The Seven Wonders of Skye

Eilean Donan Castle along the Road to Skye

The seven: Tania, sunny days, passing places and low verges, Coire Lagan, veggie haggis,  the Bathroom of Power, and playfulness (no legendary dour Scots dragging around here).

  

Tania: We planned our trip to Scotland around her Blà Bheinn B&B, with its 2 guest rooms and views of the Red and Black Cuillin--Blà Bheinn means Blue Mountain, and a cuillin is a mountain range in Scots Gaelic. We booked our 7 nights with her last fall and then planned flights from home and lodging in Edinburgh around this core on Skye. Tania was, indeed, the heart of Skye for us, with her breakfasts and conversation in the mornings and greetings when we returned in the evenings, including the anxious one when we returned through smoke and two fire-brigade road blocks and learned of her day watching a heath-and-forest fire approach and even jump the road toward her house.

Smoke and the Black Cuillin from Our Window

Field and Fire across the Road

The flames and smoke were daunting and, sadly, a little familiar for us. The fires continued to burn while we were there and after we left, having gotten underground into the peat, but finally they were contained and put out. Through it all, Tania was our friendly Skye host, advisor on where to walk and drive, and awarder of praise when we hiked and scrambled all the way into Coire Lagan. 

Saltire and Thistle Made of Chives

And, on top of everything, she taught us the importance of food’s not “sprawling all over the plate”--she uses rice molds to round up scrambled eggs in an orderly way and decorates them with the Saltire--the wide cross of the Scottish flag--and thistle--national flower--made of chive leaves and flowers. 

Sunny Carbost and Black Cuillin

Sunny Skye: An exhibit at the Talisker Distillery in Carbost says that "to live on Skye you need to be resilient, inventive, humorous, tough, self-sufficient, waterproof, patient, lucky." That need for a waterproof body and soul alludes to the typical weather on Skye, but we were there in the middle of a record-setting 22-day dry spell. 

Loch Coruisk

Loch Coruisk in the Foreground and Loch Scavaig, Background

We were prepared for Loch Coruisk to look like J. M. W. Turner’s painting of a grand landscape battered by a windy storm strong enough to bend the Cuillin above the lake into shapes like ocean waves, but we did OK with our sunny day there.

But Sheep Don't Care about Passing Places

Passing places make single-track roads possible; low verges make them scary. When two cars meet, one of them stops at--or backs up to--a bit of pavement off to the side, some of these marked with square white signs that say "passing place." We learned to translate the "low verge" road signs to mean "expect stretches ahead of low or no shoulder." Single-track roads with passing places slow traffic down to a kind of do-si-do and mostly lead to a lot of smiling and waving on the way to some car park at a castle, trailhead, dock, or broch.

Mirror at Dunvegan Castle

 




The castle we visited was Dunvegan, first built in the 13th century and still the seat of the Clan MacLeod, 

the trailheads were several, the dock was  Elgol,

Walking Back to the Car from the Elgol Dock after Taking the Bella Jane to Loch Coruisk

and the broch was Dun Beag Broch, one of northwest Scotland’s roundhouses built of double concentric dry-laid stone walls 2,300 to 1,900 years ago.

Dun Beag Broch

Dun Beag Broch and the Loch Beyond

Coire Lagan’s trail starts at the end of one of those passing-places-low-verges roads. (A coire--the Gaelic word is spelled and pronounced "corrie" in English--is a cirque; this one's name means "the corrie of the little hollow.") It's hard to imagine this walk's challenges and beauties just from the numbers--under 3 miles one-way with a bit under 2,000 feet elevation gain; nevertheless, those numbers connect the walk’s beauties and challenges.

Loch Brittle in the Distance from the Coire Lagan Trail and Stream

Gabbro All Around at the Coire

In the Scree, with the Trail Beyond, and Loch Brittlle in the Background

The elevation affords expansive views out to Loch Brittle and intimate ones up into the peaks that tightly surround the coire’s lochan (small loch), but much of that elevation gain happens a bit abruptly right beneath the coire and happens steeply in scree and gabbro (coarse-grained igneous rock similar to basalt). 

Loch an Fhir-Bhallaich along the Coire Lagan Trail

Still, one of the best parts of this walk was talking with other walkers, among them people coming down who consulted on whether I should turn around or continue and also, on our way back down, a bus driver from Skye who had bicycled long distance through Wyoming and Montana decades ago and remembered Sam Braxton’s bike shop in Missoula. He showed us his way down through the steep section and distracted me enough that I relaxed; we easily made our way through it with him, his nephew, and two friends. It's wonderful when a beautiful place brings people together.

Veggie haggis and the Bathroom of Power: we found these two wonders in one place, Munro's Bar in the Taigh Ailean Hotel.

Veggie Haggis

 

Two signs among many in The Bathroom of Power: 

And the Wonderful Playfulness of Skye: plenty of this was at the Taigh Ailean 

Wineglass and Crystal Chandelier at Munro's Bar

and also at the Old Inn in Carbost, where the staff t-shirt says

(It's the only pub in Carbost.)

Next up: Edinburgh, where we spent almost two weeks. Sorting through pictures and thoughts could take a wee bit of time.

Beavertail Hill State Park with the Cousins

 

Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing says that her heart “keeps on the windy side of care,” but it’s been hard for even strong-willed hearts to maintain equanimity on the windy side of the smoke we’ve been breathing from nearby fires and those upwind of us in British Columbia, Washington, and Idaho.  Missoula has had an apocalyptic look since July 20^th or so.  Things could be worse, but we breathe unhealthy air most days.   

Fortunately, the air is clearish today after a bit of rain (the first in 46 days), and it was not too bad last week when we camped at Beavertail Hill State Park, just upriver on the Clark Fork.  Still, there was smoke, and we were staying across the meadow from a 300-person fire camp for people working 16-hour shifts on the Sapphire Complex fires.   

Our friend Linda had rented a teepee at the park and packed up Bessie to bring together her two granddaughters from Edmonton and two grandsons from Florence, and she invited us.  In the face of sobering news and the gloom of smoke, what a reminder of brightness to hear happy shrieks from the teepee, watch four leap-froggers tumbling down the road to the fire camp, and walk the trail behind a joyous group hug!

Badgers and North Peak Flowers

 





Catharine and Robin have a mother badger and two kits near their house.  We watched them tumble, scoot around, and bite each other for a while this morning.

Look how flat the one in the center is making itself!

Lewisia (Bitterroot)

Lupine and Clarkia

In the afternoon, Eric and I walked up the North Peak, amazed afresh that the flowers of lewisia and clarkia are about the same color and that they bloom at the same time of the year.  What a very cool feat of naming!

Spring on Vancouver Island

Eric, Ray, and Cyndy Looking at Jumbo from North Jumbo on Memorial Day

Spring had arrived in Missoula before we left, winter returned in our absence (9 ½ inches of snow at our house and broken trees all over town), and now: summer days in the 80s.  Missoula blasts through the seasons!   

Waiting for the Elwha, the Ferry We Took in Both Directions

Amphitrite Lighthouse

Out on Vancouver Island, after driving to Anacortes and ferrying to Sidney, we had two weeks of steady spring.  The west coast was gray and showery; Victoria had cool temperatures and, mostly, sun.  After the winter of our discontent, spring in a new place felt bright and perfect for perambulating and surprises--serendipities like meeting a chain mail artist and finding a bagpipe-and-drum band practicing in a pocket park.  In spite of the ankle I sprained a week before we left, we walked and walked, slowly, abbreviatedly.   We found nice places to limp.

Over on the west coast in Ucluelet, the Amphitrite Lighthouse 1.6-mile loop trail and a bald eagle nest were right out the door of the place where we stayed.  The trail resounds with crashing waves, varied thrushes, whistle buoys, and bell buoys.  

The Rainforest Trail in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve is almost all boardwalk and, to get to the floor of the forest, long runs of stairs.  In this climate and with the steep slope of the land, we were in awe of the trail crews that built and now maintain all this.

 
The dance-like step the figure takes on warning signs for wet boardwalks and stairs all through the Park almost made me laugh but for the humility of someone limping after a fall. 

South Beach

The trail to South Beach is only 1 mile roundtrip through forest, near the ocean, and past a totem pole, yet we saw few people. At the beach, waves roll in across very coarse sand and reach a band of smoothed, rounded pebbles and stones that tumble and rattle, but to hear this, you have to catch not only waves that go this far up the beach but also quiet times between waves that crash against the headlands enclosing this lovely place. The Park map calls this the "music of stones rolling in the surf," and we went back after a first miss to catch it.

Fish Using a Crosswalk in Tofino

Tofino Bike Racks

We’re glad we chose Ucluelet for our stay by the Pacific and the Park; not being surfers or spiffy toffs we felt a little alien in Tofino, the other town nearby.  We liked looking around (and eating) in Tofino but felt more comfortable in the quieter fishing town.  Of course, time will change Ucluelet, too.  

The other place we stayed, Victoria, surprised us for not having the strongly British feel we expected, for its concentrated walkability, and for not scaring metrophobic me.  We spent a happy week in a hotel near the Inner Harbor choosing from our loose list of saunterable destinations.

 

Since we were staying near the British Columbia Legislative Buildings (Parliament), we walked past them every day.

We took both a self-guided tour and one with a well prepared guide.  She was even ready to answer our question about the animals sticking out their tongues on the BC coat of arms.  In heraldry, animals with their tongues out have power, she said. Because the legislature meets on Vancouver Island, the elk that represents it on the BC coat of arms has its tongue out; the bighorn sheep representing mainland BC does not.  Above them, the British regent’s lion does because Canada is a member of the British Commonwealth.  Queen Elizabeth II is the head of state; she has a Governor General, David Johnston, who performs her ceremonial and constitutional duties, and a Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who, though elected, serves at her pleasure.  Her lion and the elk have the power of speech.   

Rotunda Ceiling with Murals Representing BC's Natural Resources

Shxwtitostel, Ceremonial Canoe

  


  
The beauty of the buildings inside and out is quite moving. During our week in Victoria, we went inside several times to look again at the stained glass windows, rotunda murals, and carved canoe in the Lower Rotunda.  












It honors BC’s First Nations and represents working together; its name, Shxwtitostel, means "safe place to cross the river," or a bridge between peoples.  If only a canoe could help us.

We also sauntered Butchart Gardens, smaller and more flower-focused than the tree-and-sculpture-focused Van Dusen Gardens in Vancouver--but splendid.  We saw more kinds of tulips than I knew existed.

 

Quarry Transformed into Sunken Garden

Imagine Jennie Butchart in the early 1900s starting the process of changing this land, including a worked-out limestone quarry, into the splendor that is here now.

 

There were the places people had told us we needed to go, and then there were the happy happenstances.  Looking at boats in the Oak Bay harbor, we saw seals.  Out hunting for shoes for Eric (unsuccessful but fun), we found the cordwainer who made these.  Also out on the shoe hunt, we found ourselves eating focaccia and cake at the opening celebration for the Pandora Street bike lanes, thus learning about the bakery of a native Italian who emigrated to Canada and rides bikes.  We bought our dinner tart and more focaccia there and had a chance to talk with Claudio Costi on another day.   

Reading the local newspaper at breakfast, we read the name of the two new light fixtures at the Empress Hotel, officially “Twill Flowers” (but Eric named them “Potato Chips”).  If it weren’t for the newspaper article, we wouldn’t have even guessed their dimensions.  The bigger one is about 20 feet in diameter and 13 feet high.  



 

Historical-Style Chain Mail in Bastion Square

Wandering into the public library, we read two passages over the entrance: “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library” (Jorge Luis Borges, outside) and “You see, I don’t believe that libraries should be drab places where people sit in silence, and that’s the main reason for our policy of employing wild animals as librarians" (Monty Python’s Flying Circus, inside).  

Creative 21st-Century Chain Mail

The unexpected: as delicious as icing on a Nanaimo bar.