Day 8 - July 14

We were up and at our restaurant by 7:45 so we could start our day. We decided to start with the Fairy Pools which weren't very far from us. A quick drive and we were hiking to the pools. First though we had to douse ourselves with bug spray as the midges were out in full force! 



A steep downhill led us to the first of many waterfalls which all linked together and formed pools. Some of these pools were big enough for people to go swimming in and apparently it does happen but not at 8:30 in the morning and not in the pouring rain! Yup it was raining again. Sigh.

After that wet walk we drove to Dunvegan Castle. This is still the seat of clan MacLeod and the Chief splits his time between London and this castle. When he's not in residence then the castle is open to the public as it costs so much money to keep up. There was so much history to see here with lots of beautiful paintings and furniture.

We wandered down to where they were offering seal boat tours but it was soooo cold and windy that we couldn't bring ourselves to do it. Instead we walked through the grounds looking at all the different gardens.

After Dunvegan we made our way down a single track road (with many passing places) to the Coral Beach in Claigan. The beach is made from crushed white coral. On a sunny day the water would be a stunning blue. The white contrasts very starkly against the black volcanic rock that dots the beach. I wandered on the beach while Glen ventured higher to get a different view of the landscape. We headed back to the car and the rain started up again. The walk, though very windy, had been quite lovely. There were few people, the cattle were roaming around, a very old wall that went on and on for miles, and we were together. It was all nice.

 

Because the rain was not looking like it was going to give up, we decided to drove across the island to the other side and have dinner in Portree.

Along the way we saw a sign for sheep dog trials so we parked in a farmers field with several other cars and watched a couple of rounds of the dogs running the sheep through the course. It looked very cold out there but the dogs seemed to love what they were doing.

Another stop was at a lookout called Kilt Rock. This was a massive stone face which had formed from basalt columns and sits on a sandstone blasé and it formed vertical lines which look like pleats in a kilt. The other interesting thing about this area is that this is where dinosaurs once roamed.  At low tide, you can actually see the footprints of a family of dinosaurs that walked there 165 million years ago.  The Ornithopods walked on two legs and were herbivores. Cool!

 

We carried on and were able to stop at the side of the road and take a few photos of the Old Man of Storr. 





It would have been amazing to get closer to it and do the hike but the rain was a huge deterrent. In Portree we found the Isles Inn where I happily ate Fisherman's Pie and Glen had an Angus burger. All good!

Back to our inn to write things up and pack up for moving on tomorrow.