Hiking in Skye

It's a rainy Wednesday morning at the Isle of Skye. Sean and I just had a Scottish breakfast (the first one for me!) and made our plans for the day, but before we're heading out, let's fill you in on all we have done and seen yesterday. 

First let me tell you about the B&B we're staying in. It's the first and only B&B we stay at for more than one night, and luckily it's a very nice one again. It lays just outside the town of Portree, the biggest town of Skye but still not much more than a handful of cafes, restaurants and a couple of shops. The hosts Dolly and John are very sweet, they were both born and raised in the Isle of Skye and been married for 42 years. Our room is nice, very tidy and we've had our best sleep so far as it's also very quiet.

Yesterday morning we woke up fresh and full of energy. The weather promised to be good, a little rain in the morning and sunny towards the afternoon, so we decided to make the most use of it and do at least two big hikes. We decided to go for the most populair ones: The Old Man of Storr and the Quiraing. Dolly pointed out some viewpoints on the way as well and gave us a map of the Island, which was very handy.

The startpoint for the Old Man of Storr was only a ten minute drive from the B&B. We weren't the only ones with the idea of an early start, as the parking place was already quite packed. The hike was a climb towards a big rock formation named The Old Man of Storr. It was pretty tough, but we're getting in shape from all the hiking so we didn't have too much trouble. As we got closer to the top, we saw there were two ways to take: a very steep rock climb and a gradual path. Sean was up for a challenge and did the steep rock climb (which no one else seemed to do), and probably not to your surprise I took the easier path. The view from the top was great, especially when the sun started to peek out. Sean also found a good hiking stick at the top that he has used the rest of the day.

On the way down we caught a fighting Asian couple. The girl was yelling 'If I knew it was gonna be like this, I wouldn't have come!' It gave us quite the laugh as we were wondering what the girl did expect to do at one of the most remote places of Europe, where everybody goes to for outdoor activities. Poor guy, everybody seemed to love being here except for his girlfriend. We also ran into the very nice Austrian couple that are also staying at our B&B, and that we talked with each morning over breakfast.

Back on the road, we stopped at two waterfall viewpoints. They were impressive, but we're getting spoiled here with all the amazing nature, so I feel like we weren't as impressed as we would have been if it was our first day in Scotland. On our way to the second hike, we decided to grab a lunch and followed the signs 'Art Cafe' over a very narrow road. Not sure what to expect, it turned out to be a great choice. The cafe was situated in the living room of a regular house. There was a lot of art up from local artists, and everything was for sale. We had an excellent potato leek soup with homemade bread.

The second hike of the day was the Quiraing, a spectacular circular walk with lots of sheep, goats and amazing views in every direction. The beginning was fairly easy, but at a certain point we got to a big climb. The ground was muddy and as we had already done an intense long and gradual climb in the morning my energy and motivation level went down. Luckily Sean handles my complaining moods very well, kept our spirits up and thanks to his positivity we made it to the top once again. The path downhill turned out to be challenging as well due to the muddy path. That combined with being a bit afraid of heights and afraid to fall, it was quite a challenge for me. Sean literally had to give me a helping hand every now and then, and I was glad to have made it down safe. We planned on maybe doing another hike, but to our surprise it was already five and we were getting hungry. The weather had completely turned around and the long sunny drive around the Island back to the B&B was beautiful. 

After a shower we walked to town for dinner. We were lucky to be just in time for a seat at this restaurant called The Granary, as right after we sat down people were turned back because it was full. The portions were huge and the food was great. We did a little walk around town afterwards, saw a Scottish bagpipe band, but the mosquitos were bugging us so we went inside a pub for some drinks and lost a couple of pounds on a gambling machine. As the door of the B&B would close at 11 pm, we headed back in time, but found ourselves locked out at 10.45.... Luckily John was still up and let us in, Dolly thought we were already home as our car was in the parking lot haha. 

It was a great day, we'll put the pictures up later as we would like to see another castle and maybe do a distillery tour today.