The Great Scottish Adventure
Day 8
Armadale Castle/Elgol Beach
We were up at 6am for an early start to catch our scheduled 7:40 ferry from Mallaig to Armadale on the southern end of the Isle Of Skye. The Isle Of Skye for us, was one of the big highlights that we were looking forward to on our trip! We would be spending the next 7 days on the island…
We arrived in plenty of time and parked up in line behind the other campervans that were making the trip. The ferry was fun and provided a nice perspective of the distant mountains. Once on our way, it was a bit unnerving at the sound of all the alarms going off… What the heck! Are we going down? Then I realized that it was all the car alarms below deck being triggered by the movement of the ship. It must drive the ship crew nuts to have to listen to that on every crossing!
Our first stop on the Isle Of Skye was the Armadale Castle, only a few minutes drive from the dock. We arrived in Armadale an hour and a half before the castle opened, which gave us time to get a cat nap in the parking lot. Gotta love this campervan!
The castle museum was very interesting and well presented with lots of history, mainly about the MacDonalds whose castle it was. The castle ruins as they call it, was more of a mansion in its day, but still very cool to see. The grounds and gardens were equally as impressive.
After the castle we had lunch on site and did a bit of shopping on the Armadale dock pier.
Then it was on to Elgol… This is one of the single-tracks that Harmony found most terrifying! It went on for miles and miles, never seeming to end. Then the road into the little town on the bay dropped down an extremely steep downhill grade with 180° curves! Not sure where we should park, as negotiating this campervan can be quite challenging, we decided to parkup at the nearest feasible location. The local coffee bar… Needing to feel like we were patrons, we went in. Here I got some coffee and Harmony had ice cream. It was a strange little place, that seemed to be filled with locals from the town. One salty looking guy ordering his lunch caught my attention. Looked just like some weathered seafaring sailor from Moby Dick or something!
The draw to Elgol for me was the rocky beach where I could photograph the distant Black Cuillin mountains across Loch Scavaig. Moody skies hung over the peaks across the Loch, with a rocky foreground. This provided great conditions to capture the scene. With my long lens I was able to pick out a small cottage with a red roof on the distant shore, dwarfed by the towering mountains above!
On the way out, the single-track road was thrilling when traffic suddenly appears around the corner!
Back in Broadford, we stocked up on some supplies at the Co-Op and settled into our camp for the night, at Camping Skye.
Looking forward to tomorrows itinerary on the Isle Of Skye…
