After an early start and having said goodbye to the French fellas I boarded the white Mac Backpackers mini bus. Destination: The Isle of Skye. Our tour driver Doug is a funny Scott that has a wealth of knowledge on the history of Scotland and a seemingly endless supply of stories to tell.
The tour began immediately with Doug explaining the significance of certain buildings we were passing as we left the city limits of Edinburgh. The cobblestone roads surrounded by tall buildings soon gave way to open fields and farm houses. The land used to be covered by forest but now only 2% of Scotland’s original forest remains. It’s been a recurring story everywhere I’ve travelled and quite a sad one when you think about it.
Our tour group consists of a handful of Aussies (including 2 girls from Perth), Canadians, Yankees, Spanish, Polish and Chinese, with an Indian couple and a lone New Zealander. The group of Chinese kept to themselves as did the Indian couple at the front of the bus, the rest of us however were quickly getting to know one another.
Our first stop was a picnic area alongside a fast flowing river. It had been drizzling rain all morning and so the entire place was damp and everything a slightly darker colour than usual. The dirt paths and ground were an almost orange colour, the immensely tall trees a rich dark green. Surrounded by these gigantic trees and with the hills and mountains visible behind them I instantly felt like a dwarf. There’s something about these trees that I find totally awe inspiring. Perhaps it’s the ancient river carving its way through rugged landscape or just the landscape itself, but something about seeing such huge trees gives me a sense that I am in an ancient place. I discovered later that the highlands of Scotland are some of the oldest lands of Earth. It is said that the mountains here were once as tall if not taller than Mt Everest, but after eons of erosion these round off peaks are slowly weathering away.
Following a short path along the river we reached a stone bridge and a small domed shaped building known as the opium room. Apparently poets used to congregate here, get wasted on opium then sit in the hidden room behind a wall in the dome shaped building and write poems. To get to the hidden room you have to pull a lever that was once concealed in the wall. Pulling the lever the wall in front slides open revealing the opium room. The room is filled with light streaming through the glass wall and door that used to be made of stained glass. The poets would sit here listening to the waterfall crashing just beyond the glass wall and getting inspiration from the coloured light filling the room and playing with their opium fuelled minds.
Walking outside the opium room through the glass door and onto the balcony has you standing over the edge of a short cliff. Directly in front of you is the strong flowing river that spills down into the crevice below. The sheer power of the water gushing down is thunderous and an awesome sight. Leaving the building I followed a trail that lead around the side of the cliff and to a bridge. It’s a really nice place here, great for a picnic if you have the time, but we had more things to see, so back on the bus!
Having crossed the Fourth bridge and seeing the Fourth Rail Bridge on the other side we were soon passing by the small town of Perth which is where my City got its name from, I never knew. I've already forgotten the meaning of the word Perth, something about a valley though. A few minutes out from the picnic area we stopped in Pitlochry to grab some lunch and stretch our legs before heading on to the site of an old battlefield.
The time spent on the bus seems to fly by because Doug is almost always telling a story about old Kings, Battles and Scottish secrets, if only I could remember the stories. The battle that took place at the field we arrived at was just short of a slaughter with a few thousand people dying and only a small few surviving. It took about 30mins to walk the length of the field that was covered in thick grasses and small shrubs. Fighting here must of been a challenge, I could imagine warriors tripping over as their foot got tangled in the shrubbery or stuck in the boggy mud.
The next stop was at a ruined castle perched atop a small hill in the middle of vast fields that once again used to be all forest. I find old ruins fascinating but don’t have much patience for them either. After making a quick round of the grounds and spotting a few highland cows on the slope of the hill I was ready to keep on. Back to the bus.
We pulled off onto the side of the road overlooking loch Ness and Doug gave us a bit of a speech about the benefits of going for a swim in the loch. I'm not very superstitious so the idea of spotting the loch Ness monster doesn’t appeal to me, but, there is a guy who has been living on the edge of the loch for a good 14 years trying to spot the monster, crazy. Stepping off the bus with the intention of going for a quick swim I immediately changed my mind, it was freezing cold! The group of Canadians having come all the way from their freezer land weren’t phased by the gusty cold winds and stripped down and jumped in.
After loch Ness we stopped at a boat ramp on loch Duich with an excellent picturesque view of Eilean Donan Castle. I'm pretty sure I’ve seen this castle in an old painting, it looks very familiar and is apparently quite famous, it’s the source of many postcards. Our stop was very brief and we were soon at our destination in Skye, the small town Kyleakin.
After checking into our rooms we headed to the pub for dinner and complimentary beer, I had fish n chips and a bottle of San Miguel. We stayed at the pub a while playing pool and chatting. While everyone was buying their next round of beers I decided to head back to the hostel for an early night.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
