West Highlands & Hebrides, Scotland Day 6 - Isle of Skye 3
On Day 6 we left home early without having breakfast. The first adventure of the day was the Quiraing walk. On our way there we glanced the Old Man of Storr from the car, one of the most famous landmarks in Skye. A rocky hill called the Storr on the Trotternish peninsula of the Isle of Skye was created by a massice ancient landside. The Old Man is a large pinnacle of rock. According to a legend, there was a giant who had lived in the Trotternish Ridge and when he was died and buried, his thumb was partially left above the the ground. By capturing the fanciful scenery, I felt anything could be possible.
The last part of the very steep single lane road to the Quiraing car park was already so dramatic. The Quiraing is also a part of Trotternish peninsula, formed by the same ancient landside. It was the wildest scenery that I have ever seen!
The narrow trail was attached on the middle of sharp slopes. I was watching my step while the breathtakingly dramatic and unique views made me keep taking photos.
Sheep were everywhere, of course!
Heather was beautifully blooming there. We chose the perfect time to visit!
It was cloudy but not foggy so that we could see far away. The sky filled with intense clouds changed the brightness unpredictably and made the entire picture look more striking.
That was a rock structure called the Prison, which looked like the fortress walls of an ancient prison.
We didn't go up to the Prison first. Instead we took a path to go around to the behind. It was very windy at that time. While I was straggling keeping myself tight on the narrow path, I was thinking what if a wind pushed me off... but nothing happened.
Along with the back (front?) side of Prison, we could see some large rock columns, including one with a pointy top, known as the Needle.
The Quiraing walk is an about 7km loop. We usually like a circular walk but we returned to the way we came at the point because it seemed like we had already covered all the highlights of the walk by then, and we could seeing them one more time on our way back.
We climbed up to see the Prison as well as the Needle closer.
I got totally lost in the magnificent views again on our way back. It instantly became one of the most memorable walks that I have done with J! Thank you J so much for taking me there!!
As more hikers arrived at the Quiraing, we left there and drove to Uig, a village at the head of Uig Bay on the west coast of the Trotternish peninsula. We visited Uig Pottery, a local pottery shop. J bought a couple of works as souvenirs.
Then, we went to Fairy Glen. With small grassy pyramid hills, mini round-top summits and some lochans (ponds), the place represents typical Scotland landscapes in miniature. It was an adorable place to walk around!
One of the hills is called Castle Ewan because its rocky top looks like a ruined castle from a distance. We climbed up the hill although we didn't stand on the top of the "castle" because I was quite uncomfortable with standing on the sharp ridge of the hill.
There were many visitors around the ruin hill, which was clearly the center of Fairy Glen. Almost always someone was standing on the top of the Castle Ewan.
The mountains must be the Quiraing!
We stopped by at An Corran Beach near a village called Staffin. The small beach was known as a place that dinosaur footprints were discovered. We didn't see any suspicious footprints. The best time to see the footprints is said right after winter storms that washed out rocks with the footprints that usually hide under sands. Still the beach was calm. I had a good time to watch waves as usual. The sand was very fine and dark, which was very different from those of the Claigan Coral Beach we visited a day before.
We also stopped by at Kilt Rock and Mealt Falls. The car park was right next to the viewpoint. We didn't need to hike there. Kilt Rock is a set of sea-weathered basalt columns on the Trotternish peninsula that look like a pleated kilt. That's a nice Scottish point of view! Mealt Falls is a 55-meter free drop into the sea. There wasn't much water falling, though.
The other side of the viewpoint was beautiful too!
No food? NO! Somehow we kept missing a chance to eat and failed to find a place to dine when we drove back to Portree. We ended up with a box of oat biscuit that we bought at a gas stand near our B&B. Well, we were full with a plenty of stunning views for sure.
To be continued...
