The Isle of Skye: Part the First

Hairy Coo Sighting!

A really long time ago (college), I remember perusing a map of Scotland with a friend (because I like maps) and stumbling on a place called The Isle of Skye.  And I thought (and said outloud), "I have to go to there."  Except I didn't say it exactly like that because I wouldn't watch 30 Rock until I was in graduate school four years later, but you get my point.

And Paul was the guy who made it all possible.  It was pretty clear that spending three full days on Skye, the longest stretch of our trip, was all about me and checking off my particular dream.  And Skye is such a barren but also lush but also grey but also bright green but also remote but also homey...it's such a beautiful, strange, gorgeous rugged inspiring place.  We had a chance to maybe spend a day taking a ferry over to the Isle of Harris (because, I mean, come on), but Skye was so amazing, we couldn't justify it.  I passed of the Isle of Harris, people!  Can you imagine the pictures??  But the thing is that we got so many other, better, pictures on Skye.

The day we arrived, we drove up the west coast from Oban and over the small bridge on the island, which was pretty lucky.  It wasn't that long ago you had to take a ferry over.  And on our way, made a quick stop to see Eilean Donan, one of the most filmed/photographed castles in the world.  And it was no freaking joke.  In the middle of sound, surrounded by those highland moors and mountains.  Sheesh.  It was ridiculous.  This picture does not do it justice.  But it does start to capture the grey/green colors that we had been getting used to in the highlands and just explode on Skye.

As a side note, if you read "Skype" instead of "Skye" it's because every time I try to type it, that's what comes out.  The Isle of Skype.  Yep.

We took our time driving through about half of the island on our way to our bed and breakfast, which was essentially just a room in a little family's home (which was pretty cool but also made us introvert types feel super intrusive at the same time).  On the way we got our first up-close Hairy Coo sightings and the Black Cuillin mountain range.  The Black Cuillins are just amazing - razor sharp peaks, black against the sky...of Skye.  Sorry, that just happened.

It was a long day of driving, but we were really excited to be there.  Though, to be fair, it was also a little sad since it was our last big place to visit in Scotland.  But we were going to milk it for whatever we could.

Because it was Scotland.  And because we were on Skye.


(Okay, small addendum.  None of our pictures of Skye really do it justice because we aren't professionals, have a 10+ year old point and shoot camera, and were too busy staring to take pictures all the time.  So I'm just going to leave this link here and you can see what kind of landscape I'm talking about here.)