Hiya guys! Happy Monday! Hope you’ve all had a great weekend!
This week I thought I would do a photo post on my wee road trip/island
hopping holiday at the end of July! My
pals and I had a week away over visiting the western isles of Scotland! It was so good to see new places that I’ve
never been to before! And as I normally
do, I took hundreds of photos, so I thought I would show you a bunch of them
and where we went, and maybe you’ll end up wanting to visit there someday!
Okay, so I’ll just get on with it!
Day one:
Saturday 25th July
We travelled up to Oban so we could get the ferry over
to Castlebay, Barra. It was quite a long
ferry ride – five and a half hours – oft! But the scenery was gorgeous crossing over!!
And the sun was out!
Lovely blue sea!
Seeing the sunset over the sea.
We arrived there around 8 in the evening!
Such a scenic wee seaside
village.
Kisimul Castle.
Lovely little sailing boat.
After getting settled in at our accommodations, we decided to go a walk to explore a little bit. Castlebay is stunning when the sun sets…beautiful!!
Day two: Sunday 26th July
We had the full day on Barra and following our very well done, and informative, itinerary by Mr R. we went to visit various beaches and Barra airport. I went a wee bit overboard on the photos of the beaches so I won’t bore you too much with them…I will just show you photos of the beach across from the airport!
Barra airport – waiting to see the plane take off.
Wee fact: Barra airport is a unique one as it is the only known airport
in the world that used the beach as the runway.
Close up of the planes propellers.
Lovely view.
And really high sand dunes!
To be honest, this was the first time I had seen a sand dune! Never really went to visit beaches in Scotland when I was wee, like the pals did, so when I said that I had never run down a sand dune…guess what we did!!
At the top of the sand dune – that was tough trying to climb FYI!
So yeah, running down was scary…but super fun!! Only downside…the amount of sand in the shoes,
haha!!
Barra airport from the top of
the sand dune.
Seagulls.
Tide out. Seaweed everywhere.
More exploring. More rain.
Another beach walk…but this time we
found a wee pal along the way!
Our new wee pal.
Pals playing fetch.
Had such a good day in Barra! After dinner three of us went for a wee donner
(stroll) and found another beach half an hour way.
Barra is such a lovely island but its super super
cold!! So bring loads of warm clothes if
you go! And layering is the key to not shivering
when you’re there!
Day three: Monday 27th
July
For the last few hours in Castlebay,
we decided to visit Kisimul Castle. The
castle is located on a wee island, literally one or two minutes away by boat.
Entrance to the Castle.
Low doors.
Castle grounds.
Looking onto Castlebay.
Where the old wall meets the new wall.
Looking out onto Castlebay (and the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry)
from the top
of the Castle.
After visiting the castle, we went a walk
along the Herring walk, by the sea in Castlebay.
Herring walk sign.
Mosaic.
Bench along the herring walk.
View looking out from Castlebay.
We then headed over to the ferry
terminal at Ardmhor to get the ferry over to Eriskay. This ferry journey only took half an hour,
which was good! We arrived at Eriskay at
lunchtime!
Eriskay is lovely, by the way…so
scenic! So, we drove around there for a
bit, then up to South Uist.
We stopped off at a few places to
have a wee nosey (look) – for example, the statue of Our Lady of the Isles.
Our lady of the Isles.
We actually drove past it to begin
with, but as we were quite curious we turned around! The
statue is amazing - it’s on a hill and you can clearly see it from the road.
Close up of the statue.
We then headed over to Benbecula,
where our hostel was. After settling in,
and getting dinner, a few of us went out a walk.
Beach.
And realised there was a beach
literally two seconds away, so we managed to get a wee paddle in the sea…which
was freezing (of course) but refreshing.
Day four:
Tuesday 28th July
Last day on Eriskay/South
Uist/Benbecula/North Uist, so we did some more exploring, before we had to head
off to get the ferry to Skye!
We ended up in North Uist, where we
did the Balranald nature walk.
Machair (grassy plain).
Old rusty tractor.
Thistles.
Bird skulls.
North Uist beach.
Rocks on the beach.
Shells.
The nature walk took a bit longer
than we expected, and was a bit tough at times, as it is very rocky - but it
was a good wee excursion because the scenery out onto the sea is lovely…and I
did get a lot of photos!
Piled up stones - very Andy Goldsworthy!
Checkpoints.
So, basically, we did a full circle
and ended up back at the beach!
After this we went over to Lochmaddy
to get the ferry over to Uig. Unfortunately,
there was a problem with the CalMac ferries, which meant (like all the other
passengers) our travel plans had to change! Luckily we managed to make alternative travel
arrangements (and got accommodation sorted out too), but we had to get to Skye the
long way round.
We ended up having to get a ferry
from Berneray over to Harris, then drive up to Stornoway. This was where our hotel was, which was good as
we were really not far from the ferry terminal the next day!
Stornoway is so different from the
likes of Barra and Eriskay! It’s
actually a bit of a culture shock to be honest, so easy to forget that you are
actually on one of the islands rather than on the mainland.
As the ferry was early the next day,
we had to get an early night…but before that Miss G. and I wanted to walk
around and explore the town.
Day five: Wednesday 29th
July
Early early start today, we had to get up at around 5 to get ready for
leaving the hotel and going over to check in for the ferry at 6. The ferry left at 7 and we got to Ullapool
just before lunch.
That was a tough journey for me as it
was quite choppy, and I felt awful. I
had the travel sickness wristbands for the trip but they did not work and I
never had any travel sickness tablets with me L!So, I had to go sit outside in the cold, in
the outside seating area! What made me
feel worse was some of the pals were sitting out with me and they were
freezing! I’ve got some good pals.
After arriving in Ullapool it was a
long journey down to Portree in Skye. And,
I was feeling travel sick from being on the ferry - that journey was terrible
for me! I felt awful!! (So I was so grateful to get to the flat where
I could sit down and sit still for a while).
View of Portree from the flat.
We settled in to the flat and had a
wee rest, before going out for supplies from the local Co-op for dinner!
However, being by the sea, and the
fact that there was a chippy (fish and chip shop) right next door, and everybody
else seemed to be walking around eating fish and chips, we obviously had to have
the same!
After dinner, two of the pals decided
to explore Portree. I stayed in and had
an early night. Honestly, up until I went
to bed I still felt as if I was swaying and moving. Oft.
Day six: Thursday 30th
July
Full day in Skye today, so we decided
to go to a place we had been looking forward to for the whole trip…The Fairy
Pools!!
It was quite a long drive to get there
but once we got there, it was so nice! The
weather was lovely - it was so dry and sunny and warm! Such a change from the cold and the rain of
the past few days!
On the way to the start of the Fairy Pools walk.
Sun is shining.
Long and windy road.
Stepping stones over water.
Clear pools of water.
Photographer pal.
Reflections.
Little waterfalls.
Miss G photo-bombing my selfie.
View of the hills and the water.
Rocks.
Waterfalls.
Looking back on the walk.
Close up of the water.
The Fairy Pools were amazing!! It’s a bit of a walk to get there but honestly
totally worth it as the sights are amazing!
It’s such a lovely place and I would
definitely recommend going to see it! Plus,
you can go a wee paddle too…even a swim if you’re felling brave, haha.
After another wee drive we stopped
off at the Talisker distillery.
Outside the
Talisker Distillery.
We didn’t do the tour, but we had to
have a wee nosey in the gift shop…which by the way smells really good! Whisky can be really expensive! Oft.
Next, we drove around some more and
stopped off at a place called Quiraing (Cuith-Raing). The drive up there is crazy…up a winding road
to get to the top. It’s amazing once you
get to the top though as you can see everything!
Information.
Jaggy rocky hills.
Winding road.
View from the top of Quiraing.
Our next stop was at Kilt Rock.
Kilt Rock.
Waterfall off Kilt Rock.
Rocks at the bottom.
After all the sight-seeing we went
back to the flat and got some dinner. Like nearly every other night this week, we
had to have a wee walk after dinner as well. Portree is another nice place to visit…definitely!
It’s a nice seaside town.
View of Portree from a wee tower.
Mr R and Mr S with Portree in the background.
Day seven:
Friday 31st July
Another early rise today. We drove up to Armadale to get the ferry over
to Malaig, which only took 20 minutes! Which was great (for me)!
Then we drove back home from there. It took quite a while to get back! It was tough going! Can’t imagine how it was for Mr R. our driver
- this trip must have taken it out of him – all the travelling! We did manage to a few stops along the way to
take a rest…and a cheese crepe from one of the European food stalls that were
travelling around too! It was yum!!
I got home at around 4 in the
afternoon and chilled for the rest of the night, as I was back to work the next
day.
It was such a good week away, got the
chance to spend time with the pals (which is always good, as I don’t get to see
them as much as I would like), got to visit loads of lovely places and take
hundreds of photos! And I would definitely go back to visit Harris and
Lewis, and Skye again. Those are the
places I would love to explore more! So,
apart from the travel sickness and freezing weather, it was all-in-all a really
great holiday!!
Anyway, thank you SO SO much for
reading! I really hope you
enjoyed looking at all my holiday photos and it makes you want to go visit some
of these places! You definitely should,
if you get the chance J! But, just remember to bring lots of jumpers
and hoodies…and layer, layer, layer!
Have a great day guys and as always, take care
and I’ll see you next time!
Lin xxx
