The Isle of Skye
We had heard wonderful and amazing things about the Isle of Skye. It turned out to be as beautiful and scenic as we expected, but it also gave us a big kick in the pants.
Heathers.
The cute little pub where we ate lunch with the locals.
This beautiful sight is not just on the path, it is the path.
Every once in a while, there would be a clearing with a great view.
Only the trails were not well marked and we ended up on one with the highest difficulty rating. Combine that with even more recent rain than is typical in one of the wettest climates for some tough slogging. Heather’s verbal protests chased away the Fey and after I led her through one too many bogs, she bailed and started bushwhacking down the hill.
The idea was to go straight down the hill to reach the easy trail that we entered on. Of course such a plan is not so easy on the Isle of Skye, and we may not have fully appreciated the beauty of our surroundings as we trampled around streams, bogs, and rock formations.
Dan surveys our surroundings from the throne of the Fey.
We had gone so far on the difficult trail that we overshot the easy trail and ended up on the beach.
We walked along the rocky shores looking for landmarks we had seen before. It’s quite a feeling to know that there are no other people in the surrounding 10 miles and you are even further from cell phone or Internet reception.
No sign of human habitation.
As the sun was getting low in the sky, we saw the rocky outcropping that made the beach path impassible.
We climbed up a cliff and bushwhacked through the wooded fields. We finally reached a clearing that was near the end of the easy trail.
The sun came back out and we made our way back to the trailhead. Heather rejoices upon reaching our vehicle.
The sights looked even prettier when we knew that we made it safely back.
The remains of a crofters house. After the failed Jacobite uprising of 1745, clan chiefs were forbidden to have their own armies, so they had less of a need for the large tenantry which was previously a military asset. Industrialization increased the demand for raw materials such as wool, and local nobles started kicking out the tenant farmers (crofters) and started raising sheep. The forcible evictions of the Highland Clearances led to massive immigration to North America and left rural regions largely uninhabited as they remain today.
More of the coast and islands
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