The great Scottish adventure, part 1
It’s been two months since I set off on my great big adventure to the Isle of Skye; two months in which I have tried to find a way to condense all of the fantastic experiences down into 500 words, and have failed, so I’m just going to write as many words as I like and see how it goes.
I’ll do my best to skip the boring parts.
The adventure began mid April. I set off at 4am from home and it was a straight easy drive to Calais, even though it was pretty misty all the way. Thankfully, there was little traffic on the road. I arrived more than an hour early so they let me take an earlier train. Navigating through the terminal was a bit confusing. I could have done with some more arrows saying “go this way” but I got on to the train on time, and within minutes the train was departing Europe and heading for Folkestone. Before I knew it, we were getting ready to disembark. The LeShuttle train really is a very fast and efficient means of crossing the Channel! Lucy had snoozed through the whole thing on the back seat.
Once in Folkestone, we drove out of the train into a bright sunny morning in Kent, and thus began day one of a lot of driving. I reached the overnight camping spot in Dalston near Carlisle at around four in the afternoon. One thing I will say is that I was very pleasantly surprised at how well roadside services cater to people with dogs. Every break we took, there was a nice big patch of green, or a park, or even a little walk around a lake for Lucy and I to stretch our legs. I’m also very appreciative that they don’t charge for the loo.
Our first night was spent on a lovely little farm campsite in the Cumbrian hills. Nothing fancy, but it was comfortable and quiet, despite being quite well filled by the end of the evening. I set up the tent and settled in for an early night.
Next morning we were up with the dawn. The temperature had dropped quite a bit overnight, but we had been snug as bugs in my very warm sleeping quilt. I only really noticed when I got up and saw some frost on the tent. This meant packing away a tent that would be damp, but I would be putting it up again soon, so I popped it on the parcel shelf in the hopes of drying it out a bit and we set off again, this time with the nose pointed towards Glasgow.
There are two ways to get to Skye from the south. The route over Loch Lomond, or the route via Stirling. The Stirling route is a bit quicker, but the Loch Lomond route is more beautiful, so I took that one. What I had not reckoned on was the number of inexperienced drivers taking the same route. There seemed to be an awful lot of them all the way along the loch who would slow down to a crawl because the road is a bit narrow, it’s very windy and a bit bumpy from the potholes, and there are a lot of hair pin bends. Result: a very slow route. Once I got past Crianlarich and up into the Highlands, though, it all went a lot smoother and my eyes drank in the beauty as I bombed along towards Kyle and Lochalsh and the Skye Bridge. I only had to slow down a couple of times; once for the hordes of tourists in Glencoe, and secondly for the two miles of feral goats wandering all over the place near Inverinate.
Soon we were crossing the Skye Bridge and heading for Broadford. My heart was singing. The gorse was in full glorious bloom and the day was bright and breezy. This was my first time seeing Skye in the spring. It was a feast for the eyes. I made a quick stop in Broadford to pop into the Co-op and get supplies for the next couple of days as I knew I wouldn’t be anywhere near a supermarket for a bit.
This was also a real treat. I stocked up on my favourite tea (Yorkshire Biscuit), and found the Taylor’s coffee bags I’d been wanting to try, and the Cathedral plant based cheddar (which is sublime), and got myself a good supply of Jammy Dodgers and salt and vinegar crisps. All the things I can’t get too easily back in the Lowlands. I also got some healthy stuff, like salad.
Then it was another hour’s drive to the first stop on my tour of the island, Glenbrittle Bay.
I’d stayed at this campsite on both my previous trips, so it seemed like a good nostalgic place to start. It also has some of the finest views of the Cuillin Ridge and is a popular starting out point for a lot of walkers and climbers attempting a traverse of the ridge.
The campsite itself is at the end of a very long single track road that also goes past the now extremely popular and very famous Fairy Pools. It was rather jarring to see how things had changed since my last visit. Back in 2008 and 2014, the car park for this spot had been little more than a gravel patch for a few cars and the track down to the pools was just a small path made by the procession of feet and sheep. Nothing fancy. Now, apparently thanks to social media fame and the rising popularity of the NC500, there is a double tiered parking lot with space for dozens of cars and camper vans, a toilet block that many a sports team would envy, and the Fairy Pools path is a wide paved affair that you can clearly see all the way up to its end. It’s also where the ‘good’ bit of road ends. Funny thing about road maintenance on Skye, it certainly seems to coincide with the number of camper vans they expect will stop at any given place.
So, after a rather bumpy ride along the single track road and getting past the throng of late visitors to the Pools, I found myself blissfully alone on the last stretch of track down to the campsite, which involved crossing a livestock bridge, and then passing through a farm, to finally reach the Bay and the campsite area.
At three in the afternoon, I was an early visitor, so after checking in at the very chic new cafe I had my pick of the pitches. The views were epic in every direction, but there was quite a strong wind coming off Loch Brittle, so I opted for a more sheltered spot with a view of the ridge, rather than facing the water. Up went the tent, in went the sleeping stuff, and then off I went with Lucy to the beach. After two days in the car we were both in need of a good airing out.
After a good trundle on the sands and then a quick sortie up into the foothills, we were both ready for dinner, so while Lucy tucked into her bowl of kibble, I enjoyed a delicious meal of dehydrated mac and cheese, the plant based version. Then it was time for tea and biscuits and some reading. We took another stroll on the beach as the sun was setting and then headed back to the tent for an early night. After two days of travelling, we were finally going to get started with the holiday!
If you enjoyed this post and you’d like to buy my a coffee, you can do that here:
In part 2: our first hike doesn’t go quite according to plan, and the day after that we discover what they mean when they say the weather up the mountain is not the same as it is on the ground.
If you’d like a visual preview of part 2: the video of our first hike is up on YouTube