Day 19 - To the Isle of Skye

Today was a true rest day. The plan for the day was to make it to the Isle of Skye, and H+I planned for us to arrive in dramatic fashion. They booked us on the “Harry Potter” train - the old-timey steam train that runs from Fort William to Mallaig, where we would take a ferry to Armadale on Skye. The train ride was picturesque and fun. I don’t know if I’ve ever ridden a steam train before. The highlight was of course passing over the Glenfinnan viaduct (see the picture). After arriving on Skye, the Bear drove us across the windswept island where he’d secured us a spot to tour the Talisker distillery. At Talisker, they make the burliest whisky to be found in Scotland (at least the marketing would have you believe it to be so). The tour was basic, but interesting. They were in production so we were able to see some mash in the tun, wort fermenting, and the spirit coming off the stills. We then had a brief tasting. It was fun! We then decided to check out the Fairy Pools, which are supposedly a series of calm green pools of water that form as the River Brittle comes off the Black Cuillin range of mountains. As we got there, the Bear warned us that they not be so calm as we’ve been seeing so much rain recently. Turns out the Bear is not only an expert mountain biker, naturalist and cultural historian, but he’s also a keen meteorologist - he knows his weather as we found out on more than one occasion. In this case, his prognostication was spot on. After a short hike, we saw that the fairy pools were not calm, but rather a raging torrent of water descending from the the rain soaked mountains. They were beautiful nonetheless. And true to their name, there are fairies inhabiting these wyld lands (they tried to steal Bogey’s cell phone).Read more