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After a lovely morning in Portree on the Brigadoon boat cruise and a hearty lunch in the Granary, we headed back to the cottage, got changed and headed off for the walk we had been looking forward to most on this trip, The Storr. The weather was the best it had been all week as we parked in the lay-by and set off through the forest to see the Old Man up close.
The walk through the forest was great, there were lots of people around, we even saw a bloke coming back down in motorbike leathers and his helmet, and we felt a little out of place with our rucksacks and walking gear on, but we carried on and finally reached the gate that leads out to the Old Man.
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- The gate to heaven?
The views from here were stunning. Raasay and Rona were clearly visible, as was the mainland.
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- Raasay, Rona and the mainland.
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- Rocks everywhere.
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- Applecross way.
We past the Old Man and Needle Rock and went off the path to the Lochan near the Needle. The views were getting better. We sat down for a drink and two large black birds with sharp talons put on a diving display in front of us, one even did a back flip of sorts.
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- A lochan near Needle Rock.
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- Old Man and Needle Rock.
We made our way back to the path and reached the fence with the broken stile. Its easily climbed though by climbing over the boulders, or making your way up to the last fence post by the rocks and there is a gap you can pass through before heading down to the track again.
We stopped and admired the view again, this time towards Staffin and started to get the rush of adrenaline due to being back in the hills again.
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- Looking down on Loch Scamadal.
We followed the track, keeping to the lower path at the first fork, before branching off at the second fork and having a go at scrambling to get up to the first cliff edge. The views were amazing.
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- The higher we got, the better the photos.
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- The lochan again.
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- Staffin way.
With the adrenaline pumping even more, we made the decision not to continue with the planned walk we had, of going right around and coming down the gully with the stream, but making our way up to the highest cliff edge we could. We headed out towards a dry stream and eventually made our way up with a bit of scrambling to the 2nd highest plateau where the views literally took our breath away.
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- Wow!!
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- Double wow!!
After a quick drink and some more admiring of the view, we set back down again. There is a rusted metal fence post in line with the first cliff and we kept it in view most of the way down and found it quite an easy way back.We climbed back over the fence again and went up a small hill that juts out by the fence. The views were superb no matter where you went on this walk.
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- Heading back down again.
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- Looking at the cliffs from the hill near the broken stile.
We made our way back down and saw some more interesting walking attire, including an Italian in a kilt and a woman in heels. There were plenty of hitch-hikers around too, which reminded Rick of the two German backpackers who he gave a lift to the Storr on the Tuesday in the pouring rain and he hoped that had had as nice a time there as we did, so a big hello to Katherine and Toby from Munich if you happen to stumble across this.
We made our way back to the cottage and the day was made even more special as later that evening Rick proposed to Kamila and we are glad to say that she said Yes.
