Into the Highlands

We started today off by picking up our rental car from the Edinburgh Airport, the first time we’ve been in a car in 8 days despite all our traveling so far. Joel drove today as we figured out the joys of driving in Scotland. While we started out on bigger motorways when leaving Edinburgh, figuring out how to do traffic circles in reverse, getting used to the fact that making right turns are the ones where you cross on-coming traffic, and other things you do automatically while driving were a challenge.

The next challenge came once we started running into some narrower, windy, unmarked roads that were questionably wide enough for two vehicles yet you sometimes had a bus or truck coming the opposite direction. Roads got even narrower on the Isle of Skye itself as we wound our way to the northwest side of the island. The road would often be one car wide and there would be pull offs occasionally on one side or the other you would use to let the other person pass. Had to break habits from home and make sure to pull off if the area was to our left, or wait for the other person to pull off to their left if it was on the other side. There are also sheep (and lambs!) everywhere, as well as the occasional cows, though no fluffy highland cows yet! Including in the road, which added yet another obstacle to Joel’s driving experience today. Despite the challenges, the views were amazing and we were treated to one last sunny day here in the UK before the rain starts tomorrow.

The roads had so much of these yellow flowering bushes along the road we had to google it - they’re a wild weed called Gorse

Since check-in time for our hotel in Portree wasnt until 4pm we decided to head straight out to Neist Point Lighthouse while it was nice and sunny. It involved a few more stairs and steep paths then we expected but the views were beautiful and listening to the waves crashing against the rocks, watching the seagulls bobbing in the waves, and admiring the scenery was relaxing.

Standing about halfway through the walk to the lighthouse, this is looking back toward the beginning - we started at the top of that cliff where the little building is.

From slightly further along, looking forward to the rest of the walk we have left.

Watching some rain out in the distance

I had fun admiring these little weeds managing to grow on the rocks

Walking back to the path after exploring a bit

The many sheep with their lambs were so adorable I couldn’t resist taking a ton of pictures of them. On our drive to the hotel we had a couple get on the road and start walking down the road in front of us not caring about the car, even when we tried beeping the horn to get them to move. They got off the road on their own time eventually, but they were in no rush!

We finally made it to our hotel here in Portree, got checked in, grabbed some Chinese take-out for dinner, and then decided to enjoy some ice cream bars down by the bay to end the day.

The rain is supposed to start overnight. Not sure how much we’ll get or how heavy, fingers crossed for it to just end up being a few random showers so we can continue exploring the island before starting our journey back home this weekend.