isle of skye

So it has been months of training leading up to this holiday but some friends and I finally hiked part of the Isle of Skye in Scotland!

I was feeling really rough the day we left, and I slept lots of the plane journey to Inverness and on the coach ride up to Portree on Skye. When I did wake up I was greated by the sight of mountains towering over a lake which we discovered was Loch  Ness, and sadly we saw no monster.

The first day I found super challenging and I had to tell myself more than a hundred times that I wasn't going to die, because I had convinced myself I was going to die. Clearly I didn't, but still, I have literally never been so terrified! We had to cross super swollen rivers, and walk paths that were like 30cm wide and hanging 100ft over a cliff down a rocky shore line with 10kg backpacks on when it was super windy and I was pretty ill too with some weird flu feeling thing which was hard. I did not enjoy that day. The highlight of the day was when we eventually made to a tiny little viillage called Sligachan, and we discovered there was a whiskey bar where we could get a hot meal, and the hostel we were staying at had a drying room. I was soaked through to my knickers and our hiking boots were swimming in water so it was needed.

The first day was a total shock to the system and scared me out so much. My back was in so much pain carrying my bag the day before and I was so wet and because of the weather, our plans for that day were cancelled, so we faced with the option of either hiking another 12 miles to our next hostel or getting the bus round to it. The group was divided, so when Sam and his best friend set off to walk the 12 miles, the others and I decided we did not come all this way to get a bus all the way. We wanted to hike something.

My foot kept slipping into the bogs...

We got a bus to a tiny little village and then hike 7 miles through a valley and crossed another swollen lake and planned to get the bus round to the hostel. It all started off well and we made it to the end of the valley where we discovered that because it was a Sunday, the bus wasn't running. We tried hitchhiking but got now where. Eventually we walked a mile to the next village to use the phone. We found a little cafe and manage to ring up and made it the our room for the night. It was a super cute tiny little apartment the five of us where staying in with the most amazing hostess and breakfast!
The next day we planned to hike a mountain to the summit, but because of the weather our hostess advised us to not go out too much today. We spent the whole day doing a 1000 piece puzzle and watching TV. It was actually a well needed rest day and we all probably needed it to dry off completely.

After a days rest we set out again and for the first and last time time that week we saw sunlight on the Isle of Skye! Honestly that day was magnificent! It was like paradise, and we all got really badly sunburnt but it was amazing.

We hiked through luscious green fields and mountains and beach lines and waterfalls and cliff tops and I would hundred go back to Skye again rain or shine just because of this one day. It totally made the holiday and it was so worth it just for that one day even though it rained 5 out of 6 days...