Tuesday and Wednesday (25-26 June) were spent exploring the Isle of Skye. Skye has been another place on our bucket list as we have seen pictures of how beautiful it is and it certainly didn’t disappoint.

It has amazing mountains and valleys, with inlets seemingly around every corner. Crofters houses dot the landscape, tucked into the side of a hill or sitting right on the waters edge. The roads are often narrow, one lane with passing bays every 50 metres or so. Sheep are pretty common along the way, with no fences so you not only have to watch our for cars coming the other way, the sheep also pose a hazard. They also have deer apparently but we only saw a dead one! Sadly we drove past a car where a lady had obviously had one jump out at her – the whole front of her car was crushed and to the side of the road we saw the dead deer. Thankfully we didn’t even see a live one, let alone have to avoid one.

Two places that were highlights for us on Skye were some cliffs known as Kilt Rock as the formations are said to resemble a kilt. It was very windy on the edge of the cliff and hard to get great photos without leaning too far over the railing……

The other place was Neist Point Lighthouse where the walk down to it was the actual highlight, once more with steep cliffs. It was a beautiful calm morning, not a breath of wind and it was so quiet (very few tourists had emerged yet) we could hear birds flapping on the water below us…. magic! And as we walked back at one spot we watched some locals fishing off rocks, far below us, for mackerel. They were getting a few too.

Wednesday finished on another high, of sorts. We drove from Skye to Fort William, a stopping off point along the way to Glasgow. It is a 30 minute drive from Fort William to Glenfinnan which is the location of a very famous train viaduct. It is the one used in the Harry Potter movies. We arrived about 6.30pm and the guy in the tourist shop said that a steam train was due to go over the viaduct at 7.45 so if we climbed to a viewing point we should be able to get some good photos. He was right about the view, not the train. It was a diesel, but hey, we still managed to see a train crossing the viaduct, which most people probably don’t. Still a high point!!

All in all, Skye has been our High, so far of the trip. Words and our feeble attempt at photography just cannot do it justice. People really do have to come and see it for themselves.