Christmas holidays- the final days.

Our last two days in Skye were freezing and temperatures were less than zero degrees all time.

We first drove around trying to catch a glimpse of the Cuillin mountains. When that didn’t materialise, we drove down to a place called Drumbuie for some more sight seeing.

The temperature was around –3 degrees that day and everything around had frozen or was covered with frost.

Even the trees had turned white making for some astounding picture postcard scenery.

From there we drove into the town of Plockton which was supposed to experience a milder climate due to the influence of the Gulfstream current.

However, even here it was below freezing. We got out to venture across the low tide onto a little island in plockton.

The frost on the greens made for great scenes. Even these photographs don’t do justice to the true beauty.

 

 

We had fun collecting the accumulated frosted over dew and throwing it about.

Rosa is yet to experience her first snow, but with all that frost, we came pretty close.

Some of the puddles had frozen over, below Rose holds up a sheet of frozen water.

Rose and Rosa make a mini snow castle!

Rosa posing beside some lobster traps:

The Skye bridge which connects the mainland to the Isle of Skye, on our way:

A view of Dunvegan from our cottage lawn:

Stalactites formed by water freezing overnight:

Even the streams were semi frozen:

We headed over to Portree to try and catch a view of the white-tailed Sea eagle.

There were boat trips on offer but we we opted out of it.

We finally caught sight of the Cuillin mountains on our way to Loch Eynort.

A lone house in the valley of Eynort:

After an unsuccessful attempt to catch a glimpse of the white tailed sea eagle we started our trip back to Stirling.

While we were at Skye, everything on route had frozen over and we were treated to some frozen scenery on the way back:

Rosa and Rose get under a frozen tree to shake some snow down:

half way down, we encountered a thick fog which appeared almost as thick as a cloud as seen behind me in the photo below:

Here we are driving through that fog:

On the way, we stopped at the Ben Nevis range which is the highest mountain range in Britain.

Here we got onto a cable car to head to the visitor centre on top :

On reaching the top, we just had enough time to get a cup of coffee

…and take a few photos…

…before it was time to head back on the last gondola…else we would have had to walk back down the mountail in sub zero conditions.

We then continued our journey back to Stirling, where we spent the night before heading back to Bristol the following day. We had a fabulous holiday in Scotland. Josi and Rose were very warm hosts and we do miss leaving them. For now its us back home and as we head into 2009, Rosa and I  wish you all a very happy new year .

Christmas holiday days 3 & 4 – Stirling and Skye

We spent most of the 3rd day travelling to Skye but the previous night we drove around to Stirling to catch glimpses of its attractions.

Here we are below the Wallace monument – built in the memory of William Wallace (Braveheart).

We did make it to church eventually (although it was closed). Heres one for proof.

We had an early start the next morning, on a six hour drive covering more than 200 miles to Skye. En route we caught sight of red deer:

Scotland is amazingly beautiful and the scenery was just amazing:

We simply had to stop at every other parking spot and…

…get a few pictures every now and then.

Scottish highlands are filled with lochs (lakes) and glens (hills) …..

….and the reflections formed in the lochs provided for some breathtaking scenes..

 

…and the backdrop for some amusing photography.

Rosa had a spell where she felt warm enough in the freezing conditions to venture a pose without wearing a jacket!

We finally made it to Skye just as it was getting dark, amazingly the daylight lasted longer than in mainland Scotland.

On our way stood the Elien Donan castle – the most photographed castle in Scotland.

We had a bit of trouble finding our house, but when we finally found it, it turned out to be surprisingly nice.

We had two bedrooms on the first floor of the cottage ….

…with a living room, kitchen and bathroom.

We soon set about cooking our belated Christmas meal…

…baked whole chicken.

…and the rest of the spread.

…..and then set about gorging on it:

The next day we ventured out to explore the location. Our first stop was the Dunvegan Castle.

 

We then headed over to the coral beach…

which formed the tip of Dunvegan,

….and where we finally found a bit of mobile signal to call home:

The sediment on coral beach is actually not sand and is composed exclusively of coral particles:

Josi  preparing for some tripod photography:

Even as we were on the beach head temperatures started plummeting, it finally went into the negative range. Rosa gives a final pose before we head back to rest in the relative warmth of our cottage.