If I were writing a guidebook, I would write: The Isle of Skye is best explored by car’. In fact, somebody had written that, and I promptly ignored it just like the suggestion that I should try black pudding (blood and oats mixed and fried). No way, man.
So, with great difficulty in finding any buses, let along using them, I managed to get to the capital, Portree, and took a boat ride out to the island of Raasay and Rassay Sound to spot the local wildlife.
It was great fun – we spotted and threw fish to a massive white-tailed sea eagle, and saw puffins that looked so cute ducking above and below the water. We saw poipoises swimming close to the boat and a variety of other wildlife hidden within the barren landscape.
Or should I say, I saw all of this. The rest of the passenegers had huddled below the deck of the boat (with no windows) as soon as we ran into some rain. So the captain and I donned rain ponchos and, armed with binoculars and fresh fish, had a wonderful time in the pouring rain.
As we head back, of course being sunny and warm again, the passengers emerged to the captains wry look as he said, ‘Och, don’t know what happened there, we never get weather like that in Scotland!’. They looked like they believed him too, bless.
On the way to Broadford, I stopped off at the AROS culture and heritage centre which I was told I ‘had to go to’ by an old man on the bus that morning. A suggestion similar to eating black pudding, that I probably should have ignored, the centre consisting mainly of a movie that showed the views of the stunningly beautiful mountain ranges of Skye that were just outside the door, should anyone care to look.
The cost of the movie, £4. The cost of the bus for the day, £6. The difference between watching a TV screen and standing in the pouring rain, throwing fish to a sea eagle gliding over the mist-covered mountains of Scotland.
Well, it’s priceless, isn’t it?
-Sarah
Sarah