August 31, 2011: The Isle of Skye

All photos are mine and from previous trips, except where noted.  Thanks to Andrea and Mila for kindly sharing their pics with me!

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We left Plockton this morning, and headed to the nearby village of Stromeferry for a jaunt out on Loch Carron in a local fisherman's boat.  Neil the Fisherman fishes for shellfish and the occasional crab to sell locally.  Loch Carron is in fact a fjord, hence the salt-water critters.  In fact, up until earlier this year, there were two dolphins who lived in the loch near Stromeferry, and who would often come and swim with Neil's boat, but they've buggered off, much to my disappointment.  We rode around the loch and ate the scallops which Neil pulled out of the loch for us - some of them raw, some of them quickly fried up with butter and garlic.  He also pulled up an absolutely gorgeous blue lobster to show us, which he'd actually caught some time ago and couldn't decide what to do with.

After the boat ride, we drove a few miles down to the Kyle of Lochalsh and crossed the bridge over to the Isle of Skye.

Skye is absolutely full of folklore, and Danny told us the first of many stories here.  It concerns this tower, which can be seen after you drive off the bridge:

Once upon a time, a princess named Mary lived in this tower.  Mary lived alone, and passed the time by trying to get sailors going by on the Kyle of Lochalsh to stop and talk to her. None of them did. Having a lot of time on her hands, Mary strung a chain from her tower across to the mainland one day, and whenever a boat came, she winched up the chain and forced the sailors to pay a toll to get by. So the sailors had to stop and talk to her now, but they didn't like it. Mary soon found a way to make them like it: by collecting the tolls topless. After that, the newly christened Saucy Mary became the most popular woman on Skye. She's buried on top of a very tall mountain nearby:

Then we drove up to Sligachan, the gateway to the Cuillin Hills.  After dipping our faces in the faerie stream to make them eternally youthful, we walked a little way into the hills to hear the tale of Cúchulainn and Scáthach, which is my favorite story associated with Skye.  Scáthach was a giantess and a warrior woman who lived on the Isle of Skye. She protected the people of Skye, but harried them, too. Being the only giant around, she got lonely and bored, and when lonely and bored, got drunk and carried off the islanders' sheep and a hairy coos for dinner. Eventually the people of Skye got fed up with Scáthach and called over to Ireland for another giant, Cúchulainn, to come and kill her for them. Cúchulainn duly accepted and came to Skye, ostensibly to be trained in the martial arts by Scáthach. Train him she did, and the weeks and months passed. Eventually Cúchulainn had to make good on his agreement with the people of Skye. Walking with Scáthach one day, he fell slightly behind her and drew his sword. She turned and drew hers, and they fought for a week. After a week, Scáthach got distracted when some of the people on Skye, fearing that Cúchulainn might lose and that they would face Scáthach's wrath for bringing him here, led her horses and chariot to the edge of a cliff and tried to push them over. This distracted Scáthach just long enough for Cúchulainn to disarm and pin her, but then he looked into her eyes, and couldn't kill her. Scáthach in turn disarmed him and pinned him, demanding why he didn't kill her when he had the chance. Cúchulainn's response: "How could I destroy the one thing I have grown to love?" Cúchulainn and Scáthach lived quite happily for several months afterward, before Cúchulainn was called back to Ireland.

The Cuillin Hills:

The background image on this blog is also of the Cuillin Hills.

After lunch in Portree, the largest settlement on Skye, we drove up to the Trotternish Peninsula and the most amazing scenery on the island.  First up was the Old Man of Storr:

Photo by Mila Tikhonova

 

 

The story behind this odd rock formation is this:  Once upon a time, a human man rescued a brownie (pronounced "broo-nee," kind of the Scottish equivalent of a leprechaun) from under a pile of rocks. The brownie was so grateful to the man, that he spent the next couple of years showing up every few months and helping the man around his farm and whatnot, and even played at his wedding. After the wedding, the brownie had to leave for the faerie world for a few years. When he got back, he found that his human friend's wife had died a few months after the wedding, and the human friend himself died of a broken heart shortly after that. To memorialize his friend, the brownie decided to carve a statue of him looking out over his lands, with his wife sitting nearby, into the cliff. Brownies are long-lived, but they aren't immortal, and he only got so far before dying himself. The Old Man of Storr is the result. Of course, then the Vikings came along and went, "Hee hee, it looks like a boner." There's a stream that flows not too far away from the Old Man of Storr, and drinking from this stream is supposed to increase your libido.

Unfortunately, no one could pay much attention to this story at the time, because we were too busy swatting away midges.  You wouldn't think the little black specks would be too bothersome, but if you stand still for too long and they're able to accumulate around you, HOO BOY.

We stopped briefly at Kilt Rock, where there is an awesome waterfall, and occasionally mermaids...

...and finally wended our way up to the Quiraing.  We ended the day by hiking up through the Quiraing, which I had never done before, and which was GORGEOUS.  It had been kind of hazy all day, and the sun finally came out while we walked.

Photo by Andrea Henkel

I'm the one at the front, blinking:

Photo by Andrea Henkel

Behold, the heather!  It was absolutely everywhere on this trip.  Also, some scale for the landscape:

Photo by Mila Tikhonova

The sun came out as we passed this wee loch:

Photo by Mila Tikhonova

In all, it was about a 2-2.5 mile walk.  I was one of the people who chose the wrong fork and had to backtrack.  You can see it two photos up - we're the ones significantly higher up on the hillside than everyone else.  Whoops. 

After everyone finally arrived at the bus, we drove to our home for the evening in Flodigarry.  We had haggis, neeps, and tatties for dinner, and then the South Africans, Andrea, Laura, and I sat up late and drank an entire bottle of Glenlivet whisky.

Cheers, y'all.