Journey to Skye

Harbor, Stromness, Orkney Islands

 

Our ferry leaves Stromness at 11:00 this morning.  Our hostess feeds us a hearty breakfast and bids us farewell.  There is just enough time in Stromness to poke around town for a bit before our ferry leaves.  Today is more foggy and overcast and the sea is a bit choppy.  Boarding the ferry I find a table with comfy chairs in the bar area on the left so I can have a good view of The Old man of Hoy. The ship pulls out of the harbor rotates itself 180 degrees. (I'm guessing so that cars don't have to back out of the ferry upon docking at Scrabster.)  So much for my carefully laid plains for good viewing.  I keep our seats anyway and can see at least for a little while the northern coastline of Stromness.

Dwelling outside Stromness, Orkney Islands

I spend most of the time on the ferry catching up on my journal entries for the next 1 1/2 hours.  Our drive today is a long one and I hope Sam is up for it.  We should reach Isle of Skye by 6:30.  The journey will involve retracing some of our steps plus some new routes across Scotland and onward to Sky.  The hotel I have book will be the most luxurious of the accomodation yet on the trip.  I am looking forward to this!

Catching up on travel journal entries.  

Happy husband and still jet lagged son.

 Crisscrossing northern Scotland we traverse back across the eerie moonscape with the abandoned crofts and the wind turbines. It all doesn't seem so lonely and foreboding as it did three days ago on our way up to the Orkney's.  We skim down the coastal road on the eastern side of Scotland and find that it is just as productive to retrace our steps as the perspective is different coming from the opposite direction.  Castles and landmarks that could not be seen on the journey up can now be seen on the way back down.  We could have tried to get to Skye from the western side.  As the crow flies it looks to be about the same distance to access the Western Isles but we would have had to zigzag our way around the many lochs as most of them had no bridges plus there are no major roadways similar to the A9.  We decide to save the western side of the upper Highlands for another trip.

We stop in a little town called Helmsdale (the kids called it Helms Deep) for what was planned to be a quick light inexpensive lunch.  Finding a very well appointed pub called The Red Lobster we are asked to take a seat on some nice barrister sofas.

The Red Lobster, Helmsdale, Scotland.

The bar is overflowing with the most profuse selection of Scotch I've seen yet on the trip.  We are given menus and we wonder if we will be expected to eat our soup seated at the barrister sofas in the bar area.  Soon our waitress returns and says our table is ready and escorts us towards the back where we have an entire room to ourselves.  Our food arrives and we are not disappointed.  Sam and I have Scotch broth while Will sticks with his usual French onion and Thomas samples potato leek.  The cheese board includes an assortment of local cheeses with various chutneys and oat cakes.  All in all the meal was a little more than we planned to spend but what a serendipitous find!  Travel should, of course, not consist of every movement planned down to the last detail.  While we didn't stay long in Helmsdale I mentally bookmark the town for future trips.  I heard the fishing in the area is excellent.

http://www.visitscotland.com/en-us/info/towns-villages/helmsdale-p236041

Back in the car, we head toward Inverness.  Rather than going back through Inverness we decide to navigate through Dingwall which will save us time as Inverness has many roundabouts to negotiate.  Reaching Kyle of Lochalsch (which is basically the gateway to the Isle of Skye) we can see how magnificent Skye is going to be.  The Cuillen Hills are in front of us (mountains would be a more apt description).  The terrain is straight up and down and very very green and the views, well--I won't even try.