Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Isle of Skye Tour Glen Sligachan and The Cuillin (3/3)

You're gonna see a lot of road photos, cause it all signified road trip! I love a good road trip! So I've put most of the road photos as the first photo to get you into the vibe of it. Also to show you what the roads are really like where we were travelling at. Some might meet your expectation of what a cold and cloudy Scotland would look like! And some will just blow your mind how blue the sky can be at other times, all usually within the same day :D 

See here? Same morning, not even across the day yet. We are still at the same spot, but you can see the blue skies are out! There is only one Sligachan Old Bridge in the Isle of Skye, and we were still at the same location as you can see the bridge in the photo. I'm always hoping that the blue sky direction is where we were headed next!

Above is an enhanced photo, emphasising on the beautiful water running down from the mountains. It is such a Lord of the Ring vibe!

Landscape view of Sligachan Old Bridge. No cars are allowed on it, but you could walk over it.

First stop of our 2nd day of tour to Isle of Skye, it was time to move on to our next destination soon.

But I guess most of us were still captivated by the view of The Cuillin. It was such a lovely walk here. I think the bridge kinda faded into the background once you see the mountains 

And the thought of being able to just walked like you could walked right into a painting of a landscape of The Cuillin.

So beautiful. There is a man in the photo above in jeans standing at the lower right of the photo. Can you spot him? That is how awesome this view is when you're standing there. Simply amazing!

Not forgetting the crystal clear water running all over the place. You have to wear boots here in Scotland. Waterproofed preferred. The rain isn't as heavy as those in South East Asia where even boots and an umbrella can't save you. Here it's just puddles and running water with an occasional shower that doesn't really last long.

As we're driving away and towards our next destination, I caught this shot of the mountains with all the little path running inwards towards it. I would just love to walk in there. It would be one of those adventure walk where you don't really know where you'll end up at, those "why are we doing this" kind of adventure that made no sense, yet so memorable :P

Soon we left the mountains behind us, and green pasture with dreamy dark waters in loch started to appear in our view again.

It's called the Isle of Skye, and I'm wondering just how big is this island? How many mountains, and lakes, and valley does it have? It's almost as if Mother Nature decided to build an amusement park, and this was the result of it. 

Bye Bye Cuillin. I don't know if I'll ever see you again. If I do, I'll probably be an old lady by then :P

Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Isle of Skye Tour Glen Sligachan and The Cuillin (2/3)

Walking between where our bus left us, and where the Sligachan bridges are, in the midway point, you could venture out further and towards the mountains, and here you will see the statue of Collie and MacKenzie. I love this photo of them above. I don't really know who they were when I visited this place, but now that I've finished watching The Outlander Season 1, I can better appreciate the history of The Highlands. Our guide did told us the stories of the clans of the Highlands and the Battle of Cullonden and the Jacobite Rising, but it was still hard to really imagine it. But after watching the series, and being on those Highland, boy do you really remember them well!

Some of the photos of the incredible landscape here. It was hard to pick which to upload here. Everything was just so breathtaking here. 

 

You can see the statue of the two man in the middle, as well as the path to walk there. It was pretty call to walk out into the open area. It was still early morning, so I was glad the wind wasn't too strong when we were there. 

Here is a different view, with some adjustment of the saturation of the photo. I've been toying with a lot of my photos recently as my mobile camera is pretty shite. I'm using a Pixel 9a phone, that seems to take photos with dark mode on, making everything look so gloomy. I have had to edit almost every single photo I wanted to post because of this, and so have come to learn how to tune exposure and saturation and contrast to enhance the photos I've taken. 

The official info of Collie and MacKenzie. There are so many clans on the Highlands. On top of my head, these are the ones I can recall: Campbell, MacDonalds, MacKenzie, and Collies. After watching Outlander, I know can recall Fraser and Stuart/Steward. Actually on our little tour, there was a family of MacKenzie from the US with us. I'm now also familiar with the story of Bonnie Prince Charles, and Queen Mary. I tell you, travelling is good for expending your knowledge and your world, as do reading and watching historical series :P

Walking all the up to the area of the statue beyond that gate.

The two friends looking out towards the mountain. Here is a nice write up from another blog about these two historical figure. No point for me to write it up in my own words again when the stories are already out there :P

A close up side view.

And a wefie of me and my husband with the statue and the mountains behind us. I guess it's kinda true, it's hard to get a good photo of yourself in Scotland because the wind here is crazy!

Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Isle of Skye Tour Glen Sligachan and The Cuillin (1/3)

 

After breakfast, we took off on our little bus and head to our first sight of the day the Glen Sligachan. One of the highlights there was the old bridge, as well as seeing the new bridge next to it. I thought it would be a rather boring stop. I mean, how exciting can a bridge be? Besides, the weather doesn't look all that promising either.....

We stopped quite some distance from the bridge, and above is what the old bridge looked like. And the new bridge is just behind it. Actually the first photo on top shows the new bridge better. I think there are some historical significant to the old bridge. You can read more about it here.

After telling us where to head and letting us off the mini bus, we made ourselves towards the center to view the bridge. It was just a short walk, but it was super cold in the morning!

Some official info sign from the spot. Nothing very exciting.

But I think most of us were rather distracted by the magnificent nature's view just opposite us. There is a small viewing platform with info guide here too, so we made our way there. But really, the star of this stop was actually the mountains.

View from the platform, looking straight ahead was The Cuillin mountains. With their white ice capped on the top, as well as mist and white stormy clouds surrounding it, it looked like something out of a fantasy world.

Here is a more closed up look. And if you looked carefully, you can see a man below walking on a path towards the mountains. I guess it's quite a far distance to walk to reach it, but the illusion is like you could really just walk towards it. And it is so tempting to just do so too! The magic and allure of the beautiful mother nature. Can you call this a good thing if it means walking into your death? Cause it seems so cold and unforgiving up in the mountains. 

Here are some of the official info at the platform talking about The Cuillins. 

I love that these mountains have such nice names. The Cuillins sounds like a proper family surname. It actually reminded me of the Cullen from the Twilight Saga. Even the look of the mountain is so suitable for it, cold and dark :P

The terrain surrounding it was just as magical. There were water and small streams everywhere, probably formed from the melting of ice from the mountains or higher level ground. The water was so clear, and probably cold. And it was running everywhere! So the reflection of it makes a very nice shot of the landscape. 

I told our guide Jada that I could just stood there and do nothing but look at those mountains. Cause with the ever changing clouds,  and the defrosting mist that is forever in motion, it was as if you were being hypnotist  by the mountains! If this was the first AND only sights of the day's tour, I think I would have been just satisfied that I have laid eyes on these magnificent views. Even after coming back from Scotland. I often think about these mountains, as well as the landscape of Glencoe. It is so haunting to have seen them in real life. Perhaps that is why I did not hesitate much when I decided I would like to go back to Scotland again in 2026, and perhaps more in future....

View of just the monochrome looking top of The Cuillin.... haunting. When I look at them, I can understand how in stories, people are lured into the wild by beings like Wintersmith or IceQueen. It's so captivating. 

Souvenir selfie of me and The Cullins. 

Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Isle of Skye Tour First Morning at Portree

 

Our first morning in Portree! We woke up early and went for a walk! We just wanted to explore the town. I can't remember whether we ate breakfast first or walked first. Chances are we ate breakfast first. We didn't really know where to head, so we just walked towards a direction we haven't been to.

We ended up at some residential area, but the area overlooked a different part of Skye. And as the sun was rising, with the sky and the reflection on the water, it was a very serene feel to the place, because it wasn't a touristy area. 

There seems to be a town just opposite, but there wasn't any ferry service to get across. You would probably have to drive there. 

Here is the view of the residential area on the left, and the water view on the right. We did walked all the way in. It was pretty quiet as it was still early. After exploring that area, we walked back to town.

Here is the rough map of Portree. 

We did see some other hotel just outside of town. I know some of our group people actually stayed further away at some other bed and breakfast they might have booked on their own. The tour agency allowed you to book your own hotel as well. It was such a weird arrangement for me coming from the East where a tour means they cover everything for you. 

At the town end where the bus stopped, there was also a Bank of Scotland. Must be nice working in a bank branch in a small town like this. You would probably know everyone there. I stay in a small town in Penang island, but even my small town was so much bigger than Portree!

We had our first full Scottish breakfast in our hotel. Because it was included in our room charges, I guess we might as well enjoy the breakfast!

Here is what it looked like. It was super full of protein! And I believe there was also bread and eggs that came with it. We only have two option for breakfast, it was either this or oatmeal. I read that oatmeal is lovely in Scotland, but as an Asian, I guess my Asian genes won't allow me to order oatmeal when I can get so much more protein by selecting this delicious over carb Scottish breakfast. So yeah, this was what we had 2 days in a room while we were staying there. I think the bread might have been free flow too. The drinks was, so I loaded up on orange juice a lot because it was so expensive to buy them from the supermarket :P

Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Isle of Skye Tour First Night at Portree (2/2)

2nd post on Portree, let me show you around this little town (actually it's the biggest town in Skye).

There were only two main road in the town, and our hotel was on one of them. Above is the Portree Hotel. Most of the hotel and pub and shops were on the main road. The other maid road was the one leading into Portree and all the way to the harbour area. 

We stayed at this hotel above, Tongadale Hotel. We had to pay cash upon check in, and it was a bed and breakfast, so breakfast was included. There are no lift inside the building, and I think we stayed on the 2nd or 3rd floor. There are no aircon inside the room either. It was a super old hotel, and the corridors inside was super narrow. But they do have a pub downstairs, as well as a restaurant. We tried having our dinner there. We even made a book as priority is given to houseguest. But unfortunately the dish I wanted was not available on that day, so we declined the table and went elsewhere to look for our dinner.

Here is a look at our room. It was cool enough when we opened the window. The toilet was rather small and I didn't really like it that much. But other than that, it was an old place, so it smells like an old place as well. But it wasn't cheap! I think it was around 150pounds a night!

While exploring the town, here are some shops that was kinda cute.

There was also a memorial house for a poet. But I wasn't familiar with Gaelic Bard. Still, I took a photo, in case in future I become a fan of hers. I am interested in the language. I find it sounds so magical, and it reminded me of elfish language. 

There was one book store on the main road leading into town, and I was surprised they stock the latest Murakami book. For such a remote town, they do have very good collection! The bookstore was actually closed, so I was just browsing their window display. 

I also saw this book under poetry! Damn!

While looking for dinner, we did try this restaurant by the harbour. I think we went around 7pm? There was a queue, but there was also a cut-off. Meaning they stopped serving the last few people and that's it. So we ran to some pizza kiosk we saw early by the harbour, and that too was closed by 7pm..... Man, it was tough finding food in this small town!

Luckily, there was a small co-op nearby which was still opened. So we went there hoping to find some meal deal we could have for our dinner. The price of items inside was very reasonable, so this will be our backup place for food. We also found Irn-Bru! And decided to buy one just to try. It tasted like Fanta Orange, but more medicine-like. I didn't like it at all! Except for coke, I don't really like most soft drinks. I think most of them taste like chemical. I do sometimes drink 100plus or Calpis. 

And lucky me, I think I found some pasta ribbon with pesto sauce. That will do for my dinner. We also got a bottle of milk, because milk is delicious and cheap in Scotland. And it doesn't taste creamy or fatty either. It taste like nice watery fresh milk.