The Isle of Skye

Ha. See, I really can update this in a timely manner. It's only this past weekend that I had my lastest adventure, and I'm already writing about it. This is a nice change from trying to remember everything I did in Paris from the beginning of the month.

In any case, the Isle of Skye, a little island off the west coast of Scotland, is very different from Paris. Proof, for those who need it:

I'ts in the middle of nowhere. It's beautiful. Really. It literally looks like Lord of the Rings. National Geographic voted it 4th best island in the world. What more could you want?

I went with the St Andrews hillwalking society, and it was no small feat to actually get there. I signed up for the trip several weeks ago and was told I'd have to get to sign-up an hour early in order to get a spot. No lie. Sign-up was scheduled for 7.00. I got there at 5.00. By 5.20, all the slots were filled. People were pretty much camped out. In any case, I was lucky and got a spot.

Beyond that, the ride itself took 5 1/2 hours, which, for Scotland, is a long, long drive. But it was driving across the entire country - a nice change from the States, in which driving across the country takes probably 3 full days. The drive itself was actually quite fun, though. People were nice. We played word games. Excellent.

We got to Skye quite late, so we didn't do a hike on Friday.

Saturday, however, brought a hike and some beautiful weather. The society divides itself into separate skill level groups for each walk, and on Saturday I went with one of the groups to the "two tables," as they are called.

We hiked along



and climbed the near-vertical hill (they don't make them like these in the Midwest)



until we reached the top



where we could see some beautiful views of Skye.



After the hike we took a detour down to see an Iron Age Broch, sort of like a castle before castles existed, which only exist in Scotland.



On Sunday we hiked to two iconic parts of Skye. One was The Old Man of Storr




from which we could see some beautiful views, even if it wasn't exactly sunny.



The other was the Quiraing, one of the most iconic parts of Skye.





We were high enough that we could see much of Skye's mainland.





We didn't walk on Sunday, either, unless you count walking around Talisker distillery, which had some delicious single malt Scotch. I recommend the Talisker 59. Yum.

We arrived back in St Andrews in fairly decent time - enough to shower and fall into bed, that is. Though the trip was pretty hard on all our legs and butts, climbing all those hills, it was definitely worth it.

I'm on spring break now, and I'll be in St Adnrews for several more days, until...

Well, you'll just have to wait for my next post.