Retirement Travels 2018 – The Hebrides Part 1 – Edinburgh to Skye

A few weeks ago, we spent a lovely weekend with our older son (and a bit shorter time with his wife). The plan was that my son would drop his wife off in Skye for her Gaelic course at Sabhal Mor Ostaig, and then meet us in Mallaig. The three of us would then travel through Skye, Harris and Lewis, to Ullapool, down to Inverness, across to Kyle of Lochalsh, pick up his wife, ferry back to Mallaig, and drive to Fort William. Then they would pick up the sleeper to London, we would stay in Fort William overnight and make our way to Edinburgh via friends in Helensburgh.  That was indeed pretty much how it worked out.

As you know, travel is important to me. From Slow Travel trips to short trips such as this Hebrides trip.  Not to mention our many trips to New Zealand. Recently , we met up with friends, who have the money to travel wherever they want, probably first class. However, they are content going to see their grandchildren once or twice a year. They have no desire to go away at all. As they said, we have lived and travelled across the world, enough to appreciate our own bed. Despite my husband and I travelling on and off for many days, months even years, we haven’t quite reached that position. I loved going to Spain for several months. I am looking forward to Rome this year. I know no Italian, but maybe by the time we go there, I will have mastered, hello, goodbye, and thank you!

I struggle for words to describe how beautiful the trip to the Hebrides was. We were totally spoiled by how lovely the weather was, the ‘midges’ stayed away (or hadn’t yet hatched?), all the ferry crossings were calm, and the scenery was beautiful. My son has a far better camera than I do, so I can only hope to give you an indication of the beauty with my simple ‘point and click’ version…. However, regardless of the quality, this post will be mainly photographs with a few words.

On the Friday night, my son and his wife arrived in Edinburgh at 10:30pm. Sadly by co-incidence, I already had plans for the Saturday I couldn’t get out of, so we talked, and talked until about 1am, when we all ran out of energy. The next day, my husband saw them off, to drive to Skye in our car via some friends near the Kyle of Lochalsh. Not only with far too many provisions for the journey (we’re still eating them), but also our bags and walking boots for the holiday.

Sunday 8th April

Our aim was to be on the 10:30 am train from Edinburgh to Glasgow, We left extra early because the buses were on a Sunday service (a 20 minute service as opposed to the normal 10 minute service!). As it was a Sunday morning, it was quiet. We got to the station in plenty of time, enough to buy a coffee. The train was quiet, there was a lovely 3 year old who was eyeing up the biscuits which we had with our coffee. We offered them, (through her mother), but they were declined.  In Glasgow, we were very early for our 12:21 departure. Glasgow Queen Street is undergoing major renovations, it is pretty much a building site just now, so we took ourselves off for a wander round. Our journey really started with the Glasgow / Mallaig train journey up the west coast of Scotland. It is one of the most scenic journeys in Europe. My sensible husband had printed off the schedule, and the maps of the scenery we were passing through. It meant we were able to follow the changing scenery. We were lucky – our allocated seats were on the best side of the train for the views up to Fort William.

Past the Gare Loch – you can tell from the reflections it was a still day….

Onwards alongside Loch Lomond & the Trossachs. This one is on the other side of Loch Lomond looking over Loch Long. As you can see the hills still had snow on them….

Onward from Fort William to Mallaig. The lovely wee Glenfinnan station has been refurbished, but Glenfinnan is far more famous for its viaduct of Harry Potter fame.

and of course no story would be complete without the viaduct itself, which goes on and on. The train drivers are really helpful, they slow down, just so everyone can get at least one good photograph!

We arrived in Mallaig a few hours before our son, so we had a walk along the harbour.

A couple of things of interest, the lifeboat (my Dad was a lifeboatman for nearly 30 years, and had an award for bravery from the RNLI. It’s hard to believe, but all rescue services supplied around the coast of Britain and Ireland are provided by charities. Here is a picture of the Mallaig Lifeboat, run by the RNLI, a charity very close to my heart.

And this lovely art work just by the harbour mouth

Monday 9th April

We were up bright and early for the ferry back to Skye (Ferries feature quite a lot on this trip! The ferries in the Hebrides are mainly run by Caledonian MacBrayne  locally known as Calmac. We were lucky, all our ferries ran to time on calm seas, that is not always the case…)

Fortunately, the sea was like the proverbial millpond, and the scenery beautiful. The two snow topped hills are Sgurr Na Ciche and Ladhar Bheinn, I believe.

The ferry journey is only 40 minutes, and the ferry is only a small island hopper.

Not too many cars on this one. We sat outside and enjoyed the scenery, and took many photographs of the lovely calm sea and surrounding hills

Armadale, where the ferry docks is only a tiny place. The picture below is taken from a little way up the coast at  Sabhal Mor Ostaig.  If you are going to learn a language, it might as well be in a lovely place.

Today my son was driving so I was able to sightsee. As we drove through Skye, there were far too many beautiful views to capture, so here is just a story in pictures. We were last in Skye on our honeymoon, 40 years ago. It was October, it rained. When it wasn’t raining the clouds were so low, we couldn’t see anything much. This trip was the absolute reverse, the sun mainly shone, and the weather was cool, but so clear, it was delightful. I also feel I should point out that many of the roads are still single lane with passing places!

 

 

Road signs are bilingual here…

 

Lunch time found us at Portree / Port Righ, where we just had a snack for lunch. Our final destination for the day was UIg, and we planned a nice dinner there (A good move as it transpired)

While we were there, we saw the mobile bank, for the first, but not the last time

We decided it was time to walk off our lunch, my husband had researched a ‘short walk’, which he conveniently omitted to tell me was quite a stiff climb! We went to visit The Old Man of Storr   We had packed our walking shoes, so off we set. Stunning views as we went up. I needed a few stops on the way – stopping to take photographs provided an excellent excuse.

 

 

 

And finally success! Objective achieved. The write up said 1 hour 15 minutes for a return journey, we took about 1 hour 30 minutes, but we did have a lot of photo stops! Not bad for a pair of retirees!

As we were on the way down, the weather closed in a bit, so we were glad to get to the car, and a bit of shelter. It was time to head to the Uig Hotel.  We had only booked this a couple of weeks before we went, due to an oversight – husband thought I had booked it, I thought he had. Fortunately we realised in time, when we double checked our itinerary! I can safely say this was the best place we stayed in. (It was also the most expensive!) The food was excellent, both for dinner, and for breakfast the next morning, before we headed for the early ferry the next morning to Harris. We are all still drooling over the cheeseboard at dinner – a choice of 3, 6 or 9 cheeses, we went for the 6 cheeses. It came with a lot of crackers (my husband asked for extra bread which was willingly supplied). The cheeses were great.

Watch out for Part 2, Harris & Lewis coming soon

If you would like to pin this, just click the photograph below, which was taken from the ferry from Mallaig to Armadale.