The Longest Beautiful Day... Part 1

When last we left you, we were preparing for a tremendous day of excursions: sea kayaking, consorting (and picnicing!) with faeries, and hill-walking one of the most beautiful places on Skye. It turned out to be such a tremendous day that it wore us completely out, and then with all of the travelling back to Glasgow, terribly slow internet access, and general exhaustion, we just gave up on keeping our blog up to date. Admittedly, one reason we were so exhausted was because our room at the inn in Portree was directly above the bar and live-music area. Perhaps this is why it was so inexpensive... anyway, with loud music going until the wee hours, our sleep wasn't great, but we survived. And here we are again to share our adventure!

The loch where we kayaked!
We put in out of the picture to the right,
then paddled all the way across the bay and along
the shoreline to the outcropping in the foreground.

The longest beautiful day was the Tuesday of our second week. It started quite early in the morning (which our bodies still knew was the middle of the night at home) with Doug heading round the corner to the town grocer to pick up our picnic food for the day. We were to have more wine, cheese and meats with a Bordeaux that Doug bought in Glasgow! Then down for our overly-caloric Scottish breakfast (I'd given up and turned to just porridge and toast, but Doug faithfully ordered the full breakfast each morning. His beard makes him hungry.) And away we drove North, cross-country to Sea Kayaking!

Thank you to Alyce and Gayle, the Fee family, Jessica, Kristen, and Will & Lauren for sending us Sea Kayaking!!  It was a lovely day.

OK, so, the thing about sea kayaking is that...well, it's in the water. Our phones and camera are the sissy-afraid-of-water-kind, so we left them in the car for the actual kayaking, so that they wouldn't drown if we toppled over. Fortunately, neither Doug nor I toppled over, but one of our companions did, but all ended well.

Our arms are a bit tired, but our hearts are happy

Here's a hurried photo of our happy-and-tired faces following our sea kayaking adventure:

Our leader was named Patrick and we kayaked with one other couple, visiting from Ireland, named Collette and Kevin. Kevin is the one who toppled over, because he was mischievously trying to splash Collette. I had strictly forbidden Doug from mischief because I am a delicate flower, the sea was very very very cold, and I didn't have a change of underpants.

And here are a couple more photos overlooking the area of the loch where we kayaked:

We put in just beside that pier in the distance.

We paddled allllllll the way across the bay and then
along almost all of the shoreline visible in this photo.

Everywhere we went, when we met people, everyone was always surprised and enchanted to learn that two young Americans would come to Skye on their honeymoon...which is probably good for us, because it would be much less fun if ooey-gooey honeymooning couples were roaming around everywhere distracting attention from us. Heehee.

After kayaking, we popped into the car and drove just a few miles to Faerie Glen for our picnic. Thank you Gramma Barbara for sponsoring our picnic: we were hungry and weary and in need of rest and refreshment!

Can you see the faeries?!

Faerie Glen is essentially a very interesting little geological formation in the middle of an enormous sheep pasture:

It's called "Faerie Glen" in part because it is a miniature version of the true-life enormous hills and glens that cover northern Scotland. Every part of it is like a miniature version of the same geological features. It was precious.

 We found the perfect spot on the very top of one of the strange and perfectly conical hills, overlooking the rest of the site (and sheep!).

Our grocery-bought-but-nonetheless-yummy picnic!

Our wine was "sipped" from
the inn's coffee mugs as
we snarfed our picnic 

 It had a nice flat lawn on the top, close-cropped by the sheep's munching, and so we spread out the neat little tartan blanket that we'd borrowed from our Inn room and covered it with deliciousness. Then, in the warmth of the sun, a strange foggy haze overtook us, and we were softly lulled to sleep. 

Faeries??!! Perhaps. 

When we awoke from our faerie-and-wine-and-sunshine-(and possibly fatigue)-induced slumber, we put away our picnic and walked up to the very top of the highest outcrop of the Glen. And here is what we saw:

See the little faerie cars down there?!

Decades of sheep munching wore little paths round and
round the hills...

It's called faerie glen in part because it's a tiny little representation
of the enormous glens that cover Skye... the most spectacular
of which we visited later in the day.

 After exploring the glen thoroughly, we packed up the car and headed to the "real" hills. As many beautiful places as we'd been so far, we didn't fully appreciate just how breathtakingly beautiful the "landslip" called "Quirang" would be. It was quite literally breathtaking because we climbed all the way up it, hiked across it, and learnt exactly why the Scottish refer to "hillwalking" as a semi-extreme sport.

To be continued!