Skye

I spent the rest of the trip overestimating the size of towns. We headed northwest to the Isle of Skye. The scenery continued to impress and it was strange to cover almost half of the Great Glen Way in about an hour of driving (which took us over 16 hours to walk). I can now continue to demand the A82 upgrade with a little more experience on the road other than walking on it.
It was pretty rainy by the time we crossed onto Skye, but it seemed the right weather for there. We visited Portree, which is a lovely little harbor town. Little did I think that this would be the largest town we'd see for a couple of days. The roads got curvier, narrower, and more full of livestock. What a joy it was to herd sheep out of the road, truly! We encountered a few camper vans a little close for comfort, and not knowing the single track protocol led us to only a couple of stand-offs with oncoming cars. 'No, you back up, there's a passing place right behind you! Oh, fine, whatever.'
We thought we might get dinner in Uig (oo-ig), but it turned out that town has only one restaurant and it was just as easy at that point to return to Portree. Our accommodation that night was appropriately remote and beautiful. It wouldn't be right to be in Scotland without being bitten by the notorious midges which left happy little spots on me. To be fair, they weren't too bad, but that's as strange as the clear weather.
In the morning we headed toward Dunvegan, fuelled by glorious weather. We forewent the castle there to walk to the coral beaches. These secluded beaches off of the west coast of Skye are made up mostly of bleached red seaweed that looks like tiny pieces of coral. Aside from the frigid water temperature, one might mistake the clear blue water and shimmering white beaches of Scotland for the Caribbean. Beach dwelling cows were a strange sight, but, along with the surrounding green hills and the coco-nutty smell of gorse filling the air- what a fantastic place to be.
More single track roads led us to almost literal run-ins with some highland cows which were happily docile. But the road opened up and we got fab views of the Cuillin Hills (coo-lin) for which Skye is famous. We took the ferry from Armadale to Malliag which was good times, but only half an hour, and headed to Arisaig.