by After a late night of a few beers and cards with Josie and Karla, we set off on our journey at about 9am. From Ullapool, we headed north and took a coastal road through some spectacular scenery – single lane road with lots of passing bays. We continued on towards Inverness taking the tourist route. Passing through Strathpeffer which is a beautiful little village with great houses and cottages.
We avoided Inverness town centre and headed down to Loch Ness. Yes it is spectacular. 24 miles long and 1 mile wide in parts. Quite a body of water – more than all the lakes of England and Wales put together.
We stopped at Urquart Castle – a castle in ruins, but a beautiful position. From there we headed further down the Loch and then west towards the isle of Skye. The road had some absolutely spectacular scenery. Flowing streams and snow-capped mountains. Fantastic.
The highlight of the day was probably our visit to Eileen Doonan Castle. This is where scenes from The Highlander were filmed. The castle was built centuries ago to fight the Vikings. In 1263 the Vikings were defeated and driven out of Scotland. Over the centuries the castle went through many battles, one being with the Spanish. The Spanish destroyed the castle and all that was left were some foundations. In 1902 Mr MacRae Gilstrap dreamt of what the castle looked like and found the money from somewhere to rebuild the castle. It was rebuilt between 1912 and 1932. It is all done out with furniture and paintings. The kitchen had LifeSize statues of staff doing activities like cooking dinner and plastic models of types of food eaten, and what was stored in the pantry. It was fantastic.
We moved from there to Kyle of Lochalsh which is the town where you get across to the Isle of Skye at a cost of £4.20 one way. We walked over the bridge, took photos, and came home.
