Day 5 Old Man of Storr

The weather forecast gave the day a 25% chance of rain. I had been hopeful of a clear day because I wanted to do The Quiraing (Google it- it looks amazing). The day before had been slippery in the rain and that was an easy hike. The Quiraing is a challenging trail and with how miserably wet I had been the day before... Well, we opted to hike the Old Man of Storr. It is also a hard hike, and one we didn't quite finish. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

First breakfast. The sausage was a strange texture and the eggs were as pale as they had been the day before at the bed and breakfast. Except I'm pretty sure these had been powdered eggs. Our hotel was a stopping point for a couple of tour buses (blocking half of the parking, which sparked some creative parking jobs from the rest of us). As we walked into the breakfast room, we were asked which tour bus we were with. "Um, we aren't." Oh ok. We could go eat in the far back of the room.

With our trusty Rick Steves map and tour guide (Note to self- you should laminate maps before going to Scotland. They become very fragile when wet.) we were on our way for a car tour of the Trotternish Peninsula. I don't remember if this falls had a name or not. It was pretty.

We arrived pretty early at the parking lot for the Old Man of Storr. There was still plenty of parking when we arrived.

My watch clocked 1006 feet of elevation gain.

The misty rain and fog lent a mysterious, spooky and otherworldly air.

If you click on the above picture you can zoom in on Ryan's glasses. They are super wet even under his hat. It was exceptionally drippy.

Ryan- who cares if my shoes were still wet this morning? They would be fully saturated again.

Very green, very wet, very spooky. It is the perfect weather for haunting.

Ryan offered to let me borrow the outer part of his winter jacket. My rain jacket had proved itself to be entirely unhelpful and his coat was thicker. I looked a little silly wearing it. But it did better than my rain coat (or at least held out a bit longer) and it covered more of me.

After reaching the Old Man of Storr rocky "thumb," we wandered around a bit before heading back down. We could have gone up another half mile or so, but the views were somewhat lacking due to the rain and fog.

Onwards! Next was the Lealt Gorge.

Waterfall one direction, and the gorge in the other.

Then Kilt Rock (in the distance). The columns of rock are supposed to look like the pleats in a kilt.

Duntulm castle ruins.

And the views from the ruins.

Having soaked through Ryan's outer jacket, I discarded it and found my own winter coat. Was I wearing a winter coat in July? Yes I was. It was not pouring rain, but the precipitation was still happening.

After this, I changed my clothes in the car. We were mostly done with wandering around the great outdoors and I was cold! I had clothes handy, and was not shy about changing my shirt and pants in a car parking lot. It's not like there were a lot of people about, but still. My underwear was still damp and I was sitting on the seat of the car where I had been previously quite wet.... But it was an improvement. As long as I didn't move. :) I wrung a lot of water out of my socks. Dry socks and shoes were wonderful. 

Scotland driving video

We did make a stop at the Skye Museum of Island Life. It was a very educational and interesting museum. Notice the rocks holding down the thatched roofs.

The house closest to the camera (below) had been the home of a family of 12! It made the first home we owned look very spacious and luxurious.

We had been purchasing premade sandwiches from grocery stores, and stocking up on snack foods. We had our picnic lunch in the car here. Can I just say I really like chocolate covered digestive biscuits? They are a little like graham crackers with chocolate on top. Yum. We brought some home. Also, Scotland does not know what bbq should taste like. We tried bbq "crisps" aka potato chips and they were super disappointing. 

It was about 3 hours of driving to Inverness, which was our next evening stop.

Roadside sheep. I think I read there are more sheep on the Isle of Skye than people. We saw a lot of sheep.

A break from driving at a pull off.

We finally made it to Inverness. We drove by Loch Ness on the way, but didn't see any lake monsters. The town there really leans into the Loch Ness Monster folklore with tourist traps galore. We did not stop. Google maps didn't take us as directly to our Airbnb as I might have liked. I had to use the bathroom SO BADLY I just wanted to be there already. Ryan let me out to find the place while he tried to find a place to park. After wandering for a few minutes, I found the flat and adjusted the lockbox dial of numbers so I could get the key and it was not releasing the key. I cursed my inability to use unfamiliar technical equipment and wanted to cry. Ryan came along and it practically spit out the key. I dashed to the bathroom, where I figured out my heightened emotions were probably heavily influenced by hormones. As if the situation needed to get worse. Sigh. 

I showered and Ryan walked to get us McDonalds for dinner. We needed to do laundry and our Airbnb had a dollhouse-sized washing machine. A Google search showed a 24 laundry mat, and Ryan very kindly offered to go do our laundry there- all in one load, wash and dry. Our little apartment did not have a dryer. I stayed behind with a blanket, my Kindle, and ibuprofen. I got this picture of the "24 hour laundry mat" from Ryan. 

It was just in a grocery store parking lot. But sadly, the dryer did not work, so all of that wet laundry came back. We laid all of our wet clothing all over the living room and bedroom. It was good that we were spending two nights in Inverness because clothes take that long to dry.