Scotland Part 2 – Isle of Skye

I spent the majority of my time in Scotland on the Isle of Skye. I think that I read that Skye is closer to the Arctic Circle then to London, and most guide books would recommend traveling there in the summer months, but I live in Los Angeles where it’s annoyingly sunny 95% of the time so I really enjoy my cold inclement weather vacations. I traveled there in late November, which is their off-season. I don’t have any regrets about visiting during that time, but I was a little bit limited in what I was able to do there because of the weather conditions. You can’t really tell in these photos but the roads were icy and there were a couple of times when my rental car either had trouble getting up a hill and started rolling backwards almost off a cliff (for real yikes city trying to get up to the Quiraing — which I didn’t get to see because of said icy cliff problems. Dannnngg it! Shakes fist at icy road!) or got stuck completely (in the Faerie Glen — thank you to the kind scotsman who towed me out. I thought I might be stuck there forever but things turned out okay.) Really, I just regret not renting a 4×4 car. Oh well! You live and you learn.

Anyways, I can’t wait to see the things that I missed one day in the future, but the stuff that I did get to see was absolutely amazing and otherworldly. I hiked out to the Westerly point of Skye – Neist Point, watched late fall turn into winter, hung out with all the sheep, cliffs, wind, and lonely roads, and felt like I had the whole weather beaten isle to myself while driving around listening to the excellent BBC Radio 6.

More about Skye in a later post, but for now without further ado, here are some photos from my first couple of days on the isle.

Taken with a combination of film, digital, and phone.