On the menu for the hot foods at the hotel there was an option for French Toast and either bacon or mushrooms. The menu assured us that the mushroom option was a Must Try. I just can’t picture mushrooms and syrup going well together. I was not brave enough to try it. Neither was anyone else, even though two of us got the French Toast.
On our drive we saw some elk. Finally! There have been signs to watch out for them crossing the road all the time, but we had not seen a one of them. We have now passed a small herd of six. Since they blended in with the landscape there wasn’t time to pull out cameras.
The curl in the ends reminds me of fiddle-heads.
Eilean Donan Castle was one of the ones that didn’t take our Adventure Passes so we would have had to pay to get in. Since there was no photography allowed inside we all decided it wasn’t worth going in. It had also started raining as we were walking in towards it and was really raining when we were done taking pictures of the bridge and the outside.
Viewfield House Country Hotel is pretty impressive. They also have a tub, so I get to take a nice long soak tonight. We checked in and tried to find lunch. It seems that downtown Portree is just full. We couldn’t find any empty parking spots that weren’t for a church.
To further re-enforce this, every place with a room to stay said “No Vacancies”. We ended up walking down to town and finally found a restaurant that was opened before 5pm. I had my second round of mince and tatties. The walk wasn’t too bad since part of it was a wooded area.
We got stuck behind a caravan of caravans on our way to the Old Man of Storr. A long queue makes the passing places a lot less effective. The place was super busy and we decided to try for it tomorrow morning. It was also raining and taking a picture of a rock in front of another rock is difficult when there isn’t good lighting.
When we got there some sheep and lambs were hanging out close to where you parked and walked in. I didn’t have my long lense on, but was hoping that on the way back I could grab it out of the car and come back. Unfortunately some of the other tourists were more eager to get cell phone pictures of them. So a bunch of people walked towards them with their phones out. The sheep then wondered away, as sheep do in those situations.
I know I said right above that we decided to do the Old Man of Storr tomorrow morning, but as we were passing it on the way back to town we saw that there was more parking and the sun was starting to come out some.
The way up had two sections. The first three quarters was a bunch of uphill paths and the last quarter was a path up the very steep hill. Jim was the only one of us who went up the steep hill. On the top of the hill it was a bit windy and there was someone with a tripod with a few people holding equipment. Jim figured his 15lb backpack on its back would be fine. Nope, the wind tried to roll it downhill anyway.
Sticking with the theme of Portee for the day, all the places we tried to go eat at needed a reservation. One of the hotels we went to had an opening at 8:30pm, but we felt that was too late. We found a place called The Prince of India. There was only one person on as waitstaff so he had to take all the orders, and take them to the tables. He had a little wheeled cart at least. He was getting overwhelmed and it was showing. The food was okay, but the spice levels seemed to be exaggerated.
Super early morning for us tomorrow and I've already stayed up way too late!
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