Coral Crash

Yesterday morning, still on the Isle of Skye, started off with a trip to Dunvegan Castle about a twenty minute drive on both dual and single track roads from where we were staying. It was interesting but acknowledged for being the oldest castle in all of Britain where someone still lives apparently. However having been renovated in the early 1900s its decor was a little less oppressive and it was actually quite beautiful inside. The gardens were truly stunning. The estate grounds were quite large including another Walled Garden (but this one actually had a number of plants already well into bloom), a Round Garden, and then you could take a Woodland Walk and enter into the Water Garden. Sir IF and Meg both fell in love with the Water Garden. Almost of the plants in this area were already in bloom. We took a lot of photos. 

Our B & B hosts made us aware of a coral beach that was a nice walk fairly close to the castle so we decided to try that out. John our host had assured us it was going to be a lovely day on Skye but it was a good thing we packed our rain gear because we encountered an enormous deluge of rain. We got positively soaked, but we forged on as did lots of other eager Easter weekenders. The rain stopped after about 1/2 an hour and then the winds dried off all our clothes. One cannot describe the instanteous weather changes here -- when the sun comes out after a rain it is absolutely brilliant and the waters just shimmer. 

It was a beautiful site to see the coral all of a sudden appear. We got to the summit where you could see the full beach but didn't walk completely to the coral as Meg did another one of her tumbles so we didn't want to push our luck. Just landed on grass this time though so not too much damage done; a quick clean-up in the car and off we went to the next activity.  We sure wish Meg could remain steady on land never mind even trying out our sea legs! 

There were a number of nice artist shops/galleries nearby so we picked up a nice painting to remind us of our visit to Skye. The landscape is so amazing in this part of the world that the area attracts a large group of artists and artisans. If we had time we would have done more exploring of the local art works but the distances were mostly all on single track roads which takes a lot more time to travel to and fro, so we couldn't take everything in. 

Last night we walked down to the local pub in Stein which also happens to be the oldest inn in Scotland.  We wanted to have supper there and were able to scoop a table on this busy Easter weekend by sharing with a couple of other women, who as it turns out were also tourists. One was from the south of France and the other from Bristol/Birmingham. We had a lovely time visiting with them and hearing about their escapades up to the Orkney Islands. 

The Isle of Skye attracts a lot of tourists. It's very beautiful country and we were delighted we had the opportunity to see it on this trip and to learn more from our hosts Fiona and John about the local area, politics and economy.