📍The Highlands, Isle of Skye, & Fort Williams, Scotland🏴 🇬🇧
The road trip with a view.
P.S. My service animal will be a hairy coo and I don’t want to hear any objections.
I had wanted to see the Highlands and Isle of Skye (because TikTok told me to do so), but I wasn’t exactly sure how to get there because they drive on the opposite side of the road. I had made it through my first city alone and I was feeling confident, but definitely not confident enough to test my driving skills. For the safety of the entire county, I decided to sign up for a three day tour through Timberbush.
Day 1: I had an early pick up from Glasgow for a long day of driving. The tour had about 16 people with a wide range of ages and places from around the world (Malaysia, Canada, Australia, and, of course, the US). I sat next to a girl from Boston who, after spending half the day together, quickly became my new friend. Honestly, I gave her such little choice as to if she wanted to be my friend because 1: I liked her and 2: her fiancé is currently in culinary school in France and, frankly, I need people like that in my life. Regardless, her name is Megan and she pops up from time to time for the rest of my trip. There was another lady, Margaret, who was an outspoken Scottish woman who lived in Australia, and when I say she did not hold back, I mean it. She was pretty much our trip entertainment and was a crowd favorite for sure. Within minutes we knew her whole life story and she had requested Scottish music to proudly sing along to.
Anyway, our first stop on this group trip was Loch Lomond. The weather was rainy right before we got there and right as we left so we lucked out getting the small window of sunshine. Perhaps the only sunshine the country got all week?
We hopped back in the van and we were off to Lach Tulla viewpoint. The next few days were a lot of driving which seems dreadful, BUT the views were so amazing at every turn it made it much more enjoyable. I would recommend the tour to anyone who doesn’t want to do the driving themselves or wants to practice sitting and holding their bladder.
Next stop: Bidean Nam Bian or the Three Sisters. There are three mountains (hills? whichever) that we had a bit of overcast for, but all three were visible (check the video below) so I’ll take that as a win.
It was finally lunch time, which I may have mentioned a time or two is one of my very favorite times. I had a meat pie when we stopped in Glencoe, which was one of the places they filmed some of Harry Potter (more to come on that). Side note, Scotland is great, but I cannot get behind their obsession with peas. I would like a petition to change it to a more appealing veggie.
I may or may not have started a rumor that the hut in the picture above was Hagrid’s hut (I had misheard some shared information), but can now confirm it is NOT. Just a nice random hut in Scotland.
Fueled and ready to keep driving, we made our way to the Commando Memorial.
Our final stop of the day was the Eilean Donan Castle. We didn’t go in (spoiler alert: we come back at the end of the trip and do go in), but we were excited to see it from the outside as well. The castle has been in a whole bunch of movies (including James Bond) and many say it is one of the most beautiful and famous castles in Scotland. I couldn’t remember all the facts, but, per Google, the castle was first inhabited in the 6th century; the first fortified castle was built in the mid 13th century. Either way, its very old.
Our road trip continued on, we watched a nice sunset, and we ended in Portree, which is where we stayed.
The bed and breakfast I stayed at was called Springfield Guest House and the hosts were so nice. Not to mention, they put a card to order breakfast on the bed each day and the food tasted very good. Truly, be nice and make good food and things will be just fine.
I went to dinner with Megan and Ankur, who was also on our trip. Megan and I quickly realized we both have bladder problems (TMI?) and immediately bonded even more. Shout out to Ankur who was a trooper as us girls talked about the many times we almost peed our pants as we all casually ate dinner.
After a long day and a dark route, Megan and I got lost on our way back to our bed & breakfast. We finally made it and went to bed for another early wake up and full day.
Day 2: We had our first breakfast at the B&B and were ready for day two. Little did I know it was about to be the windiest day of my life. I had experienced wind before, but not wind that was about to knock us off a cliff, and lemme tell ya, it was wild.
We did a quick stop to see the famous Old Man or the Old Man of Storr. For anyone that remembers playing the “trust fall” game with their friends in school, I could have played this with the wind that day and I would have trusted it to keep me up. And that is saying a lot for the way I have been eating this trip.
The next videos are of our stop at the Inver Tote and you can really hear the wind in the background.
We were all freezing cold, had gotten pelted by a little sleet, and had some wind burn, so our guide took us to a cozy coffee shop to defrost.
We drove to see the famous black houses which were nice, but, more importantly, this is when we met my new pet: the hairy cow, or as the Scots say, the hairy coo. If you see me and hairy walking down the street, mind ya business.
On a hairy coo high, we hiked around Fairy Glen while we had a bit of “nice” weather.
Our guide (and driver) had told us about a tour where he was exploring the Sligachan Old Bridge and he had slipped on slippery rocks and broke his wrist. I can’t imagine it felt great, but on top of that, everyone in Europe drives stick shift and he was guiding a tour, so he had to get his group back by driving a stick shift van with a broken wrist. No thanks. He also informed us there was no hospital close by that could help him, so it wasn’t his best overall. He took us back to the scene of the injury and stayed in the car. There is a myth that if you put your face in this water your skin stays youthful. Naturally a girl in our group tried and also slipped in the water. Beauty is pain, friends.
The weather wasn’t getting any better so there was only one activity to scope out: the distillery. I mentioned Margaret was a Scottish lady, so she had been mentioning whiskey since she first sat down on the van the day we started the tour. She was thrilled. We tried a few whiskeys at the Talisker Distillery and I can confidently report I still really dislike Scotch. I tried.
Our group all had dinner together at an Indian restaurant. The food was subpar but the company was great.
Anyone like to guess Peter’s age (the nice man waving in the front of this picture)? I will mention it later in this blog. Prepare to apply sunscreen daily or call the doctor for some Botox.
The dinner was over, but we were not ready to go to bed. To no one’s surprise, Margaret had purchased some whiskey at the distillery and, lucky for us, had decided to carry it around with her as if it was her small, very loved child. She decided the best place to have a drink was right outside the restaurant. So we did just that. Marg gets what Marg wants.
Day 3: Megan and I woke up early enough to walk down to the pier and it was a good thing we did. It was a beautiful morning. We then had breakfast and got ready for our final day on our tour.
The first stop as a group was to Blà Bheinn, which was nice because the weather was finally clear enough to see it. After spending some time in this country, I can confirm this isn’t the market if you are looking to sell sunglasses. Rain jackets on the other hand…goldmine.
The castle we passed on day one was open and it was time to explore. There were no pictures allowed inside the castle so I guess you’ll have to go see it for yourself.
Our final stop on this adventure was the famous Loch Ness. I did not find any green creatures, but I did find Margaret in the restaurant still holding on to the remains of her whiskey. We got to walk around the town a bit, had some lunch, and walked down the pier.
As promised, it is time to reveal Peter’s age…a ripe, fit, EIGHTY-TWO years old (and his wife is just a few years younger) 😲. I made him show me ID to prove this because I was sure he was 62. Cheers to you, young Peter!
After a full three days of adventure, our trip was over and we were dropped off in Edinburgh. I will spare you the boring details of the travel time, but here’s the summary: I took a train to Glasgow, spent a quick night there, and the next morning I was on another train to Fort Williams.
Day 4: I am unsure what happened to me over the course of this trip, but I left a normal girl and came back a Harry Potter nerd. With that being said, the famous Harry Potter bridge is in Scotland and I really wanted to see it. So I stayed in Fort Williams, which is a quiet area that is mostly for avid hikers…and me. The first night I got there it was around 5 pm. I checked into my hostel, Fort William Backpackers, and asked the guy working at the front desk where to eat. He looked at me as if I had four heads and told me to just grab something to make from the grocery store. Clearly, this is not a foodie town so I would not be able to stay here long. I did take said man’s advice, grabbed some food to make, and ate dinner in the hostel with a few other guests. Again, this is a quiet town so there was not much to do other than chill for the night, so I did just that.
Side note: my hostel was at the top of a very steep hill and it was raining so the thought of walking on an incline (in the rain, for that matter) truly made me appreciate Uber Eats more than I ever have.
Day 5: Reminder, the whole reason I had come to Fort William was because it was a town close to the bridge, NOT to hike. So, I scheduled my train to Glenfinnan which is the town the bridge is actually in. I woke up, had some time to eat breakfast, and took my time getting to the train. As I walked down to the station, I double checked the time. I had it wrong and was off by 10 minutes. Guess who missed their train? If you guessed me, you are correct.
I didn’t really have any other plans because I did not have hiking gear (and simply did not want to hike after a month of eating fish & chips in the UK). Time for the next best option. The bus. I found a bus that left an hour later than I was supposed to leave and took the time to call my mom to wish her a happy birthday and walk around the town of Fort Williams. It all worked out because I would have missed the town if I didn’t miss the train. Let’s look at the positives here.
After a walk around town and a bus ride, I made it to the bridge! I FaceTimed two of my favorite Potter fans and walked around the area.
I walked around the area a bit (after 37 minutes I had seen just about all there is to see and that includes time to indulge in a sausage roll). I went to the train station very early because was I was certainly not going to make the same mistake twice in one day, but, more importantly, I didn’t see any restaurants open and I was not going to be hungry all night.
When I made it back to the hostel, there was a huge group of avid hikers that were staying in my hostel. They pretty much took up the entire hostel and noticed I was alone. They invited me to hike the next and I knew it was a strong no, but out of curiosity I asked them how far they were going to hike. They calmly, nonchalantly said, “At least 10 miles. We are usually gone from sun up to sun down.” No, I do not wish to join because I will in fact collapse, but thank you kind, fit, strangers.
Day 6: I got on the train (on time) and made my way back to Edinburgh for the last part of my solo travels.
To be continued…