We awoke to a lovely sunny day which promised to remain sunny so we headed off to the Trotternish area to take on what we planned to be three walks. The first was the Old Man of Storr. Storr is the highest point on the Trotternish peninsula ar 2358ft/719m and is a collection of dramatic basalt pyramids, pillars and shards, with the Old Man arguably the most impressive.
The parking area was packed out, clearly this was a tourist mecca and we were just about to join the masses. I normally prefer walks out of the way of others as I walk to enjoy the peace and quiet but we just had to do this walk.
It was a well made path all the way to the Old Man, the views were amazing on this clear day if not marred a wee bit by the deforestation around it.
Apparently many of these rock formations were created from landslips millions of years ago which left rock standing at angles. The walk (which we hope to do on Friday) - Quiraing - is very much like that.
2.5miles/1hr 30 mins
Leaving Storr just a couple of minutes behind us we parked up for our second walk - to Bearreraig Bay. A short walk that promised dramatic cliffs (tick), waterfalls (mmm, didn't notice any), a pebble beach (tick, if you could call massive stones peebles), fossils (didn't see any of those, but didn't go looking - I can imagine it though!), a power station (yep) and a railway (tick, and not only that we saw it in operation!).
We parked up at the entrance of a private road. We had forgotten to take our instructions for this walk and didn't realise that there was a parking area about half a mile down this road. Anyway, we didn't mind. The sun was still shining, we'd left the tourists behind and we were enjoying the peace again with the calming waters of Loch Leathan on our right.
I would guess at just over a mile later we arrived at the power station and saw men working at it. There was also a private house - we commented on it having a lovely position except for the hum of the station.
The walk 'stopped' at a couple of information boards and from here we saw the cliffs and the Sound of Raasay. I actually didn't spot the tiny stone path that would take us steeply down to the bay itself. As we descended we saw the railway, which was used to transport workers and equipment to and from the power station on the bay and the station at the top of the hill. As I was half way down, and taking it very easy, we heard the cranking of the railway as a carriage was slowly making its way down the slope. At the other side of the railway there were steps, which were previously used for tourists like us but were closed due to health and safety grounds as the railway carriage over-hangs the tracks. I have to say though, that those steps looked a lot healthier and safer than the stony steps we were taking and no way would you want to come down here if it had been raining!
At the bottom were massive rocky boulders and yes, there was a pebble beach but we couldn't really get access to it because of the water. We hung about for a while, Ivor ate something (which I think was some driftwood which he found appetising, probably due to the seaweed/fishy taste!). The walk back up was much easier and we headed back to the car before deciding to head to Portree, get a takeway coffee and then back to the cottage to freshen up for dinner later at The Three Chimneys.
1.5 miles/1hr 15 mins
The Three Chimneys
We booked this back in February and due to its reputation we were looking forward to it. We opted for the dinner menu (as opposed to the taster menu). The apperitifes were lovely and we decided to spoil ourselves a bit and have an extra course of tempura oysters. For starters we had smoked haddock terrine (me) and rabbit (Blair), mains; cod with iron age pork (me) and beef head to tail (Blair); dessert was gorse flower brulee (me - and it was yum!) and marmalade pudding and drambuie custard (Blair). The food was good but it didn't blow me away (though it did blow a few mothballs out of my purse).
