A Hike, A Castle, Haggis and Pubs - Scotland at its Best

The next day's drive one a one lane road was a feat of sheep dodging! The road led up to some rock formations called the Quiraing. It's so funny when you beep at the sheep because they get startled and do a leap into the field!

After 3 lucky days of sun, the rain finally came that morning, and it seems fitting that it happened on the isle of skye where the weather is supposed to be most unpredictable. Unfortunately that's also when we decided to do a hike on the hills (aka cliff face!). At least we got a cute pic of my dad and I in our Scotland windbreakers.
The hike to the Quiraing was true Scotland. We had rain and wind whipping at our faces, sheer rock faces and hills where we walked upon a small trail (laden with sheep droppings!). There was a 45 degree incline that Syd and I climbed, up to a pinnacle rock called 'the needle', but boy was it a workout! That's me waaaay up there.
When we came back down we saw mountains of mist in the distance and tried to capture it on photograph. We also did the sheep shit shirk (avoiding the droppings) and the shit shoe shuffle (to clean off what we couldn't avoid!). I have quoinned these two dances to dance at our next celidh!

Driving around Skye was fun (ok, I was a passenger the whole time- but I preferred it that way)! The roads were not only windy, but up and down. As we were driving to the distillery and I had an empty stomach, the hills and turns made my stomach tickle – who needs roller coasters when you have dad driving? ;o)

We hit our next distillery on Syd's insistence - Talisker. A new fact that we learned here is that its a large whisky operation with 60% of their whiskey they sell for use in blends around Scotland. They also use rainwater that comes down from the mountains and mixes with minerals and when they have dry spells (very rare, mind you) they don’t produce whiskey that week! That must make a big dent in their 50,000L weekly quota! This scotch was a bit more peaty and not to my taste, but we did get to try a number of different types as this place actually had a liquour license and could sell drams (where other smaller distilleries could not - as we later found out).

After we crossed the bridge back to the mainland, we went to Eilean Donan Castle – known as the most romantic castle in Scotland. Originally a Viking fort before being owned by Scottish lairds, but was then bombarded by frigates in the 16th century and it remained in ruins until 1912 when a rich family bought it and restored it to its original glory. They moved into it in 1932, but only used it as a summer home for a number of years until it was donated to the Scottish National Trust in 1978. When we walked through this castle it very much felt like we were walking through someone’s home as it had a comfy feel about the place. The views from the castle, which was set on a wee island off of the shore of a loch, were amazing, and really did give it a romantic feel.
That afternoon we drove north through the highlands to a town on the northwest coast called Ullapool. It is a fishing village with a lot of charm and a chance for a social scene any night of the week. It felt less touristy than a lot of the other places we had been so it was a welcome change. Our hostel was right on the shore street, and the dining room for our lovely breakfast (as well as our room) overlooked the sea! We ate at a pub called the Seaforth where we all got to have local fresh fish, and Syd ordered local haggis, gravy and mash. It came in authentic sheep stomach sac and we just had to take a pic of it. Syd really enjoyed it, once he removed the sac of course!
Since it was our first night in a hostel within walking distance of civilisation, Syd and I made a point to do a mini pub crawl and try half pints of Scottish draughts at each pub. There were 5 pubs and each one had their own charm, and a fair share of different types of locals. Our favourite pub was actually next to our hostel, called the Ferry Boat Inn, and was filled with locals around our age bracket, and a jukebox playing a host of fun music.
We chatted to a couple guys that have lived in the area for years before moving on to our next and final pub, the ‘wee bar’ within the Argyll inn where we sat by the candlelit window and enjoyed a dram of scotch. The only annoyance of the whole experience was our run-in with ‘midges’ which are the smallest bugs imaginable but with stinging bites!