Trotternish Loop

I think it’s Thursday. Could be wrong. Pretty sure it's still June, but it doesnt feel like it here in Scotland. We spent last night in Portree, which is kinda the “main” city out on the Trotternish Loop on Isle of Skye. We ate a breakfast of instant oatmeal (known locally as porridge), grabbed a couple fruits, and hit the road on the Trotternish Loop, going clockwise. The road is really just 1 lane for most of it with a “wide spot”, aka “passing zone” about every 200 yards. If you encounter someone headed the opposite direction, the two of you figure out the easiest way to pass each other. I’m doubtful Americans could deal with this uncertainty, but Scotsman do it without concern, and after a while, this becomes very easy to manage, without a horn or a finger being involved. SO FAR. Our first stop on the Loop was Fairy Glen – a series of small hills, believed to have been made by fairys. Very cool area with an easy to follow path through, around, over them. TONS of sheep in the area, so we got lots of pics of them too. Beautiful views of distant waterfalls, etc. Lots of people all doing the same mild hike, but everyone was nice.

on our way to teh Skye Museum of Life we encountered a manmade cave of sorts that was estimated at 2000 years old. It wasnt huge, but was a cool, unexpected find.

After that, we hit the Skye Museum of Life, which was conveniently adjacent to a coo farm, and one of the hairy steer coos was nice enough to stand next to the fence and let you scratch him till your arm started hurting from it.

They had a bunch of old buildings still in working order to show off all the major functions of not-modern-life. This included a blacksmith setup, milking station, living quarters, workshop, etc, including lots of local history. One of the locals was involved in helping Bonnie Prince Charles escape the area after the battle of Colloden.

This briefly put her in jail, and made her a local legend of sorts. Irene McGlathery would have been proud of her. :) Her grave was nearby and she EASILY had the largest headstone.

After that, we visited a castle ruin, Duntulum Castle, which also included a nearby hike, which ran about 1.5 miles out to the coast. Incredible views of basalt cliffs, and fields of heather, and tons more sheep. I’m not sure what the fences are for, because sheep exist on both sides of the fences, and in the middle of the road, often. Amanda would have loved todays hike.

After the hike, we drove into the big town of Staffin, which is the local hub of activity. We bought a jug of ice cream at one of the two stores, and had a great dinner – fish and chips for shane, cheeseburger for Dee. We’re staying in a camper (called a caravan in Scotland) that is rented out as an AirBnB, and we really like it. Its not much smaller (if at all) than most of the normal AirBnB’s we’ve been staying at. The owner, Annie came by and showed us all the camper features (and shortcomings), and showed us all the breakfast supplies – including eggs from 4 of her 49 own chickens. She also runs a herd of guinea fowl on site, which no doubt will serve as an alarm clock tomorrow. :)

the drive to Portree

We left Inverness this am and headed along the famed Loch Ness. First stop was at Urquhart Castle. This castle had existed since around the 11th century or maybe before, but was in fairly rough shape by 2024. It was very well presented, and was once a huge castle.

They explained how it had changed hands many many times in the Catholic-Protestant and the Scottish-English drama, and it was last maintained in the late 1600's. Following that, we kept heading west to Portree. Along the way we finally ran across a herd of "Highland Hairy Coos (cows)", so we had to stop and take 644 pictures of them.

More miles down the road we saw some entertaining signs.

Several indicated "sheep crossings", one identified a region known for "feral goats", and at least one sign warning there were in fact..... RED SQUIRRELS in the area. Maybe htey are rare or protected, or maybe they are in season right now??? I dont know, but we sure dont put up warning signs for tree rats in Texas.

other important signs include "GIVE WAY" - which means "Yield" in America. Then, we made it onto the Isle of Skye, which is pretty well what you've been shown in images of Scotland. Huge wide open hills, some rocks....., and completely covered with green grass, peat, bushes, and an occasional tree. Also saw a herd of red deer, which was pretty cool. they are apparently pretty common here, and must not be heavily hunted, cause they werent road-shy. After that, dinner at a pub in downtown Portree, and Deanna had her favorite meal of the trip thus far - Skink Soup. think potato soup with big chunks of smoked fish in it. Very good. As a bonus, Scotland was playing vs Swiss in the Eurocup and doing well, so the pub was jamming and everyone was having a good time.

cool castle, spooky rock formation

we spent a couple more hours in Pitlochery this morning, cause it reminds us a bit of Talkeetna. tons of neat little stores, but of course, all we actually bought was a double scoop ice cream. right outside town there's a hydroelectric dam and a fish ladder for atlantic salmon. we saw a few salmon jumping in the area downstream of the dam, near the ladder intake.

next stop was Blair (no relation) Atholl castle just outside of town.

Crazy cool display of rifles and swords in this very old castle thats in great shape and now used as a private tourist attraction. every hour they have a young lady go out front and bust out ~4 or 5 songs on the bagpipes. really neat place, and beautifully maintained. After Blair Atholl, we had a pretty long drive up to Inverness, which is famous for a couple things: Loch Ness Monster, the Battle of Culloden, and the Clava Cairnes. We stopped at Culloden on the way in, and saw the battle ground where the English put down a major Highland rebellion in 1746.

This event was made more famous recently by the Series "Outlander" - a show that had a little more "man-rape" in the plot than I really thought necessary, and I have to believe the men that died on this battlefield would agree with me - especially those named Fraser......

After that we had a very so-so dinner at a local pub, and then headed to Clava Cairnes, which are a series of rock formations believed to be about 4000 years old.

they are huge rock rings, and there are several of them.

The general thinking is that these were burial grounds of sorts, and I'm here to tell you - they are spooky as all getout. I've not seen something quite like this before. While there, I looked across the road and noticed a young stag red deer, but we didnt get great pictures of it. He was probably 300 yards away on a hillside. Still really cool to see. We will continue our search for Nessy tomorrow. didnt spot her today. Longer drive yet planned for tomorrow on our way up to Portree, which is as far north as we'll go on this trip.

a lotta history

if yesterday was walking walking walking, then today was roustabouts roustabouts roustabouts. and all of them..... left handed. we rented a Toyota Corolla today that is BRAND NEW from HErtz, and they let me drive it off the lot without asking important questions like....... "ever driven on the wrong side of the road, mr White?".

all kidding aside, I did fine, other than the roustabouts. they pretty well dont make stop signs in Scotland, or at least, dont use them. nope, just make a big circle and a free for all in the middle, wish everyone luck - thats a roustabout. I missed my targeted turn 4 (four) times today, which put us on the wrong path. other things we saw, included tons of really cool Scottish history. our first step after renting the car was Dumferline. We stumbled onto an abbey that turned out to house the remains of Robert the Bruce.

that thing was pretty cool, and it was also the birthplace of many previous Scottish/english kings, including Charles I, which was the guy who pretty well declared war on protestants in the early 1600's, running my kinfolk out of the country.

After that, we had a steak pie and lentil soup for lunch. After that, we were off to Culross (pronounced coo-ris), which was a small village next to the ocean that also had a cool old Abbey.

This one had the remains of yet another Blair family member in it, no clue how, or if we're related.

After Culross, we headed to Stirling and had the my favorite event of the trip thus far. the William Wallace Monument is high on a hill overlooking his famous battle victory at Stirling.

based on shape and orientation, it should have been called Phallus Memorial. very manly. I had no clue this monument existed, but it was mentioned to me by David Peterson, a fellow in our Life Group, and it was awesome. the monument stands about 170' tall and is climbable from the the inside via a spiral staircase of ~284 steps. On the 1st of 4 "floors" is William Wallaces actual sword! that thing is about 6' long and looks crazy heavy. Must have been one helluva man.

in the parking lot, there was a van with a "make love not war" sticker on it. the irony of this sticker at William Wallaces monument was not lost on me. I guess Europe has hippies too.

After Stirling, we passed thru PErth in a rush to get to Pitlochery, which was a really need little town. after checking in, we headed downtown only to be greated with a bagpipe & drum parade of sorts, which they do every Monday night.

dinner was a comparatively boring pizza, but still plenty good. our room doesnt have a fridge, so I'm storing the lefovers outside on the roof to keep it "Cool"

walking walking and more walking

I discovered what Jetlag is, I think. Jetlag is flying to a faraway land, waking up at 12:45am - thinking you're ready for the day; then going back to sleep, waking up at 8am and feeling tired. after that..... Deanna took me on a tour of a castle, and an observation of not-castles. we went and toured Edinburgh Castle.

it was a cool facility with lots of neat stuff to see, largely including a history of Scotlands participation in all the wars they could possibly participate in. Wars with France, Spain, Ireland, World Wars, and wars with England since forever. really neat tour, and worth the 3 hours we burned there. following the castle tour, we did a walking visit of a bunch of not-castles.

this not-castle is a TK Max. not a TJ Max- thats different.

this not castle is an apartment complex, I think, though I could be wrong.

this not castle is a monument to Sir Walter Scott, either that, or a fancy Jack-in-the-Box.

this not castle may be the PArthenon, or Parlament, or something, but in Scotland, it might be a simple library.

I dont have any recollection of what this thing is, but I know my feet were hurting by the time I was looking at it. we also visited about 100 different places where you can buy trinkets, nick-nacks, or a kilt, depending on what your interest holds. no major purchases to report yet. we did visit a fine whiskey shoppe, and I bought a 700 ml of Tomatin single malt scotch, which is simply delicious. it and a cute blonde will be keeping me company for the next couple weeks. Its really weird to routinely look at a building and hear "this was built in 1500" - you know..... about 500 years ago- so this building is about twice as old as America. we are not the same.

gittin 'ere

Man child unit #1 hauled us to the airport, and British Airways got us to London Heathrow without incident. Easily the biggest plane (an Aerbus A380, which actually has 2 levels of seating) I've ever ridden in. Hauls tons of folks, good food, and no complaints. 2 free handles of wine with your meal! :)

couple hour layover at Heathrow, then a short flight to Edinburg on a smaller, more normal jet. Once in Edinburg, a brief bus ride on the left side of the road to our AirBnb. Dropped off our gear and headed out for a jetlaggy walk around town. We are near lots of shops and a huge park and a big castle. the wierd part is..... it's kinda tough to tell which building is "the" castle, cause most building architecture is stone and kinda "castley". I'm pretty sure it's this one though. this building sits on a hill about half a mile south of our lodging, and is adjacent to a huge park.

We're doign a castle tour at 10am tomorrow, so we'll know soon enough if thats it. the park also includes an old cemetary, and I ran across a possible relative.....

Following the park walk, we moseyed around a bunch of small shops, and had dinner. Dee had a steak pie and I had a softshell crab sammich. Good stuff.

and somewhere, in the distance, the Aggies beat Florida in the first round of the College World Series. :) Whoop!

SCOTLAND Lads!

that's right. "freedom!" from the TX heat. we're expecting daily high/lows of 60/44F while there. "my people" or at least one line of my people..... were originally Scottish. I actually have proof that they once fought along side William Wallace, who probably looked nothing like this guy....

Deanna and I leave tomorrow for a trip to the motherland. our trip agenda has us hitting: 1. Edinburg 2. Pitlochery 3. Inverness 4. Portree 5. Staffin 6. Port William 7. Oban 8. Tobermory 9. Glasgow 10. Ayr, which is where "my people" once called home - stay tuned here I'm hoping to get actual relevant photos taken in front of the "family castle", although it was far less castley when "we" left it in 1625 and headed to Ireland, before heading to the USA in 1860. 11. Edinburg 12. back to TX the wife really planned out the trip, so if it's no fun, I'm blaming her, but the agenda looks very packed and very fun. I intend to enjoy this time together, and return home with a 3rd kilt for the closet. I'm not sure how well we'll maintain the blog once there, and it'll drive the kids crazy to see how much fun we're having without them, but they have responsibilities (Physics II, full time internships, etc) to take care of. :) See yall soon. Wheels up tomorrow.