Through the Mountains and over the Sea to Skye and Harris

Breakfast was delicious, with views out over the water to boot.  The non-vegetarian made the most of the opportunity to have a full Scottish breakfast, including Haggis and Black Pudding. Homemade bread, jam, Bircher muesli plus other delightful goodies were on offer, and gratefully consumed.

Stop at the Commando memorial as we leave the city.

Still a mornings drive and across the sea to Skye before we reach the ferry terminal and the boat to Harris and Lewis. A pleasant enough day today, with no rain at the moment and time to stop at various viewpoints along the way.  Funny how the road can seem fairly quiet and you think ‘oh this is good’ and then you arrive at a viewpoint and suddenly there are millions (a slight exaggeration perhaps) of cars and motorbikes there.  A stop at Eileen Donnan Castle.

Eric wonders where all the biscuits are kept since you see this castle on loads of shortbread biscuit tins. 

There are queues for the car park and queues for the toilet.  Was unsure at first if really had joined the 2m socially distanced masked-up toilet queue as, against what I would say are the usual odds, the men in the queue vastly outnumbered the ladies.  Lady on the door letting one in one out and taking your temperature before allowing you in through the door, and directing you to particular numbered toilet.  Having successfully negotiated that, it was time to hit the road again.  The Bridge to Skye is next up. Eric met some new friends at the viewpoint here too.

 A leisurely drive across Skye, taking in the sights and the local Co-op to pick up lunch options.  Coming into Portree there is a sneaky police camera van, hope I don’t get a ticket. Turning down a single-track road with passing places we pootle along looking at the scenery and hoping for a good picnic lunch view.

We pass The Old Man of Stoor towering above us on our LHS.

It says there’s a P with viewpoint in 450yds.  Around the bend and...there are no parking spaces left, with people parked on the verges and double yellow lines and generally in all sorts of places they shouldn’t be.  Decide the ‘The Old Man’ can do without anymore visitors today, particularly us, and we move on. 

Two more viewpoints that have proved too popular and we find a small stop with only one other car - but they had bagged the picnic table before we could get there - quite windy as well, so we picnicked in the car.  

The ferry terminal awaits - and inevitably another queue. Have to don the masks - good job Eric remembered his.  There’s room for about 80 cars on the ferry car deck. 

Eric met up with this sculpture - he was allowed to take his mask off as there was no Cowvid.

Time is ticking on and no sign of the ferry - remember we have an app on the phone to check the status of the boat. 

Oops - no wonder we can’t see the ferry. 

More waiting and eventually we see it coming in.  They call our queue in - park the car and they give us a little card - we are on the mezzanine level - basically tells us don’t bother coming back to your car until nearly everyone else has departed the boat.  Oh well, at least being one of the last off means the traffic should have eased a bit.  Everyone has a mask on and they direct us along a one way system to, in our case, the observation lounge, where we socially distanced from others.  Eric has abandoned us and stayed in the car to have a nap. He decided it would be a good joke to keep the phone, camera and iPad with him, so no pics from the boat then. 

We are able to see Gannet out at sea, diving for fish. One of us also decides to have a short nap, whilst the other spots some Shearwater and a wader of some sort flying very close to the water.  End up being the only one left standing at the windows of the observation deck. Good job some of us have staying power  as spotted a dolphin pod cavorting around in front of the boat. Woke the sleepy head up so they could see another four groups go by - and alerted half the rest of the passengers who then crowded around the windows.  The sun starts to set and produces an almost picture perfect scene of the mountains of Harris and Lewis in front of skies of pink and grey.  

Ferry unloads us last and we are now on our final one hour drive to the holiday accommodation. The road to Stornoway is good as long as you avoid the sheep sitting on the side. The South Lochs turn off looms. We gradually drive along narrower and narrower roads until we arrive at Marbhig about ten past ten at night, managing to avoid multiple attempted bunny suicides along the last two miles . 

The Welcome Pack