Over the Bridge to Skye

A new day... a new morning... a new start. I wake up after having about 3 hours of sleep and feeling rather thankful that we will soon be leaving Dingwall to head to the tranquil surroundings of Skye. We are due to stay in a B&B over on the island so at least we know where we are staying and it seems that the chances of getting a good night's sleep has now increased.

We get our clothes on and head downstairs to what the National Hotel calls breakfast. The price of the room includes breakfast so we thought we should get at least get a little something in our stomachs before heading on the road again. We go into the dining room and see a buffet style breakfast. Could be good, that is, until we take a look at what they were offering. There were these horrible looking greasy fried eggs sitting under a heat lamp, the scrambled eggs looked rather mushy and were sitting in lots of liquid and to top it off, the bacon and ham looked dried and full of grease! There was no way I was about to eat any of the cooked items so I grabbed a very small bowl of cornflakes and some juice and hoped that would at least give me some energy to start the day. We find a table. No silverware, no salt, and we continue to look for some milk to put on our cereal. Things are not properly set on the tables and no one offered to bring us toast or coffee/tea that we saw so many of the other guests enjoying. We had to hunt someone down for tea and didn't bother to ask for the toast... it didn't seem worth the trouble. I was anxious to check-out and get the heck out of this place!

We get back to the room, pack up our things,and I tell Michael I will meet him downstairs after checking out of the hotel. He grabs the suitcase and backpack and leaves me with the stack of coats we brought and our books. I drape the coats over my shoulder, tuck the books under my arm, take the key and am about to race downstairs to check-out when I realize I have absolutely no idea how to get downstairs. I circle and circle around our floor trying to find the stairs that lead to the main lobby but continue to retrace my steps or run into walls. I feel like I am Alice in Wonderland trying to get out of the maze of mirrors... this hotel is freaky! I get sooooo pissed off I slam open the only door I do find that leads back to the outside fire escape and proceed to stumble down the stair, coats in all, half asleep, swearing under by breath, but... trying to keep the humor, yah, right! When you climb down the fire escape steps, they lead you to the back of the hotel so when I climbed down I had to drag the coats to the front of the hotel in order to reenter the hotel to check out. I get there unable to find Michael at first.. it seems as if we are passing eachother. While I am downstairs he went up to find me in the room, only to find out I am not there. I expect to find him downstairs. We do this ring around the rosy thing for several minutes... I, try to keep the humor, which has now flown out the door and has sunk deep into the depths of the earth. I will find it again, eventually but we first must head out of Dingwall!
Okay, all is well, we have checked out of Hotel HELL and are now ready to start fresh...Skye, here we come! The drive to Skye is oh so beautiful. We see lochs, forests of Scottish pines, sheep and cows along the road and majestic, awesome green hills and mountains surrounding us. The views only get more and more spectacular the farther north we drive. As we continued to drive, we stopped several times to take in the view, take pictures and stretch our legs. We were in no hurry to get to Skye so we took the time to really absorb the scenery. At one of the stopping points, we met at lovely Welsh family who was headed to Ft. William for several days. We asked them to take our picture for us and we returned the favor. We chatted with them for several minutes, they told us what we should see if we should ever visit Wales and also informed us about the Scottish pines we kept seeing everywhere. We enjoyed our short chat with them!

Time to continue on... we arrive in LochCannon and see signs along the road for a stained glass studio. Both Michael and I enjoy looking at various types of glass art and thought it might be worth a stop to see what this studio had. As we got closer, we not only saw the signs for the stained glass studio but it also said something about beeswax painting. Not knowing what beeswax painting were, we just HAD to stop now... curiosity got the best of us. We turn where the sign tells us to go and all we see is this small house with what looks like a small greenhouse like entrance attached. This didn't really look like a studio but we figured the greenhouse entrance was the entrance to the studio which was probably in the house. We proceed towards the entrance and realize that the entrance IS THE STUDIO. We are greeted by this older gentleman who welcomes us to his art studio which has a few cheap looking stained glass hangings, embroidered dolls, and of course, the beeswax paintings. The artist, was quite a character. We enjoyed talking with him and hearing about his life, his neighbors, who play in a local band, and his Sunday drinking day. He had no problem telling us that on Sundays, his drinking day, he would leave the studio wide open, put a sign up and place his "honesty box" out for people to leave their money in if they happened to stop by and purchase things. He would be off at the local pub, drinking the day away and not caring much as to what might be happening in his "studio". He has never had any problems with the honesty box and claims it seems to work for him. He was happy about that so as it allowed him to be away and "get to better things" than to have to hang around in case someone MIGHT come by. We weren't all that impressed with his glass work but we did end up buying 3 of his beeswax paintings, which were quite unusual and beautiful at the same time. Not something you come across everyday and they were reasonably priced so we grabbed one for our home and a couple to be used as gifts.

We continue our journey to Skye. We finally get to the one and only bridge that connects the mainland to Skye and are prepared to pay the controversial toll fee of 5 pounds 60pence EACH WAY. This bridge was built in 1995 and has since created much controversy and outrage, creating opportunities for to protest about the high cost of the toll. To this day people are campaigning to get the fees either reduced or eliminated.

We pay the fee (at least we were well prepared) and enter the roads of beautiful Skye. The day is a sunny one and the way the light falls on the hills and the water makes everything look so magical. As we make our way towards the town of Uig, where we believe is where the B&B is, we stop to take a look a small waterfalls and take many pictures of the surroundings, not to mention the numerous sheep that dot the hills and sit right along the roads. We stopped in the small town of Broadford to check out Skye Jewelry, which we had received a flyer for when we crossed the bridge. We got a whole packet of tourist maps and various merchant/activity flyers when we paid our toll so at least we had some idea of what types of things were on the island.

As we proceed on, we take the eastern route along the coast to Uig. I cannot give a good enough description of what this place is like... it is like no place I had ever experienced. The pictures we took, I hope will give some perspective of what we saw, but I am afraid it won't do justice to what the actual scenery is like. I think the pictures will at least give a taste of how very different Skye is from many other places in Scotland.

We get to Uig. We travel along the road and see a sign that says "Kilmuir House", yeah, our Bed and Breakfast. Michael and I get to the door, I knock and a sweet woman answers. I introduce myself and tell her we have a reservation for the evening at her B and B. She looks at me with some confusion and says, "Ah... Nooo. I don't think so!" I continue to explain that I had called on Thursday to book a room and had talked with a gentleman. She asks me, "Could you have booked a room at the OTHER Kilmuir House?" The OTHER ONE??? AH... GEEEESH.... Apparently there are two Kilmuir Houses on the Island... one in Uig and one in Dunvegan, which is more on the western side of the island and is about 45 minutes away from Uig. The man of the house kindly calls over to the OTHER Kilmuir home to inquire whether or not they are expecting us... of course, they were! In hind sight, everything makes more sense. When I booked the room, I went on the website to get more detailed directions as to how to get to the B and B. It only gave me an availability calendar, the name of the place, a phone number and a brief description of its location. It did say something about Dunvegan. I later went back to see if there were further directions that I might have overseen and so I typed in "Kilmuir House" in my search engine and came up with the website to the Kilmuir House in Uig, which had great directions and a virtual tour of the property. I gave Michael the directions to the Uig place, he told me how we were going to get their and I told him I thought the place was in Dunvegan. It never crossed our minds that there could be two places of the same name on the island yet we continued to be a bit confused as to why one site said Dunvegan and one said Uig. Consequently, we aren't the only ones who have gotten the two places mixed up... this seems to happen rather often. You'd think the two properties would do something to clear up any confusion!

So... we drove another 45 minutes to the town of Dunvegan, which ended up not being all that much out of our way. We wanted to see the island anyway and so since we took the route to Uig, we got to see a large part of the eastern side. Now we will get to see the western side and we wanted to get to Dunvegan anyway since that is where Dunvegan Castle is located and is one of the island's largest attractions.

We arrive at Kilmuir House #2 and this rather tall, sort of chunky man, greets us at the car. He is dressed in a t-shirt and sweat pants and looks like the sort of fellow one would describe as "laid back". He introduces himself as Sam and immediately we can tell this guy is extremely warm, hospitable and very friendly. He guides us into his home, shows us our room(very simple, has a clean bathroom, and looks out over the hills which are covered with sheep!!!) and helps us get situated. Although the two Bed and Breakfast places have the same name, they are quite opposite of one another. The Uig location is done up in Victorian style decor, they do the whole tea and scone thing and have obviously been in the business for sometime. Sam, on the other hand, has a home that is simple. No frills, no extra fluff, just simple, plain and well lived in. The place was comfortable and would suit us just fine but it felt more like staying in someone's house rather than a B&B, which was fine by us.

Sam helped us find a place for dinner and so we made reservations at a restaurant about 1/4 mile away called "The Old School House". We enjoyed our dinner very much... a very good recommendation on Sam's part. I had their chilibean casserole and Michael had this incredible chicken that was stuffed with creamcheese and apples covered in a delectable sauce. The food was excellent!

After dinner, we get back to Sam's place and end up sitting in the living room with him and his wife, Carol. They are watching the U.K.'s popular show "Big Brother" which brings up lots of interesting topics of conversation. We ended up talking with Sam and Carol for a good hour or so about Scottish TV shows, a few political issues, various books that Carol recommended and living life on Skye. Eventhough the place was not fancy whatsoever, the hospitality was extraordinary. Sam and Carol both made us feel very welcome and always made sure we were comfortable. Sam seemed to really enjoy making sure his guests knew of the local sites and what the island had to offer. I know I will sleep well here!