Category: Skye

Windy & Bright – 22 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

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Sitting in the Coffin House in Skye. Having coffee, eating a brownie and gazing at a wide, wide landscape. Scamp is eating something unpronounceable (Pear and Almond Streusel I’m reliably informed!) with coffee. What a place to build your house! Just imagine waking to this view every morning!

At least, that’s where we were. Now we’re in Cafe Arriba in Portree. Globetrotters that’s us.

Or at least we were.  Now the big hand’s almost at 6 and the little hand is heading rapidly towards 12, that’s 12pm!  It’s been a lovely day and I’m trying to catalog it before it becomes tomorrow.

22-sept

After we left the Coffin House or Turf House to give it its proper name  and to be absolutely perjinct, the house is called the Turf House, but we were in the adjoining coffee shop and its proper name is Single Track.  It’s in Kilmaluig on Skye.  It was Murd who christened it the Coffin House because of the elongated hexagonal plan view of the house itself, although the coffee shop is actually in what is the studio of the house, not the house itself.  They tried to name it Turf House, but to the locals it will always be the Coffin House.  Inside the cafe it’s warm and quite spacious with that wonderful view out to the sea.  I went there hoping to see some of Wil Freeborn’s watercolour paintings, but they were almost all sold.  Only one left and priced at £90 was outwith my pocket money.  I wasn’t all that impressed with it either.  The two ladies who run the cafe were very forthcoming about Wil and told me that the paintings had almost sold out within a week of opening.  His stuff is good, well, I like it.

After Coffin Coffee we went on a run to Aird.  We’d been there in March?  The last time we’d been on the island anyway and found a fairly sheltered parking place out of the worst of the wind and sat there watching the world go by.  Scamp wanted to go there again today and we spent another hour and a big bit watching the world go by again.  I got a fairly decent watercolour done of the wee white house in the mosaic above.  I’d painted it the last time we were there too and I don’t think today’s effort was better.  Only had one interruption by a bloke wanting to get directions to Flodigarry.  We sent him in roughly the right direction, hoping he’d bump into someone who would give him a more accurate road.

When we left Aird, we headed south to Portree for more high jinx trying to second guess what the stupid motorists would do before they did it.  You can never tell when some people want to drive at 10mph through the town, signal left then go right while others are trying to perform a 93 point turn in the middle of the main street with a camper van.  I really do despair of the intelligence of these drivers.  I’m sure they’re the ones who voted Out at the EU referendum.

Lunch was at Café Arriba in Portree and I’m suffering for it tonight.  I don’t want to tell you how many times I’ve been to the toilet.  Maybe the last time for this lunch venue.

After lunch we went to Braes which is out on a headland just south of Portree.  We managed to go on another new road!  Got some photos and came back by a really dodgy under maintained road.  Not very funny at all.  However, we didn’t meet any of the stupids this time … thankfully.

Coming back north we stopped at Storr Lochs and grabbed a few more shots before dropping Scamp off at Burnside and heading down to the shore to get the last few shots of the day.  Saw a strange looking lorry down at the slip with a wide door in the side and what looked like a stage or a catwalk extending from it.  A mobile theatre perhaps?  On Skye??  Got a few shots of Staffin Island and then the rain came on, right on the forecast time.

Tomorrow looks like rain all day.

A road less travelled – 21 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

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We woke to a beautiful morning with good colour in the sky and a sprinkling of clouds.  According to the weather forecast, rain was on the way in the afternoon, so we needed to get out fairly early.  I must admit it was me who was tardy in rising and greeting the day, so there you go, blame me.

We drove up the road to Uig to visit our niece Jac who has just started work in a boutique hostel.  I think we were both quite intrigued by the descriptions we’d heard from her mother, another Jac, and Murd.  We met more than our usual lot of crazies going the other way.  Mother Jac (I think Jac the mum, we’ll call Jac1 – seniority!  Our niece will be Jac2. – There, that’s much simpler … I think).  So Jac1 had warned us about the amount of crazies driving on the single track roads and the arrogance of them.  Today we met them.  They seem to think they own the road.  They really have to understand that they are only visitors to this island.  There are other road users, people who live on the island and then there’s me and I DO own the road.  Yes, I did get it when I bought the motor!  However, we reached Uig in one piece.  The next warning we’d had from both Murd and Jac1 was about the road from Uig to the Cow Shed where Jac2 works.  I’m glad she did.  It reminded me of a road from Clydeside up to Craignethan Castle, except on that road there are warning signs.  On this wee road there are no sign.  Suddenly the road rises up right in front of you and continues to rise through three hairpin bends on a single track road.  Thankfully there were no crazies coming the other way this time.  Also, this achieved today’s goal to travel on a road we hadn’t been on in Skye.

The Cow Shed itself is very luxurious.  Calling this a hostel is a real misnomer.  This is a luxurious place.  The only ‘hostel part of it is the bunk beds in the dormitories.  And what a view!  From the lounge there is an uninterrupted view right across Uig bay.  Scamp was determined to get a look at the ‘pods’ and we did get a look in one.  Clever design and environmentally sound.  Good thinking too with mini pods for dogs on holiday with their owners.  I think we may be paying for a night in one of the pods the next time we are in Skye, but not one with a dogpod!

From Uig we drove over to Waternish and down to Stein and parked next to the loch.   That was when the rain came on.  In Skye when the rain comes on, it sometimes forgets to go off.  We headed back to Sligachan and from there to Portree.  The rain thinned a bit, but always came back with a vengence.  Got myself a shirt in Skye Batiks, another one, a purple one.  We drove back to Staffin and had a cream tea in Columba and a natter with Jac1.  After that we drove down to Staffin beach and the roads were in just as bad state as Murd and Jac1 had warned us about.

Headed back to Burnside and dinner which was boiled ham, cabbage and potatoes, my second old favourite.  Best favourite being mince and tatties!

Don’t know what we’re doing or where we’re going tomorrow.  It’s in the lap of the weather gods.  Looks good, but you never know on Skye.

There Jac1 you got a mention!  Don’t know if Jac2 reads this, but if you do, you got a mention too.

On the Isle – 20 September 2016

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20-septHere we are on Skye after a 240(ish) mile journey which took the nominal 7 hours which equates to around 34 mph average.  Of course that doesn’t take into account stops to take on food and water or to ahem, remove the byproducts from the system.  Real average speed was nearer 45 mph.  That’s still slow by today’s standard, but given the traffic and the roads we were travelling on, was quite good going.

It was a beautiful morning when we left home and pointed the car roughly north, and the weather stayed that way all the way to Skye.  We’d been warned that there were a lot of visitors on the island, but we weren’t really ready for the amount of tour buses and mobile homes we encountered on the journey.  In Sligachan campsite alone, we counted 15 of these pantechnicons cluttering up the place.  Really, people do you NEED to take absolutely everything with you when you go on hols?  My brother-in-law was an HGV driver and was telling us tonight that he had to sit a second test to be able to drive heavy lorries, yes most of these ugly homes-on-wheels are driven by amateurs with the road sense of a chimpanzee.  I’m sure most of the vehicles are capable of speeds in excess of 70mph, but the trained chimps seem to be determined to make the most of first and second gear to the exclusion of all others.  “Fifteen miles an hour is good enough for anyone” seems to be their mantra.  I hate them.  They are almost as bad as caravans.  Don’t get me started on caravans.

Despite the moving road blocks that are houses on wheels, we had a great run up.  Weather was good.  Company was good.  Music was good.  Chocolate Limes were in plentiful supply.  What (apart from the obvious) was not to like?  Stupid tourists, that’s the answer.  We stopped at the Commando memorial at Spean Bridge for coffee and lunch.  With what is usually a lovely view of the mountains to look at.  Unfortunately, some refugees from a bus tour stood in a group eating icecream and watching us.  Maybe they were jealous that we were eating real food and drinking coffee when all they had was rapidly melting icecream.  I took their photo, just so they wouldn’t feel left out.  It was like watching sad old zoo animals.  I felt sorry for them when they were herded back into their bus to be taken somewhere else.  I’ll post the picture tomorrow.

Once we got to Burnside, we felt refreshed, as we always do.  Good food, banter and a wee dram or two helped as it always does.

Don’t know where we’re going tomorrow, but probably we’ll try to go on at least one new road.  That’s the plan.

All Good Things … 10 April 2016

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combo bAfter breakfast we packed up the car and pointed it south. Made fairly good time all the way down the road. Stopped off at Spean Bridge for lunch which for me was a mega breakfast of bacon, link sausage, lorne sausage, haggis, black pudding, fried egg, beans, tattie scone, toast and tea all for £7.95. Scamp had a chicken burger which was uninspiring. Should have had the mega breakfast, even if as a semi-veggy you’d have had to donate your sausages and bacon to me.

Back on the road we continued south and stopped just past the Clachaig Inn so I could take some photos. The first of the day. I wanted some shots looking back at Loch Achtriachtan – bottom right. I also got a decent shot looking the other way up the glen towards the Pass of Glencoe. That’s the mono shot. Just got back into the car when a people carrier arrived and out spilled half a dozen Chinese tourists each with a smartphone on a selfie stick and I thought of Murd!

Found a slot in the never ending stream of traffic heading up the glen and drove on to Rannoch Moor. I was watching the cloudscape that was forming above the snow covered mountains and trying to figure out where would be best to park to grab the shot I could imaging was being created for me. I’ve been caught out before by ignoring the first parking place, trying for the optimum viewpoint and finding there’s nowhere there for parking – Scotland’s terrible for providing parking where there is nothing worth seeing and no parking where there is. This time I chose the first place that presented itself almost empty too – just a white van in it, and decided I’d walk until I found the best VP. As it turned out, there was a beautiful clear shot of the mountains and clouds right across form the parking place (top two shots). Took the shot (or 10) and then realised there was a tripod with a camera but without a photog, just to my right. Then I turned round and saw the driver of the white van watching me. It turned out he was doing a time lapse of the changing cloudscape. I asked him how long he’d run it for and after some thought he said “about 30 minutes should be enough”. He said he was driving down from Skye and really should be in a hurry, but the landscape was just too pretty to ignore. I told him we were doing the same and took my leave, wishing him luck with his time lapse.

Our next stop was between Crianlarich and Lix Toll for a coffee and to stretch my legs. Then it was on through Callander and Doune to the M9 and home. It took us just over six hours.

Thanks Murd and Jackie for the hospitality again and hope to see you soon.

Over the five days we clocked up around 660 miles and I took 335 photos, most of which were rubbish, but some of which I’m really proud of. That’s what photography is all about. A 10% success rate is pretty good. My success rate was about half of that, but then, you can’t quantify art 😉

Stunning Sligachan – 9 April 2016

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combo bDrove over Quiraing to reach Uig, then down the west side of the island to Portree. Stopped for a while at the top to take in the view and to grab some photos. I liked the style of the Indian bloke with his pink umbrella striding off across the footpath round the edge of Quiraing.

Had lunch at Jan’s Vans new café and also took on some petrol further down the road. Then we made our leisurely way to Sligachan to photograph the Cuillins which were looking quite dramatic after some overnight snow. Snow in April. Not unheard of, but after the fairly temperate winter we’ve had, it was not really expected. I got another painting done and was quite pleased with it. Just a medium sized sketch, but not timed this time. We made a really relaxed afternoon of it sitting in a lay-by off the main road with just the beautiful mountains and hills around us. Weather was kind with lovely sunshine and very little wind.

When we got back to Staffin I dropped Scamp off at the house and then headed down the slip. The place was quiet so I got to walk across the bog and on to the limestone pavement section and got a few shots, but not many. It was nice to sit there in the quiet and listen to the waves crashing and the birds singing. Sometimes that’s worth more than the dramatic scenery, but the drama helps too.

Remember, the mosaic at the top sometimes shows only part of today’s images and always at a reduced scale.  Click on the mosaic to be transported to my Flickr page.

Off home tomorrow.

Birthday Boy – 8 April 2016

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comboToday is my birthday and the kitchen didn’t switch on the extractor fans at 6.00AM or crash bang the aluminium trays to celebrate that fact.

We drove round the top of the island and over to Waternish. Rather than go on to Trumpan, we dropped down to Stein. Stein is a tiny wee village of about half a dozen houses and the famous Stein Inn. Google it.

We sat and watched the world go by for a while and the Queen sat and watched too. The Queen was a Lego minifig and was a birthday prezzy from Hazy. She had sat on our dashboard, taking in the sights from Staffin to Stein. The Queen is probably the cutest birthday prezzy, but the strangest must be JIC’s solid tapered lump of cocoa for making hot chocolate, carefully described by him as “Not a suppository” on its label!

I went for a walk down to the slip and saw the scene that I’d painted three times in different media. The actual picture. It’s a whitewashed cottage on a spit of land sticking out into the sea. On the day I first photographed it, it had a line of washing blowing in the wind. Today there was no washing, but what I noticed was that the building was two storey. I’d always painted it as a single storey building. Sometimes imagination is better than fact. The two storey building just didn’t look right. On the way back to the car, I spotted the snail. It was making a bee line (should that be a snail line?) for the other side of the footpath. It was travelling straight as a die and moving at a fast snail’s pace. However I was worried that he would get crushed under someone’s feet once I’d gone, so the least I could do was give him an airlift to the other side and placed him carefully in the undergrowth.

We drove back to Portree, the capital of Skye. There we went to Cafe Arriba for lunch. Macaroni for Scamp and Lamb and Chorizo burger for me. Brilliant! Drove back up the single track and double track road to Staffin and went down to the beach and watched the tide come in before we went for a walk on the beach.

Back to Jackie and Murd for dinner, then a dram or two in front of a coal fire. Brilliant end to a Brilliant day.

An early rise (unplanned) – 7 April 2016

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ComboThe kitchen started work again at 6.00AM and so did the noise.  It was so loud, and it woke both Scamp and me and we just couldn’t get back to sleep, so I suggested we make an early start and get on the road.  Breakfast was very good – the food IS good.  Shower in the room had an air-lock in it and squealed when you turned the flow up above a trickle.  Scamp made sure she complained about this and the abominable kitchen when we were booking out and got a small amount removed from the bill after the receptionist had gone to speak to the manager.  The manager chose not to meet his irate customer face to face.  I wonder why.

The rest of the run up north passed without incident until we were on the single track section out of Portree when a diddy of a woman decided that we should reverse back a couple of hundred yards to a passing place and allow her through, even though she had just driven past a passing place.  I’m afraid that wasn’t going to happen and I was pleased to see her go incandescent when I made silly faces at her through the window.  Some people think they own the road.  They don’t, I do.

Went for a drive later as we’d arrived far earlier than expected.  Drove to Aird and I got two paintings done – TWO!  Ok, one was a small sketch, but the other was a full watercolour, both of the same scene.  I think the small one is better than the bigger one.  I’ll maybe post them some time to garner opinion.

After dinner I went down the slip and got some possible photos.  Will know better when I process them, but that may be a problem as it looks like the battery on the Mac is dying.  Down to 37% of its designed capacity.

The long way home – 11 October 2015

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt’s never a happy day, leaving Staffin for the seven hour journey down the road. We always leave with a heavy heart. Me, to lose the silence and Scamp to lose the space. Today was nearly worse. I nearly lost my rugby top. Thankfully Jackie texted Scamp to say I’d left it on the bed, so, since we were only a few miles on our way, we headed back to retrieve it. Drove down to the biscuit tin to have a coffee and a scone. Scones are becoming important to me. Eilean Donan has a photography gallery just now featuring the castle. Some are great, some are just good and some are honestly abysmal. Each has a small description of the photog, written by the photog. Like the photos, some are good, some are … well, you get the idea. Most have ‘a passion’ somewhere in their description. I hate ‘passions’. It’s everywhere just now. Cooks on the thousands of cookery programmes, dancers, everyone has to have a passion. One of the photogs used the ‘passion’ word five times in his self promoting prophesy. That’s too much passion for anyone to have, even about themselves.

Anyway, next stop was set for Spean Bridge. To the wee roadhouse place that used to be a Little Chef and was so much better than that was. Got there to find it was closed. End of season just, I hope. Ok, next stop Fort Billy or Fort William to give it its Sunday name – it was Sunday, so I suppose I should give it the William name. Lunch at Morrisons was a fish and chips and a good F&C it was too at a very reasonable price. Nothing fancy, just hot, fresh F&C. The rest of the road was just the boring run home. Stopped just after Crianlarich for a cup of tea and a chance to stretch our legs and a walk along a bit of a river. Beautiful evening light. Didn’t take my camera, but had my iPhone. On this occasion, the phone didn’t shine as a camera. Disappointing shots.

It was a good holiday. The quiet and the space. You can’t beat it for refreshing you.

Twenty wee Chinese men – 9 October 2015

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combo“Twenty wee Chinese men coming out of a Vauxhall with forty cameras“. That was Murd’s description of Portree, or to be more precise, the SYHA hostel in Portree in the summer. So you can guess, we went to Portree today … In the rain.

We drove through the rain to Uig. The ferry port to the Outer Hebrides.  You see people getting out of their cars and looking around thinking “I must have missed the town and driven straight to the port.”  Nope, this is it.  A few scattered houses, an unwelcoming petrol station, a small (but not micro or nano) brewery and shop, a cafe and that’s about it.  Not exactly the thriving hub of a community.  However, it does its job.  It ferries people, their cars and lorries across the Minch.  We didn’t stop.  We’ve seen it before.  I don’t think it’s changed all that much.  What has changed is the police station.  It’s now a backpackers bunkhouse.  I expect you have to pay extra to sleep in the cells!

From Uig we travelled down the west side of the island to Portree.  Went to Jan’s Vans which is a big warehouse building on the outskirts of the town, selling everything.  I saw needles and I’m sure they had anchors tucked away at the back behind the rainmates.  I’d wanted to get another pair of boot laces for my walking boots.  I wasn’t sure now if I’d need them with my dodgy ankle, but was getting them just in case. In Portree proper, we went for coffee and a scone at the bakery.  Worst coffee I’ve had in a long time.  We did, however, get to see the tourists piling off a bus (with their two cameras each, as predicted by the Staffin Seer) for their hour in Portree.

Had lunch in Cafe Arriba in Portree in the presence of a star!  Donnie McLeod, formerly with Runrig was in the cafe.  We felt honoured.

From there we drove back up to Staffin and sat for an hour or so at the slip, watching the waves and a lone seal swimming around.  That’s the relaxing effect of Skye.  Just sitting for an hour staring at nothing in particular isn’t odd here, it’s what you do.  For me it’s the silence.  For Scamp it’s the space.

As usual, larger versions of the photos are available for viewing in Flickr by clicking on the mosaic at the top of the page.  Usual rules apply.  All photos are digitally watermarked, copyright remains with D. Campbell, that’s me.

Homeward Bound – 26 May 2015

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DSC_2570- blog-146.jpgAll good things must come to an end, and so it was for us as we left Digg and Staffin and Skye behind and headed back down the road. We stopped for a while at Eilean Donan castle for coffee and a scone. I wandered round the exhibition of photos celebrating 100 years of something – wasn’t really interested in what. Most of the photos were clichéd shots of the castle, with only a couple that held my interest for any time. Needless to say, those were B&W. The worst ones by far were the ones that had accidentally (I hope) fallen into a bucket of Photomatix and had turned out all grungy with too light shadows, too saturated colour and too sharp detail. Just dunk them in the HDR mix, drag them out and that’s it done. Hmm, I used to play with HDR too, but you have to be so careful not to produce rubbish from what could be a decent photo. End of rant.

I took some photos of the castle. It’s difficult to get a ‘different’ viewpoint for this well known piece of stonework, but I tried.

Coffee over and photos taken, we got back on the road and after stopping for lunch at Spean Bridge, and re-fuelling at Fort William our next stop was Loch Lubnaig where we parked up at the new parking place at the side of the loch. A wee bit clean and tidy, but much better than the way it was before with a load of dodgy characters overnight camping and leaving the area in a real mess. The sun came out when we were there and I did manage a few shots in good lighting before we drove the final few miles home.

Loch Lubnaig photos:

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