We woke up to a sunny, gorgeous day on the Isle of Skye - from what we understand this is pretty rare.
After breakfast we walked down to the tourist office to get a ferry schedule, and discovered the times were not ideal. We were going to have to spend a good portion of the middle of 2 days just sitting around on ferries if we decided to go out to Lewis & Harris, plus they were pretty expensive, too. Since it looked like we were having good weather and there was plenty of see elsewhere, we decided to stay on Skye for the day and then drive to the mainland in the evening. We were both a little bummed about missing Lewis & Harris (for me, mainly because the Callanish Standing Stones are there), but as the trip went on we knew we'd made the right choice.
Skye is small, but the roads are narrow and there is a lot to see. We set out by driving north along the coast, stopping to hike to the Old Man of Storr. Ben thought this was going to be a wimpy tourist hike, but it was not. It was one mile of up, up, up. The weather was a little dicey on the first part of the hike, but it cleared up by the time we were out of the forested part. The forests were very, very dark in Scotland - kind of scary.
That big rock is the Old Man of Storr.
The views from up there were amazing, and it had cleared enough that we could easily see the ocean below.
There were sheep everywhere in the Highlands! I got a little out of control with photographing them. We wanted to pet them but didn't know if they would try to bite us.
On this hike we learned that anything that looked like flat grassy fields was actually swampy, sometimes with inches of standing water below the plants. Fortunately I had my trusty Frye Veronica boots, so my feet were good to go.
Tons of sheep wandered the roadside. I don't know how the farmers can possibly keep track of their animals.
We spent the rest of the morning driving the perimeter of northern Skye, occasionally getting out to take pictures.
Ben went down to try to pet a sheep here, but when he got close they would suddenly look up and stare at him and he got freaked out and came back. This happened to us two or three times during the trip. We didn't know if they were friendly enough to really interact with and didn't have the courage to risk it.
This road is pretty typical of the ones we drove on in the rural highlands. It looks kind of normal-sized in this picture, but rest assured, it was not. They're really the equivalent of one-lane country gravel roads in the U.S., except paved and with sheep wandering everywhere. It was so funny to me that these were considered just regular roads, on the map with a route number and everything. Fortunately there was never very much traffic in the highlands, so it never felt dangerous.
We stopped for lunch in Uig, and had a really excellent veggie burger at a place overlooking the ferry we would have taken if we'd gone to Lewis & Harris. I was neglectful and did not take pictures.
The southern part of Skye is dominated by rugged and sharp mountains called the Cuillen Hills, and the landscape was frankly sort of creepy. Very barren and desolate. At one point we were driving along and I said to Ben, "I'm getting kind of freaked out." It was scary! It seemed like Mordor from the Lord of the Rings. We stopped to walk for a little bit, but it was getting into late afternoon and we were going to try to make good time on the mainland toward our next destination, so we didn't linger too long.
All of the signs in the highlands were first in Gaelic and then English. Once we got back into the southern part of the highlands I noticed British flags once in a while, but while we were up north we only ever saw the Scottish flag. It really is a much, much different place than England.
We ended up driving all the way to Ullapool, in the northwest Highlands. The ferry from the Islands comes in here, so it has grown into a relatively big town (er, 1050 people). We were able to get a room at The Old Surgery, a B&B that came highly recommended in the Lonely Planet guide. This room was great - very roomy, with a balcony overlooking the bay.
It was just around the corner from the main drag through town, so we set off to try to find dinner. After our experience in Portree, and given that we saw pretty close to zero pedestrians anywhere in Ullapool, I was a little concerned that we would have to eat fish again. The first restaurant we came to was the Ceilidh Place, and there was a sticker on the door saying they'd won some kind of vegetarian dining award. Hm!
The Ceilidh place turned out to be awesome. I got grilled halloumi with chickpeas, broad beans, sun-dried tomatoes, and asparagus - I can't think of a better vegetarian dish I have had anywhere, ever. Ben got the "goat cheese lattice", which turned out to be pastry filled with goat cheese and potato with a carrot chutney & salad greens. It was amazing.
We went to bed in Ullapool with no set plans for the following day. We knew we wanted to do some hiking at some point and also drive to the extreme northwest coast, only about 70 miles away, but the forecast was looking pretty grim.
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