A Day on Skye

Hello! As a continuation of my Skye journey I first need to explain something.  Now, I realize this is going to put a negative light on this post, so first let me say this.  The Isle of Skye is beautiful.  It is someplace that I would love to go back to and am very happy that I had the opportunity to see. But (you knew there was going to be a but didn't you?) the IFSA Edinburgh kids ruined parts of this trip for me.  I will go into why specifically throughout this post and the next one by telling you all kinds of fun stories about them, but it comes down to this; Edinburgh + Stirling = a bad situation.  The Edinburgh kids are really immature and just plain rude.  I really needed to explain that before going into my Saturday.  Trust me, it'll make sense.

So, I got up in the morning and had breakfast at the hotel.  This was relatively tame (there's a story regarding this tomorrow) besides the general pushiness of the Edinburgh Kids.  And we got on our buses to head to Armadale Castle. This castle used to be the castle of a clan chief of Skye.  Now, it's in ruins.  It was really pretty.

Here is the castle.

Now, the castle and the grounds are beautiful and probably very peaceful on most days.  EK (sorry, but I really don't want to write out Edinburgh Kids every time I refer to them) story number 1:  They are loud.  So, Katelin and I were walking around, enjoying the scenery and trying to avoid the EKs in general, when Katelin makes a comment about how destructive they can be.  As she makes this statement we hear a gang of them, followed by the noise of something breaking.  When we round the corner, there stands a clan of EKs surrounding an EK who is picking up a log and hitting it (baseball bat style) against a wooden pole until it breaks while his friends all laugh hysterically.  These are the kinds of shenanigans I dealt with all weekend.  But, we left them to do their destroying and continued walking around the gardens.  That's when I discovered the macro setting on my camera. (Which means I can get really close to things)

Like this.

I won't bore you with the rest of my macro pictures, but I was really excited about this.

After the castle, we got back on the bus and headed to Portree for a short stop to pick up lunch.  Here is bad planning on IFSA's part.  Four buses of kids pull up to a tiny grocery store.  Everyone runs to the tiny display of sandwiches.  Within 2 minutes of being there, there was an announcement made for "all cashiers to return to their registers".  That poor store was so overwhelmed and the sandwiches were gone within seconds of us arriving.  So, I ended up having a bad of salt and vinegar sticks and a bag a peanuts of lunch.  

Then, we had the options of taking a hike or a bus tour.  I choose the bus tour.  We switched tour guides (Andy led the hike) and this one was a little bit better.  He had better taste in music and he was really good at telling stories (except some of his stories ran really long).  But I liked him because he pretty much told us that he didn't expect us to get off the bus if we didn't want to.  I was happy that I wasn't expected to follow him everywhere.  But, this really where the trip took a turn for the worse for me.  First, the bus was full.  This wouldn't have really bothered me, except I was surrounded by EKs.  The Isle of Skye is known for having lots of myths about fairies and giants and stuff that make interesting stores.  Unfortunately for me, this is what I heard for pretty much the entire trip. 

EK 1: "Oh my god.  I despised Rome.  Milan was soooooo much better.  I just looooved Milan.  Rome was just so-so.  I mean, there was nothing special about it."  

EK 2: "Oh my god, you are sooooo right.  Rome sucked. I met this guy in Rome, and not to be vain of anything but she fell sooooo in love with me.  And I like totally broke his heart.  It was soooo tragic."

Ok, you get the idea.  It wasn't good.  But the things that we saw on the tour were. First, we went to Lealt Falls. 

It was situated up on a cliff, so the coast was really pretty.

Here are the falls.  It was an option to hike down to them...I didn't opt to do that.  I just admired them from above.

Then, we headed to Kilt Rock.  It's supposed to look like the back of a man's kilt.  

Kilt rock is the one in the back.

I really just like how pretty the coast was around Skye.

After Kilt Rock, we went to Duntulm Castle.  This was kind of an adventure because it was really windy.  This castle had a fun story.  The story goes that there were 2 clans on the Isle of Skye; the McClouds and the MacDonalds. Two of the kids fell in love and convinced their fathers that (who were clan chiefs of the rival clans) that getting married would bring peace to the island.  They agreed to this, but right before the wedding, the girl got into an accident where she got her eye stabbed out.  She went home to her soon-to-be husband and he rejected her.  Then there was a war between the clans called the War of the One Eyed Woman. 

I promise this is the last coastal picture.

Here's the castle. This is where the couple lived.

This was the last stop our tour.  After this, we head back to Portree to wonder around for a while. I was kind of irritated because we got to Portree late. So, we only had 15 minutes there and it was a really nice town.  

Here is harbor of Portree.

Then, we headed back to the hotel.  On the way we stopped at the Fairy River in Sligachan.  Legend has it that the fairies put their magic in this river and that anybody who puts their face in the water for 7 seconds exactly, will stay young forever as long as they stay on the Isle of Skye.

Here is the rive.

Here it is again.  It was really pretty.

So, it was cold out and I wasn't going to put my face in cold water.  But, lots of other people in the group did.  I personally think this story is just something the locals came up with to watch stupid tourist do this...

Katelin and I found it pretty amusing to watch all of the EKs laying face down in the water.  It was the only time they shut up the entire trip.

Then, we headed back to Kyleakin and the peace and quiet of our hotel.  We did have a great discovery on the bus tour.  Katelin and I (and all of the other Stirling kids) had private bathrooms.  Well, evidently most of the EKs didn't.  They had a shower, hostel style, down the hall.  We found this extremely amusing. I especially enjoyed this while relaxing in my bathtub.  

After dinner, the us Stirling Kids went for a walk.  Kyleakin had a cute little castle in it.

I really liked the castle.  It was just adorable.

Then, we continued our walk along the beach.

Here is Kyleakin.  It was a really a nice town.

At the end of the beach, we found some rocks where we could sit and watch the sunset.  We stayed for a long time, but ended up leaving when the could came in.

I just really liked this picture.  This is what I deemed "rays of heaven".