Isle of Skye, Scotland
Swathed by the Isle of Skye
The Isle of Skye is a place to behold. The weather leaves little to be desired but the landscape, wildlife and distilleries make up for it!
Scotland’s national flower, the beautiful thistle, is all over Scotland. Lovely to look at but I sure wouldn’t want to step on it without shoes. One wonders how a country goes about picking its national flower. I would have thought Scotland might have picked heather as it’s really everywhere, painting the hills and mountains purple in late summer/early fall (sadly we missed the full bloom by a few weeks). Alas, it seems the choice is rooted in a bit of lore mixed with a dose of symbolism. Legend has it that during a night raid by Norse invaders in 1263, the unsuspecting invaders tried to sneak across a field barefoot to surprise the Scots. One of them stepped on a prickly thistle and cried out in pain, alerting the Scottish defenders who quickly thwarted the attack. Another case of inappropriate footwear in Scotland but it cemented the notion of the thistle saving the nation. Symbolically, this humble weed, with its prickly spines, represents toughness, resilience, and protection — a small, modest plant that’s hard to crush, thriving in poor soils and harsh climates, much like the strong and resilient Scottish people.
The Isle of Skye is known as the Misty Isle…I can’t image why. The weather on arrival was stunning so we went straight to hike Old Man of Storr.
A super windy day for the climb but someone found the perfect shelter to settle in with a book.
The rocky pinnacle is Bodach an Stoir or the Old Man of Storr, standing about 50 metres high. At the right angle, the rock looks like the profile of an old man gazing out across the sea. Of course there’s some folklore. One legend says the Old Man is the thumb of a giant, buried in the earth after his death, still sticking up through the ground. Seriously? A thumb? That must be the children’s sanitized bedtime story version… Even more sanitized is the geologist’s version. The pinnacles we know as The Old Man of Storr and his neighbour, The Needle were part of a rockslide about 6,000 years ago and are part of the 19-mile Trotternish Ridge, the largest and most dramatic series of landslides in Britain. Lucky for the landscape, some of the slide landed upright and stayed that way.
The slides continue to this day. These boulders are the result of the last big one in 2004. I sure wouldn't want to have been there that day!
Is this what realtors call a peek-a-boo view?
The gusts of wind were so strong at times, I felt more comfortable sitting down! We tried to find out how strong the wind was that day but there's no weather station up at the top of Storr to measure. We took the wind speed in the town of Portree where we were staying (50km) and estimated that at the top of Old Man of Storr it was at least 80km. Note that I’m wearing appropriate footwear, although I’m not sure it really matters in the wind.
This is a really big place! For perspective, that’s me, bottom centre.
A moody evening sky in Portree. We were waiting in line to get into a fabulous seafood restaurant. Most of the people in front of us bailed so we got in pretty quickly and our mood improved!
A stunning sunrise early on our first morning on Skye. The sun’s morning stretch.
This is not just a pretty place; real work happens here. Our seafood dinner was fantastic last night and now I’m know it was really fresh!
The sheep here have some experience finding shelter when the rain threatens.
Screw it. I’m already wet and no amount of tucking close to a wall and snuggling with other wet sheep will make a difference. I’m heading to the pub!
Being in Scotland, the question is, what is the meaning of wee in this case?
So this is what they mean by Misty Isle… Such is a beautiful softness.
And then the mist gave way to torrential rain! Now we’re in for an indoor day…plenty to do indoors, as it turns out.
We drove clear across to the other side of Skye (actually, not that far) to visit Skye Weavers. What an awesome find! Husband and wife, Roger and Andrea weave tweeds, scarves, throws and blankets using traditional methods. Andrea does the designs and Roger weaves and gets his exercise at the same time. This is their first loom which is about 35 years old.
The scarf Roger is making (with a bit of our help!) has 1,320 threads which Andrea pulled pulled through, one by one, in about four hours. Once she has one basic pattern set up (like this one), Roger can tie 1,310 knots on the end of a finished scarf and keep on going with a new project on a new colour. That’s faster than pulling the threads through one by one.
Most of the wool they weave is imported merino (much softer than local) but they do buy about four tonnes of local wool every year which they grade themselves but then send to Yorkshire to be washed and spun.
The colours and patterns are inspired by Skye’s landscapes — the sea, moors, rocks, heather… Here, Andrea has taken a photo to inspire the colours of a project.
Another perfect rainy day activity is to visit a distillery! This is Seumas who, with his friend Séamus, started Broadford Distillery during Covid when everything shut down on Skye. Seumas was a bartender and Séamus is a musician. At a loss for what to do, and wanting to stay on Skye, they decided to make gin and bought a small still from Portugal in 2020. Three years later, their 57° Skye (using a ton of botanicals including local Seaweed) was crowned 2nd in the world in the International Wine and Spirit Competition. Pretty good for a pair of 20-somethings who were casting about for a Covid project! While we tend to think of whisky when we think of Scotland, there’s a lot of gin produced here. As they say here, you can distill gin on a Friday and sell it on Monday, scotch whisky has to be aged at least three years. That’s tough on cash flow. They are working on a whisky permit and plan to produce their own single malt whisky called Bonnie Prince Charlie (an ode to the Young Pretender who fled in the aftermath of Culloden) but in the meantime they are a licensed bottler of whisky, meaning they can mix and re-bottle other producers’ whisky.
Ok. Had to give this one a try. Tolerable but I would still take S&V over haggis anytime.
So, Steve ordered this haggis-loaded fries…Scottish poutine! Since the last haggis experience with the “bon bons” was pleasant, I thought I’d give it a try…
I’m not sure but when in Scotland…
Uh, it actually smells like liver…
One, two, three, go! Bravery at its finest.
Tastes like liver!!
We found this in a local cookbook. Much better option than the haggis. And a much better use of marshmallows than s’mores.
On our way back to Edinburgh to head home, we stopped in Inverness for a walk around the famous Loch Ness. We needed our shot at actually seeing Nessie. Stunning walk but no monster to be seen.
Maybe Nessie moved to a new loch?
I think Steve is trying to find a more direct route home.
A Heilan coo! Otherwise known as a Kyloe. We were so excited to see a little herd of them. I always thought of them looking just like this, probably because all I’ve ever seen are the cute stuffed ones in shops. It turns out they come in different colours: ginger, black, dun (a brownish-grey) and white, and are just as cute in person!
I think this fella is trying to convince Adam to set him free. Adam is very sympathetic to his cause. He would if he could…
These coos are tough! Not only do they have the best hair, they have an impressive set of horns. They need to protect those horns as they only get one set that grows from the day they are born until the day they die. Thanks to their thick coats, they are perfectly suited for the wind, rain and snow of the rugged north and west Highlands. They are the cow version of the Herdwick sheep!
Channeling our inner coo! Too bad Steve had a haircut before he left home…