to the Fairy Glenn, it's this little nook, tucked away close to the Cowshed Hostel. Honestly, it was shaping up to be such a beautiful day, the sun was rising over the hills, the air was warm, and I was shocked! This was not what I had expected and the Fairy Glenn was so pretty. It was mostly a calm, scenic place to visit. Some markings decorated the ground and we got to climb some of the smaller hills located around. Nothing too fancy, but that was what made it so pretty. The next place was... Remarkable. To get there, we took a winding road to what felt like 'above skye'. We had stayed near the ocean the night before but to drive to the Quiraing we had to go up. It was a one-car carriageway for most of the way, most decorated with white fluffy spots in the distance, sheep of course. The Quiraing appeared very suddenly. From the distance, it was this tiny little crack in the hillside but as we got closer, I saw its incredible size of it. I took pictures and I could not stop smiling. It turned out to be a gap in the hillside and it was a hike so we grabbed our stuff and started on our way. Walking between the hills was breathtaking, for some of the walk, it was pretty much an impossible hill to your left and a death fall to your right. As well as we had to climb the fence of death which pretty much is actually as it sounds. Gripping onto this fence, hurling ourselves up the hill in order to get to one of the overlooking spots, we ended up going the wrong way, accidentally following a cow trail and instead of going up, we went down into the valley. We turned around, headed back, grabbed a burger for breakfast and made plans for the rest of the day. We ended up going someplace called Kilt Rock. It's a rock. Surprise surprise. No, it was actually a cliffside out to the ocean with a waterfall, snapped a few shots and called it a day. By this point, my legs were killing me. However, the best was yet to come. The true highlight of the trip was Old Man of Storr. There are stories to go along with this hike but I could not do them justice here. Old Man of Storr is like a sharp knife pointing out of Skye. It's a massive rock that was once attached to the mountainside and well, now it isn't. Now it's one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my entire life. Stunning. Made everything worth it. The weather was stunning, the sun was bright and we climbed all the way to the top to get a good look at the rock. It was massive. Pictures don't do it justice but there is one where you can see some people standing next to it. Took my breath away completely. That was the last thing we did, from there we went to our Hostel in Portree, checked in and ended up playing more card games that night. Instead this time it was a trivia game and it felt like we spent 10 hours just trying to get one question right. Met some nicer people here, a little bit more chatty and went to bed. One day left.

On the last day, we woke up later. Thought we deserved to sleep in and honestly, we did. We drove around to the other side of Skye and tried to get down to a beach but it didn't work (still beautiful landscape) we went to a distillery there and looked around. They were booked up for the day so couldn't do a tour but it was still nice. We needed something to see though. Most things in the morning had been a bust so we were searching. Lexie had told me a lot about the Fairy pools, saying how they didn't live up to the pictures on Instagram, I had kinda thought that originally so we tried to do others but with nothing left to see, we decided to just go. Lexie was right though, they were slightly underwhelming but I think the walk to them is still worth it. The Glenn itself was what made the Fairy Pools pretty. we were so deep into the hills and it, once again, was so pretty. Lexie baptized me. I feel like an official Scots now. Horrah. The water was so nice too. It wasn't swimming but was nice to just soak your hands in and such. Lovely glacier water. Still so nice. We ended up staying the night at our last hostel at a place where Lexie's mom used to work. Best food there. It was amazing. The Old Inn. And of course, we ended our night with more cards. Up early the next day for the drive back.

In our room that night we had another man with us. Nice gentleman but he warned us before that he snored. Well, that was not the case at all. The man did everything under the sun except whistle in his sleep. He spoke, coughed, hacked a lung, and snored. Lovely. Thankfully technology was there and I shoved some earphones in and slept peacefully. It was just a lovely old time. But we got in exactly when we needed to and got out of the town perfectly on schedule. We took a different way home, and that was when the rain caught up to us. I couldn't believe it though. Spent 3 days on Skye with not a single drop of rain. I secretly think it was because the day before we left, I got shat on by a bird so that meant good luck. And it sure worked. Lexie dropped me off at the train station and I was off back to Stirling. Easy fricken peasy.

It was so cool seeing Stirling from the train, the Wallace monument being the literal pillar of home. Got even better, saw my favourite Taxi man, Richard, and he took me from my flat to the old jail at Stirling. I managed to get a job there and have been working weekends there. It was one of the reasons why we had to get back to Stirling so early today because I had an unexpected meeting. So not only did I see the most beautiful place in the country and not experience any rain, but I also managed to secure what I think to be the best job north of Edinburgh. It's been so much fun there. I get to work in escape rooms and next month I will start doing tours after some acting training. Nothing could have gone better.

Now, that's enough from me. I have 3 essays due at the start of December so hopefully I will get something else done or do another adventure but we will see. If not, it'll be shortly thereafter. Postcards will be sent out shortly too.

Enjoy some pictures :)

-Syd