Our mornings have been slow in the highlands so far, but today we were off in the morning to make it up to Eilean Donan castle, one of the most well preserved castles in Scotland.
We drove about two hours to get that far west from Inverness and didn’t have WiFi reception which we were thankful for, as it gave us a little break from all the panic inducing travel news. The drive was so beautiful! I wish we had gotten pictures while driving up as it was sunny and we saw about 30 deer, more than half of them stags, and wild goats that were all black and had really long slightly curved horns. They were right by the road so it was easy to see. We did get pictures going back but it was overcast by that time.
The castle tour was not included in the explorer pass because it is still privately owned, however, it was well worth the visit, mainly due to a employee they have named Richard MacLeod. As we were just started walking into the castle we were in the banquet hall and a man stationed in that room took a shine to our family, particularly impressed with how kind Caidoc was to Azelie, mentioning that over and over. As a result, we got a private tour, the kids got to see into special 750 year old spy holes! He even quickly told us he wanted to take our picture for us! In this castle pictures of any kind are forbidden so, after checking the coast was clear he took some very nice photos of us using what he called “highland zoom” since he doesn’t know how to “use these contraptions” .
Richard then told us all about where else to go and encouraged us to jet over to Skye, and a view point we couldn’t miss that “Johnny goggle doesn’t even know about!”
We had such an awesome day! We are so thankful we’ve had such great interactions with the locals. And I am thrilled we got to see Skye. Maybe not a lot, but as Richard said, “Well, ye have come all this way now, ye have to set foot on Skye even if just a wee bit!”
Our time in Scotland was more than we could have hoped for. We bonded as a family so much! And it was amazing how much the kids embraced the change and adventure (we walked ~75 miles in the two weeks!). I have to say, Chris and I are pretty unstoppable as a team. It was a joy to spend so much time with him since that was rare during grad school.
I can’t pick a favorite part so far, but I’m just so grateful we could have this amazing adventure! You’ll have to tune back in for Chris’s post, which will detail how exactly we spent our last two days in Scotland trying to get home amid the coronavirus mayhem! Haha!
Thanks for following along everyone!