The Return IV: Isle of Skye

I'm back, once again. Getting closer to being caught up on my European adventures!

The last weekend of Mike's visit, we took a weekend trip to Isle of Skye (click on the link or here to learn more about Isle of Skye). Isle of Skye is one of Scotland's islands. They're all pretty far north, but Isle of Skye is quite popular since it's the closest to the mainland. We took a long long LONG train ride to Kyle of Lochalsh, the last mainland town before crossing the bridge to Isle of Skye. The train ride is gorgeous!

We brought crosswords to do on the train because we're nerds like that.

Then Mike got bored and decided to draw...

"The Greatest Boxing Match EVER. Man vs. Dino. Sponsored by Jurassic Park"

Views from the train. Looks like Saskatchewan...

English on top, Gaelic translation under it.

View from the train...

FINALLY wildlife that isn't sheep or horses or cows!

But we did see some highlander cows. SO CUTE.

We were in Kyle of Lochalsh for about an hour and a half. Took one picture. That bridge way in the distance is the bridge that connects mainland Scotland (the land mass on the right side) to Isle of Skye (the land mass on the left hand side).

We then took a bus from Kyle of Lochalsh, over the bridge and then to Portree. Portree is one of the biggest towns on Isle of Skye, which isn't saying much. The bus ride was an hour of pure nausea. If you know me, you know I can NOT handle twisty roads. Yuck. Anyways, we got to Portree, checked into our hostel (AWESOME hostel by the way) and then checked out some of the town.

Thought this was quite entertaining.
That night consisted of us playing poker, with cookies as chips, and 31, with grapes as lives. We also listened to/eavesdropped on this obnoxious American, which we cleverly nicknamed "Captain America". He was trying SO HARD to impress this one girl. He would say phrases such as "yeah, if I don't feel like I could run up a mountain, I'm not in shape. I need to feel as though I can easily complete a triathalon." Douchebag galore.

The next morning, we took a hike around the harbor. We came across a little waterfall and climbed it.

After climbing the waterfall, we started to head along the coast.

This should need no explanation at this point.

So pretty.

The trail went by a sheep farm, marked off by this hand built stone fence.
SHEEP!
We were hiking up this hill, when all of the sudden a rogue sheep appeared from the trees! It kind of stared at us for a minute, then kept heading down the hill, back into the farm land.
I got kind of excited about all the sheep.

Once we finished the hike, we went down to the harbor/beach on the edge of the town.

Panoramic from the harbor.

Fun colored rowboats.

Black sand??

All the stereotypical shots of Portree have these colored houses.

We quickly grabbed lunch and headed to another trail. This one was about a half hour outside of Portree and through a forrest.

Apparently I like taking pictures of tress in a row...

Playing with f/stop numbers.

Mighty hiker Mike

Portree, coming back from the hike.

After a long day of hiking, we headed back to the hostel and went out for a nice dinner. Oh yeah, this was our hostel room, which we shared with two other people:

The next morning was really rainy and windy. We took it easy, since we were leaving that day.

We stumbled across a farmers market in the town square. Yummy wraps and sausages were had (me-wrap, mike-sausage).
Then Mike got attacked by the welcome eagle!
The Gaelic word for Welcome. It's EVERYWHERE.

We didn't really hike hardcore that day since we were carrying all of our stuff. This was Mike's stuffed backpack, complete with 2 water bottles, his other pair of shoes, and a towel on the outside.
More scenery.
We found this old tower up on hill. Not sure what it's purpose was. Maybe to spot ships as they came into the harbor?

Panoramic I took on top of the tower.

We went cliff exploring.

We then took the bus back to Kyle of Lochalsh (I had purchased UK's version of Gravol by then thank God), hopped on the train and were back in Glasgow around midnight on Monday.

Final impressions of Isle of Skye: beautiful place, great hikes, and looks a bit like B.C.!

Next on my blog: a few pictures from my afternoon trip to Glasgow Necropolis, a Victorian cemetery by my flat (click on on the link or here to learn about Glasgow Necropolis).

Until next time!

The Return III: Edinburgh...Take Two

Hello!

I finished my last essay of the semester today (YAY!) so I thought I would do a little blogging since I've been neglecting it.

My next trip after London was a day trip to Edinburgh with Mike. We took the train in the morning and first stopped at Edinburgh castle. I had been there before so it was mainly a trip for Mike. It was most of the same stuff, except he wanted to see the war museum, which I didn't see last time. After the castle, we stopped in a pub for a bit to eat and HAGGIS. This was the first (and last) time Mike had haggis in Scotland. He was not a fan.

First bites of haggis

After lunch we went to Holyrood Palace. This was a pretty cool place. It seemed like an actual palace. The inside was all decorated and set up like the family was still living there (couldn't take pictures inside). We didn't want to spend £15 on an audio guide, so we don't know much about the history of the palace. But it was pretty.

Exterior of Holyrood Palace

Mike guarding the palace. You know, in case of an invasion.

The courtyard.

There were ruins of an abbey attached to the palace

Another exterior

Fun with panoramic pictures. This made up of 4 or 5 pictures. I just turned in a circle and Mike wanted to be twins that day I guess.

From the palace, we took a bus to an area in Edinburgh called Leiths. My dad had seen a documentary on it and said it looked like a nice place. It was a kind of rundown but cool section of town. A little canal ran right through the middle of it.

Mike made a friend on the boardwalk.

We came across this dock area. Not quite sure what that large orange boat is. Whaling boat? I don't know. I only know B.C. Ferry boats and tug boats.

We were pretty tired from the walking, so we took the train home and made some Kraft Dinner that my mom had sent with Mike. YUM!

That's all for tonight! My brain is kind of mush from my ridiculous essay for my ridiculous class (Tourist Behavior). I'll blog tomorrow about our weekend in Isle of Skye!