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.