Aug 15

First in line for the ferry. The weather was squally with some sunny patches amid the showers. It seemed to be brightening.

We got on the ferry and went to the lounge. Short ride, probably no more than 45 minutes. I was very surprised at how rough the passage was considering that we were making a crossing in an inner more protected waterway and not on the ocean. We were first off the ferry and found a place to park while all the other mad traffic came off.

The number and sizes of the Fuscias surprised my wife; I vaguely recall seeing some reddish plants.

One of the main reasons we actually went to Skye was the realization the day before that there’s not many roads out of Mallaig and we’d decided that we wanted to start moving towards Loch Ness and Inverness and didn’t really want to driver all the way back to Ft. William so we decided to go to Skye and take the bridge at Kyle of Lochalsh and then drive across. Please note that I didn’t say it was a particularly good decision but it was one made with deliberation.

I, being a whiskey drinker would have liked to visit some of the Skye distilleries but the weather was turning foul and unpleasant and we decided to skip that option and head for the bridge.

The bridge wasn’t as high as my wife feared so that wasn’t a traumatic experience. We headed down the A87. Just south of Dornie is Eilean Donan Castle. During breakfast at one of the B&Bs we stayed a couple related they had visited and found it to be interesting. We took a chance and stopped and did the tourist thing.

It was well worth our time and money. Lieutenant Colonel John MacRae-Gilstrap bought the island in 1911 and proceeded to restore the castle to its former glory. After 20 years of toil and labour the castle was re-opened in 1932 as a summer home for him and his family.

Now, a tourist attraction, the tour staff dress in traditional highland clothes and are very knowledgeable about the most mundane subjects. I totally enjoyed my visit and recommend that anyone touring western Scotland make time to visit.

Gas stations. How a first world country achieved as much as Britain with so few gas/petrol stations is a mystery to me.

After leaving Eilean Donan I noticed that my fuel was getting low. I planned to stop at the next (HA!) gas station and bite the bullet and pay 1.10 GBP per liter that I’d seen at most highland petrol station. The only problem was I coundn’t seem to find one. My high tech car was now informing me that I had 40 miles left before running out of gas. Although substituting the word “taunting” for inform would not be too much of an exageration.

Somewhere around Loch Cluanie I found a lodge/pub with petrol pumps although they were out of petrol. I asked a young lady at the bar where the nearest place I could find petrol and she told me Invergarry, 15 – 20 miles away.

To cut a long personally dramatic story short we finally made it, with lots of coasting, to Invergarry with an indicated 17 miles left before we ran out of gas.

We pressed on to Inverness where I began the sad old search for accomodations finally getting a room for two nights at the Glasdair House.

It was okay, we spent the first night in a ground floor family room (happy to have it) and the upstairs neighbors walked around, a lot, possibly packing for their departure the next morning. The room had no soap other than what I took to be a hand soap dispenser on the sink. Maybe it was one of those European “body soap.” Regardless, we had our own and shampoo and made do.

Inverness is a fun city to walk around when the weather’s accomodating. My stomach had been less than settled and we walked to a small restaurant bar on the south bank of the Ness and decided that potatoe leek soup sounded nice to my stomach. It was, it was marvelous and peace was restored to my poor stomach. While I think it was the soup, the pint of ale was probably equally beneficial.

Aug 16

Laundy in Inverness. Small crowd laundromat. Lots of backpackers apparently don’t bother to wash their clothes until they get to Scotland; go figure. It was convenient to the B&B and only consumed two hours of our lives, small price to pay for clean undies.

Drove to Castle Urquhart. The last time I remember being here there was a muddy trail that didn’t take you all the way to the castle and it didn’t look safe. Today there’s a large car park, with some kind of underground walkway to the castle. I think I preferred the 1981 version. We tried two days to get into the parking lot and did both times but the throng was really much too much and we passed on the Castle.

We had a nice picnic lunch alongsde Loch Ness but Nessie failed to show. I even tried to coax her out with some Jaffa cakes EVERYBODY loves Jaffa cakes!! But still nothing. I left one there in case she got peckish near tea time.