Writing from the Abbey Court Hostel in Dublin, Ireland! After two days of really hardcore train traveling (8 hours yesterday, 11 today) I'm finally here. When I was crafting this trip way back a couple months ago and penned in "SKYE->DUBLIN" I didn't quite take into account/bother to look up train schedules, expecting Deutsche Bahn ICE train speeds in the UK and...well, not quite getting them as you can see. But I'm finally here anyway, if short a day in Dublin, which was a little disappointing.
My last day on Skye, though, was nothing short of perfect. The rain and clouds and fog which dogged me on my first day pretty much disappeared on the second, and I had an absolutely wonderful day filled with blue sky and sun and fluffy clouds and amazing scenery. The first hike I did was the Quiraing mountain range, from north to south, which is on the Trotternish Peninsula (if these names sound trollish, they're all half-Gaelic half-Norwegian from the Viking influence). I accidentally (yet again, fortunately) took the bus in the wrong direction on the loop around the peninsula, and got to see pretty much the whole Trotternish coastline. Got to hang around and chat with a couple Italian hikers from my hostel who were up seeing that part of the island as well, and an old British guy who was up there for a short holiday.
I got off the bus right after the village of Flodigarry into a really thick fog. Resident Evil-type stuff. It was actually really cool to hike in for a little bit since it dampened the noise around me so much, but I was hoping the sun would come out so I could actually see what I was hiking through. After about 20 minutes I came across a lake at the bottom of a valley (presumably) between some mountains, and I finally saw some rays peeking out from behind the soup. Another fifteen minutes and the clouds disappeared in big billowing wisps, and the most amazing craggy peaks were hiding behind them. It's all volcanic rock I understand, and it looked like some angry Norse god took an axe and hacked away in swift up-down motions at the mountains on Skye until he was satisfied with the weird, unlikely formations he left behind. Exactly the type of scenery I was hoping to see up here, I was absolutely floored. And, since I had taken the bus the wrong way, I ended up doing the hike backwards according to all of the Skye guidebooks, which meant I was totally alone for the first half, and only had to put up with all the day trippers and families with bored, exhausted kids for a half second as I passed them going down the trail as opposed to hiking with them. Not only that, but the fog closed in on me as I hiked up over a pass between the first valley and the next, so I hit the perfect window for seeing the Quiraing.
Once I reached the parking lot for the Quiraing trail I headed straight across to check out the Biode Buidhe. Yes, the Gaelic language did in fact develop on the same island as English did. Not even the people at the hostel knew how to pronounce that one. This one was shorter, with no trail, but was just as amazing in scope. It was about 30 minutes of hard uphill until I reached the top, with a big, expansive view of the rest of the Quiraing range as it extended further south, and the Storr range in the distance beyond that. I picked a nice outcrop of rock with my feet practically dangling into the valley below and had my lunch there--some scones I took from the hostel breakfast.
Finally, I made my way further south on the peninsula to do the last hike: the Old Man of Storr, the most famous and well-visited attraction on Skye. A bit of a letdown to be honest. For one, I didn't have much time to see it as I had to dash up and back down in about two hours so I could catch the last bus down from Portree to Kyleakin, and two, it started getting foggier and cloudier right around that point in the day, so I was only able to see it through the wisps and billows of fog flowing around it. Not bad at all, still very cool, but I definitely saw better stuff in the first half of the day. After that I went back to the hostel, got my stuff together, said goodbye to the amazing, wonderful, super friendly staff who helped me out so much (stay at Skye Backpackers if you're ever up there), and caught the train down to Glasgow the next day--my layover spot on my trip to Dublin.
Anyway, got in kind of late today, so I haven't seen too much of the city yet, but I will of course report in once I've seen a little bit of it!
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