Speed bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing
Onward the sailors cry
Carry the lad that’s born to be king
Over the sea to Skye…
Though the waves leap, soft will ye sleep
Ocean’s a royal bed
Rocked in the deep, Flora will keep
Watch by your weary head
We weren’t escaping like Bonnie Prince Charlie, as the brave men of 1746 fell at Culloden behind us of course, but we were fortunate enough to see many birds on the wing and sea, as bonnie yacht Zoonie glided down Loch Carron and across the smooth ‘sea’ to Skye. Flocks of twenty or so guillemots turned their heads from side to side, keeping a cautionary eye on us as they paddled away, and a pair of puffins plopped underwater; I imagined their submerged flight keeping an eye on Zoonie’s hull from beneath.
The black fins of harbour porpoises gave away their secret as the working tug Gina Mary made her way ahead of us northwards to Groatay.
Skye’s peaks pricked holes in the low cloud rising slowly upwards on a cushion of heat from the land, and we recalled the series of SAS Who Dares Wins where the contestants struggled with their challenges on Raasay Island to our right.
A double ended ferry linked the two islands and wartime buildings lay silent, indestructible and temporary homes to sheltering sheep.
So carefully focussing on our entry into Portree sound, I nearly missed the leaping, splashing pod of common dolphins.
Ashore after lunch, Rosie in the I-Centre confirmed the bus times we had worked out to take us around the north of Skye with a drop off at The Old Man of Storr for a healthy hike. She also let slip that the harbour master’s office would be a good place to arrange collection of a 12-volt charger for my laptop, since our little inverter has joined the rail workers and gone on strike.
Then, a first for this year; we sat in the warm sun, outside The West Highlands Bar, in Somerled Square, sipping beer and watching the world and her passengers go by. The sitting and watching being the firsts, not the beer!
The Old Man had his head in the clouds the next morning, but the low-level views over the lochs, Raasay Island and on to the mainland coast were uplifting. The free-standing pinnacle, 55 metres tall, has broken away from the rest of the Jurassic range and legend has it, the area is the burial place of the giant Old Man of Storr and the rock is an upturned appendage. I leave it to you to decide whether it’s a thumb or something else pointing upward in the middle of the picture!
A pleasant interlude was spent with a couple from Madras who now live in Zurich, as we walked the well-trod path upwards. The boys walked on, heads down, chatting, while the lady and I tried to take a decent photo of a golden eagle atop a rocky pile in the distance. Even with my telephoto lens it was too far away to reproduce.
“How did you even see it?” My friend asked. “Look at the skyline of the mountains, there’s often something interesting up there, human, bird or animal.”
We made it to the ‘top’ of this particular route, another pinnacle behind and higher than the Old Man and gradually the clouds were lifting, so my photos show the transformation.
Back down at the bottom a mobile van provided a welcome coffee and flapjack which we ate, while sitting on top of what looked like a massive manhole cover, awaiting our 57A bus.
The Trotternish mountain range dominated the scenery in spectacular fashion, skirted by soft boggy ground interspersed with green fields and crofts, all looking smart and lived in, if only temporarily by visitors.
The misty blue Outer Hebrides that looked so close said to us “Come and visit in Zoonie, you know you want to; see you soon”. Yes, we’ll see, we are flexible and weather dependant.
At Uig, the sheltered bay with its ferry port lifeline to the Outer Hebrides was bathed in sunshine and looked a gorgeous place to live. I asked the bus driver how we get to the Fairy Glen and he said “Stay on board and I’ll drop you off at the stop.”
It was a long walk up a windy narrow road with no pavement, but there was a flat gulley at the side facing the traffic where we could step off as vehicles passed.
The Glen is a miniature, fairy scale, hilly area covered in well nibbled grass with easy short paths up to the many hilltops, known a fairy knowes. We could have put our ears to the grass to hear the fairies at work beneath, but declined as the sheep had been through quite recently. Two sea eagles watched over us as we explored, one being buzzed by a crow. I thought the fairy pools were here too, so as there was no water running over rocky drops to create mini waterfalls I thought it was due to the lack of rain. The Fairy Pools are in a different place entirely!
Back at the main road we had an hour before the next 57A would pass and there happened to be the Uig Hotel just a few paces away; so, guess what we did?
