Andre and Wendy: Portree to Laide

Tuesday Portree - Laide

Started this morning off with breakfast at the apartment in Portree and we are off for a full day of adventure to our stop for tonight.

One last view of Portree this morning, beautiful reflection in the water

Our first stop today was right after we got off the Island of Skye at Eilean Donan castle, probably the most photographed castle in Scotland. We get there at 9:10 and unfortunately they only allow you onto the grounds before 9AM and then you have to pay for admittance. We had a long day ahead of us so just took a few pictures and we are off again. Unfortunately it is low tide when we are there, I think it would have even been prettier at high tide.

Eilean Donan Castle

Grey Heron visiting the castle

Next stop is a very cute little harbour town of Plockon. Andre took us along a short cut, yep another single lane road with lots of pull outs to let cars go by. One great thing about this though is we see some highland cows, we have not seen very many on this trip so it was worth the little side trip. The cows are in a beautiful stone wall , beautiful work. Plockon is time for a tea and coffee take away, and a short walk through town. Beautiful gardens in front of the houses on the shore, we have now heard a very $$$ to live.

Highland cattle, love the haircut

Harbour view of Plockon

We passed by a beautiful old graveyard and remains of a Church along the way

25 km 38 minutes estimated time, ouch

Now comes what I had really been looking forward to on the trip, we are taking the Bealach-Na-Ba highway (should I say “highway”) to Applecross. What an adventure. I am sure pictures will not do it justice. Single track all the way, and some of the pullouts were very scary. We heard it is the highest pass in Great Britain at 2000ft. Considering we started at Sea Level and finished at Sea Level it was quite the day.

Road to Applecross

Marker at the top of the pass

We stopped in Applecross for the picnic lunch we had packed. A nice beach, and it seems to have warmed up a little, definitely much warmer than when we had stopped at the summit on the pass. There were some firepits here, could have used Freddy to get them going.

View of Applecross from our picnic sight on the beach

We could have used a fire Freddy

After lunch was the finish of the single track road with a stop at Deer Park in Torridon. Haven’t seen any deer in the wild yet, but we have pictures now that will make it look like we saw them in the wild I am sure.

We stopped to buy some smoked trout, salmon and mussels along the way

Not fun when track camper and dog walker all meet on a single lane road in front of you, and driving on the left hand side

Another stop at Gairloch for some pictures and a break for Wendy from driving. A little golf course here as well, wish we had more time on this trip to get some golfing in.

Our final stop was at the Invereve Gardens, Wendy had hoped to stop here, but we were running out of time and only had about 30 minutes and at 10 GBP for a tour that should have taken 2 hours it was just not worth it. Continued on to our stop for tonight in Laide at the Love Croft B&B. It is a really nice place after our last place in Portree. We are on the second floor and have nice views of the water from our rooms. We are enjoying some scotch before going down to supper downstairs.

Our room at the B&B

Catching up on the blog after our walk

Great supper tonight, baked goat cheese with honey on lettuce, and Pork Tangine. We had decided it would be a good idea to just have supper here tonight as we are not really near any decent size town, and once we got to the B&B that would be enough driving for one night. They do not have a liquor license but you are can bring your own bottle of wine, so we made use of one of the free bottles we got from the first night. After supper we went for a walk down to the water, the owner told us about some caves along the water that once had an old woman living there until the 20`s. A beautiful spot again, the sun is setting so late that we do not get to enjoy any sunset, sorry Joey no pictures for you.