camasunary

Today I decided I wouldn't leave the hotel too early like I did the day before.  I decided to have breakfast with the other hikers and holiday makers in the beautifully Victorian dining room of the hotel.  At first I was very glad that I did because it was delicious, and by far the best meal I had on Skye.  My experience of food here has been ... meh.  Mostly, everything is extremely expensive and very average.  Frankly, folks around here really ought to spend at least as much time making stuff taste good as they spend making it look good.  And FYI, I don't approve of serving food straight out on a slab of wood.  I couldn't help but wonder how many other people's wedges of deep fried Brie melted all over it before mine.  Unhygienic.  Ick.

So, after my very nice breakfast off I went to the Fairy Pools, getting there about 9:30.

Gorgeous, right?

Well, you and I will both have to take Google's word for it because I couldn't get anywhere near it.  The car park was absolutely rammed.   Huh.  It seems I shoulda ordered the packed breakfast and got there at 7:30am.

So I moseyed on down the hill to the river Brittle for a couple of photos, waiting

a few minutes for someone to leave the car park and make some space.

When I got back there it was even worse.  So I got in the queue of cars waiting for people to leave and make some space.  But then more cars came, bypassed the queue and jammed everything up so no one could get in or out.  Utter madness.  I managed to turn around and get out of there.  I did find another place to park about a half a kilometer up the road, but I saw a poor lame lamb there who broke my heart so I couldn't stay.

That's the Fairy Pools struck off my list.  Maybe next time.

Onward south I went, headed for what was described as a "single track road between Broadford and Elgol" and the beginning of a hike to a remote beach tucked down below the Cuillin Hills.  Hills!?  Sheesh, what does it take to get mountain status around here?

As the road wends its way through the Cuillin, the scenery was predictably spectacular the whole way.  I was the crazy person who kept slowing down to stick the camera out the window of the car to capture what I could see through the windscreen.  Some attempts were more successful than others.

 

When I got to the start of the hike, the weather wasn't promising.  Or rather, it was promising - promising rain.   And it got progressively worse as I made my way up the hill.

About 10 minutes in I was hobbling and wishing I had taken my old, beat up, super-comfy hiking boots with me on this trip instead of the super-stiff ankle-supportive pair that I thought would be useful on the uneven ground I expected to meet on Skye hikes.  They were super-supportive all right, all over my bruised ankle.   I had a couple of carrier bags in my rucksack for my muddy boots in case I ended up somewhere my boots would be too disreputable for.  I twisted one into a rope and poked it down into my boot around my ankle to try and relieve some of the pressure on the bruise.  It worked surprisingly well.  That and a couple of ibruprofen and I was off again. 

Eventually I reached the summit, from which my guide notes promised increasingly impressive views of the Black Cuillin Hills.  Hmmm.

I battled on, determined to get to the beach down the other side, even if I did get soaked in the process.  The one couple I met on the way warned me that there were no views and that the rain was coming into the beach horizontally.  It's true my first views over the Camasunary weren't ideal, but they were pretty dramatic anyway with the clouds down over the hills.

But here's the thing about weather and these magical places.  If you acknowledge the spirits of the place, treat them with respect, maybe make an offering, then they just might bring out the sun for you.  Or at least stop the rain. 

On this beach I actually broke the hiker's code of take nothing and leave nothing.  The guide notes spoke of a bothy on the far side of the beach.  I was looking forward to seeing my very first one.  This one was supposed to be quite old and with two open fires.  As I made my way down the beach I gathered some driftwood for the bothy fire.  When I got there, however, I found it had been shut up after being damaged by a storm a couple of years ago.  There was a little pile of driftwood by the door that I guess other people had brought and then left behind when they found it closed.

So I gathered up all the driftwood and carried it over to the new bothy at the other end of the beach.  I got to look inside and I sat outside to have my lunch.  It didn't have an open fire inside, but it was still really lovely with one common room and one bunk room.  It was in terrific condition and so well cared for by the hikers who passed through. 

Lunch with a view

Driftwood wasn't the only thing I took away from that beach.  I dug out my other carrier bag, filled it with plastic rubbish I found on the beach and stuffed it into my rucksack and lugged it out with me.  Sadly it was merely a drop in the bucket of plastic trash on that beautiful beach.

I was damp through and pretty soon I started to get a chill, so I retraced my steps back over the hill to the car.  I was very pleased that the really hard rain only started as I climbed behind the wheel to head back to Portree and the hotel.