Back on Skye

After a nice cooked breakfast, we got ourselves ready leisurely and left the B&B around 1030. The weather was very wet and miserable.

As we circumambulated the island to get back to Tarbert, the scenery changed from the weird moonscape rock/tussock/water near the B&B, to soft peaty earth further along and some beautiful white beaches at Luskentyre and Scarasta. We had missed the village of Rodel where there was a supposedly interesting church.

A couple of observations re Harris & Lewis (and parts of the Scottish Highlands):

• Many of the roads are narrow single-lanes. There are short points (not even stretches) where the road widens to allow one party to pause to let opposing traffic pass.
• Many public signs are bilingual, sometimes with Gaelic in prime position. The reality is that there are some people who speak no Gaelic and few are fluent. Many are proud to speak some.

We got to Tarbert all too quickly at midday, when the final reporting time for the ferry was 1500. We had a leisurely light lunch at the Hebrides Hotel where they had wifi until around 1430 when we queued up for the ferry.

The crossing today was rougher but luckily it wasn’t the sideway rocky motion which brings on my motion sickness. Back on Skye, the weather was equally miserable. While Skye is less rocky, it was just as dramatic in a different way. The mountains are higher and in this weather, there were plunging cascades of water which reminded me of Jurassic Park.

We checked into Skye Backpackers back at Kyleakin. Kim was a bit disappointed with the accommodation. It cost GBP50 for a double room with shared facilities whereas a BYB or a hotel was GBP70, with private facilities and cooked breakfast. In some ways, it was better value to pay more.

We tucked into heat-and-eat meals from the supermarket. The small hostel kitchen was buzzing with about 17 people!