Goodbye Skye, Hello Glencoe!

Friday morning we packed up from our lovely little house and set out down the coast of Skye back to the mainland. 

Gorgeous countryside and the occasional castle flitting by.  Scotland!

 

We wound our way through the western mountains, and had absolutely perfect weather, so we grabbed lunch at a roadside inn and restaurant called The Farmhouse Table along the way and then hit up an Aldi for provisions for a hike.

Excellent outdoor lunch

Some of the delightfully weird (to us) snacks we shopped through and picked up for the hike.

We were headed for Ballachulish and Glencoe, villages on the southern side of Loch Leven.  Along the way, we learned that "Loch" can refer to both a lake and a sea inlet.

In Loch Leven's case, it's connected to Loch Linnhe, which in turn connects to the Atlantic near The Isle of Mull.   Since it's relatively shallow, this means really strong tidal action that makes it feel almost like sitting alongside a river when the tide is flowing in or out.

Our hotel was in Ballachulish, but we decided to overshoot it by a couple of kilometers and head up into one of the local mountains.

The valley, near the start of the climb.

We overshot our hotel by a couple of miles and parked in the shade near a trailhead for the "Pap of Glencoe", trail.  This is the peak of Sgorr Na Ciche, just north-east of the village.  "Pap" is old Scottish slang for breasts, and apparently the Scots are fond enough of seeing them in mountains that the term specifically refers to mountains in the shape of breasts, as well.

Looking back down the trail, on the way up.

The walk was absolutely gobsmackingly gorgeous. It was fairly challenging climb (700+ meters of elevation in just under 3.5 km to reach the top, which meant plenty of burn in the legs on the way up, and careful use of the knees and ankles on the way down).  But the views of the Valley and Glencoe laid out below were so, so worth it.

The sun over Lock Leven -- Loch Linnhe is visible in the distance, between the curtains of the mountains

Our climb stretched late into the afternoon, and we found ourselves properly tuckered out, when it was over.   We had a trailside dinner of our various snacks and got back to the car around 19:30, almost two hours before sunset.  But that still meant it was 20:30 by the time we had driven back to our hotel, checked in, and showered off.  

The Ballachulish Hotel, where we were staying, was a beautiful old property, with lovely furnishings and gorgeous rooms with giant beds (and very nice showers, which was exciting after our sweaty climb up the mountain!) and incredible views of the Loch from the front steps.  This picture was taken right in front of the hotel.

 

We clean up O.K.

We were peckish, and so went to the hotel bar for an attempt at a light dinner, and found ourselves very thankful we'd provisioned ourselves so well on the trail and eaten such a large trailside meal, as the hotel's restaurant kitchen was long-closed by the time we got to the bar.  The late sunsets have really played hell with our sense of appropriate dinnertimes!  So we had a drink (Talisker Skye for Rachel, Lagavulin 16 for me) and then felt inspired to turn in early, happy to let the luxury of a giant bed help wash away the stresses of a long and rewarding day.

Goodnight from Ballachulish