It's all about the light on the Isle of Skye! The
ever-shifting clouds and sun and shadows on the hills and over the water.
And the clear air. Very cold, clear air for much of our week there.
What a starkly beautiful landscape. It makes your heart ache.
In the words of a traveler to Waternish peninsula:
…and I set down in my
journal
That we are entered into this enchanted
world
Where land and sea and sky conspire
To steal your heart and take your breath
away.
For me, this trip completed the one that
Dori and I had begun 43 years ago when we tried to hitchhike to Skye from
Edinburgh - but ran out of rides and time and had to turn back. This
time we had husbands with us and traveled in comfort in the cushy Mercedes.
When we arrived, we stayed in a picture-perfect little white cottage
looking out on the sea.
The cottage where Dori, Dan, Elizabeth, Erik, Bruce, and I stayed
- a small home, really - sat on the side of a steep hill facing the harbor and
village of Uig, located on the northwest coast of Skye. Several times a
day we could watch a big car ferry swing into position at the pier and load
vehicles for the voyage to the outer Hebrides islands of Lewis, Harris, and the
Uists. The sun set on the hill behind the village and gave us unending
varieties of colors and light. We spent the week looking at this scene,
exploring the island, chatting, and cooking evening meals, which was a treat
for us after not having cooking facilities for several months.
Our first full day in Skye was a Sunday. Dori and I, plus Elizabeth and Erik, attended a service in the small white Church of Scotland, just down the road. It was a very small gathering of older parishioners. Erik compared it to a Noah's Ark group, as it included 2 fellows in kilts, 2 ministers (himself being one), 2 North Americans (Dori and I), two old ladies dressed in tweed suits, hats and gloves, and 2 Mercedes parked outside. The sermon was progressive and well done. As is typical, apparently, in old Scottish services, there was no organ. Instead music was provided by the congregation, led in singing by a chanter, in this case a tall gentleman with a wonderful voice. The whole service was simple and beautiful.
That afternoon we toured the wild north end of Skye. The
weather was variable - imagine that!- with typical light rain showers mixed
with clouds and sun. Dan was on the hunt for geo-caches, hidden messages
tucked away in all manner of off-beat places. He found one under some
rocks behind a lonely red phone booth beside a sheep pasture. We all
walked on rocky trails, the wind whipping our jackets and scarves, past quietly
foraging sheep, to get close to castle ruins perched on a promontory high above
the sea. We visited a graveyard where the legendary Flora MacDonald,
heroine to Bonnie Prince Charlie, was buried under a huge Celtic cross. The tea room where we later warmed ourselves
couldn't have been more aptly named: the Warm and Cozy Tea Room.
Hot tea and delicious baked treats were the perfect antidote to our
chilly outing.
Early in the week, on a beautiful sunny day, we toured Dunvegan
Castle, ancestral home of the MacLeod clan. Since our grandmother,
Christy, was a MacLeod, Dori and I were especially interested in this site.
The 700 year old castle is lived in as a home, even now, and was much
more comfortable than I would have imagined a medieval dwelling to be. Of
course, it has its own dungeon where one of the chiefs had left his wife to
starve to death, a less than cozy touch! I loved the walled garden, a
pretty, warm, peaceful area, and expected to see Peter Rabbit pop out of a
watering can at any moment.
Near the castle is a tall, flat-topped mountain where another
MacLeod chief, long ago, put on a massive feast for visiting nobles under a
starry sky. As the story goes, all manner of game and seafood had been
prepared, and hundreds of clansmen had encircled the "table" with
torches, lighting the meal. The whole experience had rivaled the most opulent
feasts of the wealthy castle dwellers in the lowlands. This story and
others were offered by Dori, our own personal Scots history expert, whose deep
knowledge and love of all things Scottish meant that she could pull out a story
or tidbit of knowledge, anytime, at just the right moment.
The next day's destination, for Bruce and me, was the Talisker
Whiskey Distillery, just down the bay from Dunvegan. We are pretty
unschooled in hard liquor and were curious about this particular drink since
it's so … Scottish! The tour began with a wee dram of 10 year old Scotch.
My immediate impression of the taste was smoke, with an ever so slight
hint of mackerel. It was strong and certainly warming - but very smooth. (I think that Bruce has
an expensive new vice.) The talk of
"noses" and the aging process in oak casks stored in the cellar
reminded me of wine. We learned that a single malt whiskey means that the
ingredients come from only one distillery, using the mash from one type of
barley. We ended our tour in the shop, of course, where we bought a small
bottle. At the cottage, Elizabeth and Erik presented us with a Skye
pottery quaich, a traditional Highland cup used to sip whiskey communally among
new friends. A perfect gift for sharing
our Talisker with our new friends!
Talisker Distillery
That evening Dori and Dan introduced me to the fabled "fairy
glen". They had been making quiet references to it for a couple of
days. So after dinner, we set out in the car. (Since Bruce and I are
brave enough to drive on the left side of the road, we're the designated drivers!
It's actually pretty fun.) The fairy glen, although high in the hills, is
sheltered by green velvety, knobby-shaped mounds. A wee pond reflected the evening light, and a
bench overlooking the pond let us know that we weren’t the only humans to view
this magical scene. A mama sheep and her
baby – Dan said the lamb must be only a day or so old – quietly nibbled grass
near a crooked tree. Dori spotted a hole
in the side of a hill big enough for a fairy family.
Overlooking the whole area was a tall promontory of rock,
beckoning us to climb it, of course. Up
we went, Dori and I, while Dan geo-cached further down. The trail wound around and up, revealing a
protected area with stones set in lots of familiar shapes on the grass: spirals and human forms and waves. Reaching the tip of the promontory required us
to cross a short space that reminded me of a very mini version of the knife
edge on Katahdin (not that I’ve ever climbed K.). The wind threatened to blow us off either
side, both of which dropped rather precariously. We hunkered down and scooted across.
Our next little challenge was squeezing through a narrow passage
of rock higher than our heads. We were
rewarded by a look-out from which we could see Uig harbor and soft high hills
all around, the sun still coloring the sky.
But it was very windy so we didn’t linger long.
We met Dan and 3 sheep on the way down. Dusk lasts a long time in this northern
latitude but it was getting a bit dark, adding another dimension to the
timeless ambiance. I felt privileged to
have shared the experience of hovering between this world and another.
Wednesday was rainy, and our pace was a bit slower. We read
and wrote and planned and chatted. It seemed like a good day to do
something close to the cottage and indoors.
A visit to the Museum of Island Life on the very end of the island was
just the thing, so we thought. It
certainly gave us a taste of the harsh life in the old days, complete with a
cold rainy wind blowing a gale. We
nearly froze as we hurried among the unheated old stone crofts, each featuring
a different aspect of life. They were
fascinating, made all the more so by the knowledge that our own family would
have lived in similar conditions. I was
interested in the weaving tradition and had hoped to see some weaving taking
place, but the old fellow on the desk was genuinely sad to tell us that there
was no weaving being done in Skye any longer.
We would have to go to Harris and Lewis to see weaving. He also bemoaned the decline of the Gaelic
language, though Erik tells us that Scotland is now an officially bi-lingual
nation with both English and Gaelic being used.
We saw lots of instances of this on signage.
The warming up that day took place at a wee pub at the Ferry Inn
in Uig. Tea and Guinness with friends – true
Scottish pleasures!
That evening the MacLeans and Webbs, after “tea”, i.e. supper, set
out to find some traditional music. We
had been told by a church lady in zebra-patterned shoes that we could find it
in a pub in the little village of Edinbane, about 15 miles away. The pub is owned by a 30-something,
fiddle-playing woman. She and her fellow
musicians, a banjolin player and a fiddle/penny whistle player, slowly filled
the tidy pub with an appreciative audience and lively music. A cute young couple with their well-behaved
dog joined the group, and doggy happily barked his applause with the rest of us. At one
end of the room a blazing fire in a big stone fireplace added just the right
touch. It was wonderful to hear live
fiddle music in this, the land where so much of our fiddling tradition has its
roots. Bruce recognized a few of the
tunes from his Fiddlicious repertoire. I drove the
Merc under starry skies along smooth dark roads back to the cottage.
Having had our required shopping outing – and my first taste of
haggis (surprisingly good, rather like meatloaf)– in Portree on Thursday, Dori & Dan and Bruce & I decided to
finish our week in Skye with a climb on the Old Man of Storr on Friday. It is another rocky “monolith”, rising 170
feet along the coast facing the island of Raasay and the mainland. We packed a picnic and joined about 20 carsful
of other climbers, grateful to be there early in the season before the crowds
get really big. I must say that I’m not
sure where all those folks went, because we saw only the occasional hiker. As we climbed, the damp air took the form of a
substance between snow and hail (snail?).
We considered turning back but waited a few minutes in the shelter of a
wooded area, and it disappeared. Farther
along, a fellow with CP, using the type of crutches that begin at the elbow,
was making his way slowly down the trail, alone. We decided that we had no
excuse to not make the climb. Just outside the woods, we stood to eat our
sandwiches, looking up at the treeless, rocky path, dotted with a few hikers
high up.
It was a steep climb and gave the heart and lungs a good
work-out. As we ascended, more and more
of the magnificent landscape came into view:
woods, fields, other high hills, and then the sea and bays and inlets
and islands and beyond it all the mainland.
Above us rose the solitary rocky spike of the Old Man. Behind him stood a clump of dramatic rocky
pillars. Dan was off on a lower side
trail, looking for a cache. Dori lagged
behind, capturing it all digitally and drinking in the beauty and mystery. Bruce was ahead, worrying about the clouds
and impending weather. I, too, took
photos and tried to stash this memory in a place where I could retrieve it
easily – and then scooted down, behind Bruce.
I could go on, retelling the moments of this lovely week, but my
time and energy, as well as yours, I’m sure, dear readers, is rapidly fading.
So, these are the highlights of our week in Skye. It was a gift to spend it with passionate,
fascinating, and generous kindred spirits.
And a memorable week it was, filled with things so quintessentially
Scottish: fairies and fiddle music, kilts
and castles, whiskey, haggis, tea and Guinness, ancient standing stones, Celtic
crosses honoring dead heroes, echoes of ancestors, wild windswept hikes – and
light, always the light, shifting amid the mist and clouds, opening glimpses of
heaven.
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