Sheep's Kingdom

Last weekend, three of my flatmates and I rented a car and drove to the Isle of Skye. The scary thing about being here so long and now going on my second road trip is that I am starting to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road! It no longer uncanny that I sit in the driver's seat and don't drive.

Moving on.

Along the way we stopped at Eioleen Dunan Castle and it was a nice, beautiful evening unlike the last time we went on our 6 day road trip. But before we arrived at this castle, we stopped at a more magical site. A site where so many infamous scenes were filmed. The Glenfinnan Viaduct a.k.a the Harry Potter Bridge!!! We were able to walk right up to the bridge even. Try not to become too jealous, but we also ate our lunch within 15 yards of the viaduct!!

From far away

Eating lunch next to the viaduct! :)

We made it to Portree that night and got up early the next morning to make the most of our limited daylight. The sun sets around 4:30 and is dark by 5. (This is the one familiar thing about home that I do NOT miss). We saw Kilt Rock which has a pretty neat waterfall and the highlight of the day, and I might say trip, was Old Man of Storr. There is nothing particularly special about this rock other than it's ginormous and stands apart from the other ginormous rocks, but the view was breath-taking! It took us a little over an hour to climb up and about a half an hour to get down. This was all on the east side of the isle. On the west was Neist Point which is where the oldest lighthouse on the Isle of Skye is located.

Waterfall at Kilt Rock

View from Old Man of Storr

Old Man of Storr is on the left

The girls I traveled with :)

That night we spent in Kyleakin Backpackers. Even though it was 6 pm, we weren't hungry yet and the lounge/living room had a fireplace. We played a game or two of Jenga then 3 girls from Thailand and one from China (who also were studying in Scotland) asked me if I knew the rules for UNO. I said of course and we played 2 games with them. By this time it was 8, and we were ready to go eat, so we headed over to the towns only pub (I think) Saucy Mary's. When we walked, a guy who had poked his head into the lounge at the Backpackers said to try the haggis; it was the best that he'd had since being in Scotland. So I took his advice and tried it. I quite like it. It is slightly spicy but not hot spicy. It came with neets and tatties. Not sure what the neets are but tatties are potatoes. While we were sitting there, the same guy gestured to us asking if we wanted to join him and his friends. We had nothing else to do, so we joined and made some new friends: Bjorn from Germany and Pascal from Switzerland!!

Haggis. Yum :)

I should maybe mention why I titled this post what I did. While we were driving around the isle, we had to constantly slow down for the sheep that were in the road. Sometimes a sheep would start walking down the road in the direction we wanted to go and we could nothing but follow slowly. After about the 20th time slowing down, and that is not an exaggeration, Anouk, our driver for the weekend, exlaimed, "Wow! This really is the sheep's kingdom."

Sheep rule the road

So, on Sunday we headed to Loch Ness and Inverness. We visited a couple other towns, but nothing worth telling. They were just your typical fisherman's village. We had again another beautiful day for traveling and wandering around despite my getting car sick. But seeing as there was no sighting of Nessie, I will not bore you with how nice the loch looked. There is a castle, however, on this loch and we spent about an hour and a half exploring the ruin and taking pictures.

Urquhart Castle and Loch Ness

We then drove to Inverness where the most important thing we did was eat at Pizza Express. It was our first meal since breakfast and it was evening time. We headed home, and I didn't have to worry about any car sickness because it was like being on the Interstate back home. However, unlike at home, there is not a gas station every 20-30 miles nor are they put in convenient locations such as the first town off the interstate instead of the second. We were filling up with petrol when we looked over at the other car and one of the guys looked familiar. Then Bjorn and Pascal walked out of the store! What a crazy random happenstance!! (Only a couple will understand this reference, but it sums up the experience the best).

And that was our trip to Isle of Skye and the Highlands.

Highland Cows