Scotland 7 - Trains and Skye

Also, coins hammered
into a trunk. Because.

Today we say goodbye to Ballachulish and head off to Skye. We woke early and packed the house, because we had a date with a train. Unlike most appointments with trains, we were not getting on the train, we just wanted to watch a train go by. And not just any train, the Harry Potter Train, on the Harry Potter Bridge!  I've also seen it in the Stone of Scone movie, but the crowds are only there for Harry Potter, and there were crowds.

And the crowds were wild. I'm no stranger to unconventional pursuits, but usually I'm doing it alone. Hiking across a field and climbing up a muddy slippery hillside to take a picture of a train.... that sounds like a good Tuesday. That does not sound like something I'd do with thousands of people, streaming out of multiple car-parks. And this cycle repeats a few times every day. 

We picked our spots, took some test shots to work out angles/lenses (I went with a 50'), talked other people out of standing directly in front of us ("come up here, it's a great view"), and finally heard a train in the distance. After what felt like an eternity, smoke puffed over the ridgeline of the mountain, and suddenly, the train was on the bridge! Looking gorgeous and magical, blowing it's whistle and flaunting. Before you know it, you've snapped your perfect photo [it was not perfect, it was blown out and I had to edit in the smoke from my mom's shot] and you're left with a few breathes to appreciate it, and quick as you like it's gone.   We let the masses start their exits and waited around a bit, and as eventually started down the hillside the commuter train passed in the opposite direction. He was also flaunting his stuff, tooting all three of his horns, and loving it. What a legend.

Oh, and we saw a rainbow!

Excitement accomplished and the #1 ticked off Hannah's Scotland wishlist, it was time for this convoy to continue north.  Gorgeous drives, but unfortunately I don't have any pictures because I was behind the wheel. It's definitely easier after a few days of practice, but I'm not up to my American comfort level where I would absolutely [not break any laws about cellphone use on the highway.]

Lunch was supposed to be at <dunno>, but they were closed. I did get this picture of a goose though:

Second lunch was the place <dunno> recommended, and it ended up being far nicer than a restaurant we'd normally choose, especially with toddlers. I had to take Ada out to the porch to burn off some energy, and was treated to great view of a loch almost a mile wide, and the mountain on the far side. Lunch itself was delicious, though I was disappointed Cullen Skink was just a stew, and not actual skink. 

Driving north again, we put in another 2 hours until we got to Eileen Donan, a castle on the coast. It stood for centuries until the Spanish stashed supplies in it to help the Jacobites rebel against England... which was all well and good until the English realized the gunpowder had arrived before the cannons. So they stormed it and set torch to the magazine. Nobody was all that excited to go see it except for me, so we snapped our pics across the tidal firth, hit the bathrooms, petted a few dogs, and loaded back up.

The stop was long enough to wake up Ada, but not long enough to burn off her energy (even with the dogs) so she spent the next hour screaming. Happy? screaming, but at the top of her outsized lungs. We crossed into Skye, and the landscape only grew more bizarre. The natural history of Scotland boils down to an anthropogenic ecological disaster. 10,000 years ago, Scotland was mostly forests. Over the last 4000 years, the entirety of Scotland was logged for building materials and fuel, so much so that most the castles that we visited had to import timber as nothing large enough grew anywhere on the isle. Alongside this deforestation the was a huge uptick in grazing, both from sheep and from deer now unchecked by predation-  all the wolves and bears had been eradicated from Scotland. This grazing pressure prevents (or at least significantly slows) the growth of forests, as all the shoots are eaten away - which is especially significant given the extremely short growing season since the latitude limits the hours of sunlight and the temperature. This is why the Scottish hillsides look so stunning. 

Driving into Portree, we saw a giant mountain (possibly Storr?), which was way too large to be covered in meadow as it was - sunlit in the distance while we passed in and out of rainstorms.... it really looked like a backdrop. The closer hills were all quite scenic, but believable. Storr looked like someone had hung an enormous painting across the heavens, a unique feeling of derealization I hadn't experienced since my first total eclipse. 

Ada finally stopped screaming. And started again! Just wanted you to experience that relief snatched away, as she was on and off the whole time. But we finally made it just beyond Portree to our cabin. Very cute, all the rooms are themed by color and Scottish ephemera tastefully applied to every wall, but in a cozy way.  Some freezer-pizza for dinner, and bit of gin liberated from a shelf of otherwise empty bottles. After dinner, dad and I walked down to the church on the corner, and then hiked up to the rock peak we can see out our back windows. Great views (and a rainbow!), but once you reach that peak (which possibly had an eagle? an owl? on it, you see yet another peak behind that...). We were tempted, but there were only 2 fingers of sunlight left, and I'd rather not hop fences and trudge through overgrown fields in the dark. Looking further into it though, it's 4 miles out our back door to Storr. That's just my sort of dumb shit unconventional pursuit. If we're have another quiet afternoon in.... no promises.