More from Isle of Skye

So the journey on Skye continues and now we were off to The Old Man of Storr which is 'simply' a steep wall of rock that has been formed by landslip. Perhaps most famous for its strange formations of the rocks and pinnacles. Few hours here spent here trying to take pictures but as I mentioned in the previous blog the light was just to harsh. Strong sunlight and blue sky are not good for photography. Well it 's better than rain anyway :)
Next stop on the journey was the famous Kilt Rock, a sea cliff in northeast Trotternish. It's said to resemble a kilt, with vertical basalt columns to form the pleats and intruded sills of dolerite forming the pattern. There is also the Mealth waterfall that free falls 60m into the sea. After that rather quick visit, the parking was just meter away from the waterfall, we were off to The Quirang that also is a landslip. The land there is still moving, thus constantly damaging the road. The surface of the Quirang varies from the flat valleys to the steep pinnacles and cliffs. The area is said to be supernatural. It indeed amazes one greatly, who stands above the Quirang, approaching its dramatic scenery. The site is 'a must see' once on the Isle of Skye.
Neist point was the evening destination with its Lighthouse located on the west coast and the scenery is pretty amazing here.
When it got dark we drived to Portnalong located on the west coast and there we stayed our last night. There was one more thing and that was to shoot Skye famous night sky. Skye is as far away from major cities as its possible in UK, but unfortunately both the half moon and the faint aurora appeared far away in the horizon which is not helpful when we tried to take pictures of Milky Way.
Odd to complain as many would pay a lot to see aurora, but being a swede that has lived in Northen Sweden for many years. This time I just wanted to see the Milky Way :))
Still it was fun that we saw the northern lights, which does not happen too often on these latitudes. Last day, on the way home, we stopped to take pictures of 'Eilean Donan Castle' that is just few miles south of Isle of Skye. It has actually featured on couple of big movies, such as 'Highlander', the Bond-movie 'The world is not enough' and Astrid Lindgrens 'Mio min Mio'.

Until next time, I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Eilean Donan Castle

                                                                       

Highland Cattle

 

Views towards Cuillin mountains

 

Neist point

 

The old man of Storr

 

 

 

Mealth waterfall fall and Kilt rock in the distance

 

Aurora and milkyway

 

Quirang

 

Quirang

 

Quirang

 
         

Road Trip To Scotland (Part 2)

We had planned to have the whole day Saturday on the Isle of Skye, which is needed because even though the island is small it takes time to drive around in order to see all the interesting stuff. We did the round trip starting along the east coast towards the north and then down along the west coast.

Along that stretch were 5 top tourist attractions;
- Old Man of Storr, which is known for its weirdly shaped rock pinnacles. But here we just took photos from far way, because we wanted to hike at the next place...
- Quiraing. Here we stopped for a couple of hours to go hike along the pillars and the mountains. The view from here was amazing.
Unfortunately one of the places that we missed after Quiraing was Kilt Rock. We were relying on mobiles a bit to much, and we actually didn't have connection at all except crappy one during lunch on wifi at a pub.
We had a map reader (me) but he missed it ;))
- Anyhow, next stop was Coral Beach, which despite its name is not actually coral but pieces of dessicated and sun-bleached algae's. This is the only "nice" beach on Skye, but who wants to swim here when the average temperature during summer is +14C and approx. the same in air :))
- Just before Coral beach there is a castle Dunvegan, which we also visited. Very nicely located at the sea and have amazing gardens.

Now, it was late afternoon and we had one more visit left 


- Neist Point, which is a lighthouse at the tip of the west side of Skye. Very cool too.
From here you can see the outer Hebrides, which are the last stop before Greenland and Alaska. We stayed here to watch the sunset and again got disappointed when it disappeared behind the clouds.

So that was our day, and now the only thing that remained was to drive back to the hostel and dinner.

To see and do everything should on Skye, you need at least a week. We now just drove around most of the time. There is still so much more to do here, like hiking, fishing, scouting for wildlife as otters, sharks, dolphins, orcas and a lot of birds.

Quiraing

Quiraing

Quiraing

Do u see me on the top the rock formation ;)

Coral Beach

The Old Man of Storr

Neist Point

Neist Point

The Black Cuillin hills

Black Cuillins in the distance