EIS – To the Isle of Skye then Glasgow (Day 10)

EIS – To the Isle of Skye then Glasgow (Day 10)

(8/27/2010) Our departure, this morning headed us West on A82 covering the same road we took for the Loch Ness boat ride. Before we get to far however, the swing bridge that spans the River Ness channel and lock systems opened to allow a couple of boats by.   (As I've mentioned before, you'll have to excuse the window glare in some of thise pictures.  This one you can clearly see the white head towel on the seat back.)

So, we head back on our way and get another view of Loch Ness and the Urquhart Castle. We head through Drumnadrochit and pick up route A887. We travel along some pretty country roads and then at some point we were on route A87.

All of these roads have great views of the country side as well as lochs, old buildings, and castles.

We reach Loch Duich and the waters are very calm, almost like a mirror. Carmen and I take a few pictures of the mirroring effect hoping that they will come out, after all, we are moving pretty fast in the bus and there is quite a glare in the windows.

As you can see, except for a few ripples, the echo reflection is interesting to look at. I must say, I took a few of these echo reflection pictures, but I find myself unable to stop taking pictures of the effect. The only reason I stopped taking pictures was the bus continued to drive on by.

Between Loch Duich and Loch Alsh on a small island is the Eilean Donan Castle. We did not stop at the castle itself, but instead crossed over a bridge and stopped at a rest area just beyond the castle. A quick stop for pictures and a rest break, we were back on our way.

The Eilean Donan Castle is quite extensive and very nice, at least from this distance. I would have also liked to take pictures from a vantage point on the other side of the castle, but I did not have time as we were only here for about 10 minutes. I could easily have stayed here for a couple of hours, hence the reason we do tours and do not drive our selves around, we’d never get to our daily destination in the time allotted.  (I had to put in at least one non-snapshot picture, hope this looks good.)

We continued along Loch Alsh and crossed over the Skye Bridge to the Isle of Skye. This is one of the Hebridean islands and it isn’t a great distance from the mainland of Scotland, at this location. We will not stop on the island at all, only travel along the roads to Armadale. It is interesting; all of the road signs on the island display both the Gaelic and English translations. For instance Ardvasar, which we will not visit is also listed in Gaelic as Aird a’ Bhasair. Armadale did not have so drastic a translation in Gaelic it read Armadail. Oh, well!

The scenery is dramatic on the island and as we head further southwest towards Armadale the distance between the Isle of Skye and the rest of Scotland widens. Here there are old ruins of castles and as in other places in Great Brittan, thatch roofed houses.

We stopped at the Clan Donald Skye visitor center, mostly because we are too early for the ferry which we will take back to the mainland of Scotland. As time got closer for our ferry departure, we boarded the bus and headed to the Armadale Ferry Terminal. Here is where we will catch our Caledonian MacBrayne ferry. The welcome sign in Gaelic read Fàilte gu lonad Aiseiǵ Armadail or in English Welcome to Armadale Ferry Terminal. The trip lasted about 2 hours crossing the Sound of Sleat.

We departed the ferry in Mallaig and head along A830 to Fort Williams. We stopped in Ft. Williams for a short break. Ah, at the whiskey section of the shop, they have three Scotches to sample. One was a Scotch liqueur. The liqueur was good, a little sweet, but I like that.  Of course I had my samples and Carmen's, since she doesn't drink.

We hear from the tour director (Gordon) that there is a steam train out of Fort Williams that passes along this section of the roadway. It is the train used in the Harry Potter movies. Alas, we did not see the train, although at one point we saw some smoke, but it turned out to be just a small (controlled) fire. We also pass the Glenfinnan Viaduct also used in the Harry Potter movies when the train crosses over a viaduct.  (Again pardon the coaches curtains.)

Continuing along A82 we travel through Glen Coe, where the Campbells treacherously massacred the MacDonald Clan in 1692.

The glen is a narrow valley with little places to escape or cover.

We finally drive along the “Bonnie Banks” of Loch Lomond. It is a very large lake; I think Gordon indicated that it was the largest lake in Europe.

Soon after, I think I fell asleep because it did not take long to get to our final destination for the night, Glasgow.



Until later, Bob and Carmen – EIS.

The uploading of the pictures for this day has taken two days to load.  Therefore this is pretty late.  Next time, hopefully it go quicker.