Skye

We've been driving all day, taking breaks in between to have lunch and take pictures, lots of pictures. I took almost 200 pictures today. It has been such a wonderful day! Very sunny, we are so lucky with this kind of weather! We had breakfast at 09.00 in the morning. Inge already left early; about 05.00 to go to Edinburgh to work at the practice. She took the kids along. We were there with Dorota and the dogs. So we got up early, packed all our stuff and had a swift breakfast because we planned to leave early. We drove off at 09.30 after saying goodbye to Dorota.

We drove from Crieff to Fort William where we took a break to buy some groceries, cups and a cooler bag at Tesco's. Then we left off to find a nice place to have lunch somewhere out in nature. We found something off the road called Loch Shiel Pinewoods near Glenfinnan where we sat down for a while.

After lunch we continued our trip to Lochailort and from there to Arisaig where we looked around for a place to spend the night. Frank recommended the old Library to us, a nice restaurant that served good meals. Unfortunately, the restaurant had been taken over by a new owner and he told us the restaurant was closed this summer and would be open next year. We asked about accommodation but that was way too expensive, 40 pounds each; ridiculous!

We went to the post office to ask whether there was any B&B in the area but the nice gentleman told us that there wasn't. A. asked him what times the ferry would leave from here to Skye. The man called someone to get the information for us, really sweet of him. I bought some postcards and stamps so I can send them off to my friends and family pretty soon. It turned out that the earliest ferry was leaving in about an hour so we decided to have a coffee break and to drive up north to Mallaig to get the ferry from there to Skye; 'The Misty Island'.

It would take half an hour to get to Skye and about ten to fifteen minutes to get to the ferry in Mallaig. So we had coffee and left immediately after that. The trip on the boat was really cool since the weather was just beautiful and so sunny. It wasn't cold at all, just a bit windy but a perfect day to cross over! The view was excellent and stunning! Once on the other end at Armadale Bay we decided to look for a B&B to spend the night so first we went to a remote bit of the island, which was Aird of Sleat. Unfortunately that was just too remote and all the B&B's that we passed were booked already.

So we did a bit of a round trip across the island; we drove back to Ardvasar and Kilbeg were we turned left to Achnacloich and Tarskavaig. No B&B in the area... We stopped for a while in Tarskavaig to ask two gentlemen whether there was any B&B nearby or not. They told us there weren't any at this part of the island and told us to go back to the west side onto the main road because it would be more likely to find one there than on the remote side of the island. We went via Tokavaig and Ord back to the main road and ended up in Isleornsay were we found a nice and cheap B&B. Our hostess is Jean Mackay and we also met her husband, really nice people!

We went for dinner at the nearest hotel which was about an eight minutes walk from the B&B. We had a wonderful meal at the restaurant of this hotel which was: Fresh local mussels in white wine garlic sauce, finished with lemon and dill, Crab and lobster bisque, Fillets of red mullet with a prawn-mustard-Soave veloute accompanied by a sauté of asparagus, Milk chocolate mousse presented with a caramel-pistachio sauce, decorated with fresh raspberries and blueberries, Coffee and Petit Fours served in the Sitting Room.

We share the B&B with two musicians who had to play this evening at the bar next to the hotel where we had dinner. After dinner we went there to have a look but I didn't really like it, I was tired and I wanted to go home to have some sleep; it's been a long day! There was a full moon out there and the view was again stunning! We took several pictures of the moon and walked back home to the B&B.

Silly us, we missed a turn and ended up somewhere out of the village, I couldn't remember we had been there before. We had to walk all the way back, but since it was such a beautiful night and a full moon we didn't really mind and we found our way back to the B&B. I'm going to sleep now because again, I'm tired and we have to get up at seven in the morning because breakfast will be served at 08.00. Hopefully the two musicians won't make much noise when the come in, it will probably be late; about 01.30 when the bar closes... We'll see... The bed feels nice and soft and I reckon I will sleep like a log!!! Looking forward to tomorrow!!! Sleep well [0.55]

Oh, btw the most amazing thing of the day is this pregnant cow [I'm not being sarcastic: I do mean a real cow this time] that was there all of a sudden in the middle of the road, completely ignoring us and expecting us to get out of the way [indeed she was right about that!]. She had this 'don't bother me' look on her snout and was slowly passing by the car while we were patiently waiting for her to get to a safe spot... This island is crowded with sheep as well, they're all over the place ignoring fences and highways; if you're not careful you could hit one, they're everywhere even in the middle of the road just standing there... Really weird experience!

Menu from the restaurant:

Dinnear
Dinner

Dihaoine 19 dhen Lùnasdal 2005
Friday 19th of August

Taghadh dhen aran againn fhêin
Selection of homemade bread

Feusgain na sgìre ann an fion geal is cneamh cuide ri liomaid is dill
Fresh local mussels in white wine garlic sauce, finished with lemon and dill

Freumh soilire is uinneanan ann an fion geur is tarragon le caileagan-achaidh ann an ola
Salad of celeriac and onions in tarragon vinegar presented with herb mushrooms in olive oil

Tomatothan môra anns a bheil caileagan-achaidh cuide ri ｡ise is hama Pharma
Beef tomatoes stuffed with a mushroom sauté gratinated with cheese served with Parma ham