Moving East from Skye

I forgot one last place we visited on our last evening in Skye.  The Old Man of Storr is a large pinnacle of rock created by an ancient landslide.  This large piece of basalt broke off the cliff and ended up resting on it’s end.  You can see it for miles around, which is exactly what we did.  Since it was late in the day and the hike up to the old man is about 2 1/2 hours, we did our vist from the road.  I thought the view over the loch at the base gives a better idea of the dramatic landscape here.

The old man is that sharp point on the right.  I actually like the little island in the loch even better!

So …… next morning, we made our way to the south of Skye to Armandale to collect the ferry to Mallaig, back on the mainland.  The drive to the Ft. William area is nothing short of spectacular.  The ferry ride was pretty fun too, only about 30 minutes.

Didn’t need maps on this part of the trip!

We even had a little accompaniment during our wait for the ferry, and I’m telling you this kid was good!

This is just one of the beautiful places we stopped at on our drive today.  They seem to pop up along the road out of nowhere.  Truly beautiful landscape here.  The fact that it may be raining and the clouds low only adds to the scene!

If you’re a Harry Potter fan the stop in Glenfinnan is for you.  Not only does the train to Hogwarts run through here (twice a day) but the huge viaduct from the movie is here as well.

On the road, just outside of Glenfinnan we started to see cars pulling off to the side.  With the tracks right next to the road we figured something was up.  Sure enough, as we got out of the car you could here the steam engine puffing along.  Soon the train appeared right out of the trees.  Talk about luck!!

We hiked about 15 minutes to the top of the trail to see the viaduct.  It was built in 1896 and is an engineering marvel.  The one thing the photo can’t show is just how big it is.  You can really get a sense of it standing right underneath.

And finally, we arrived at our little slice of Heaven, Inverlochy Castle, where we stayed the night.

Just a spectacular place, with the absolute best service, made us feel like we were living Downton Abby!  What you can’t tell from the photo, because of the low clouds, is the castle sits at the base of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Scotland!

we spent the better part of the afternoon exploring the grounds at this beautiful place.

I think when the rain chases the fairies out of the fairy pools on Skye, they hang out in a forest like this!

And finally, just for fun…