Monthly Archives: March 2020

Mar19

A Scotland Adventure – Part 5, The Old Man of Storr on the Isle of Skye

Posted on March 19, 2020 by perfectusvarrus

Hello, and welcome back to your annual story time of Ben and Sarah’s international adventures! Keeping with the tradition of the last few years, Sarah and I visited with her family, this year going back to Scotland.

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Saturday, 28-Dec-2019

On our first full day in Skye we went searching for The Old Man of Storr.

The old man is old – I don’t know how old rock pillars are, but they’re probably extremely old, right? Millions of years? Yeah, that seems right… and Wikipedia confirms it – something around 2.8 billion years old. Which kind of seems too old to me… but then again, I’m not a geologist, so I don’t really know.

The Old Man of Storr is old, let’s just roll with that.

The Old Man of Storr is also rainy, we learned.

As all piled out of the van at the parking lot, and immediately grabbed all the rain gear we could find before heading into the mist and rain.

As we climbed higher, the rain kept getting worse – to the point that Bill and Henry had to turn around to protect their camera equipment. Sarah, Leah, Greta and I powered onward and upward though, continuing on as the rain turned from “rain” to “Bleak”, and then went through “Dreak” and even into “Lashing” at one point. It was impressive… but thanks to the waterproof phone, I was able to get some pretty excellent pictures!

We sort of saw the Storr, but only barely. Still, absolutely worth the adventure, in my book.

After turning around and coming back to the warm van, we moseyed onward toward Kilt Rock for a quick peak at the waterfalls, before heading back into town to dry off and warm up!

Mar18

A Scotland Adventure – Part 4, Driving to Skye

Posted on March 18, 2020 by perfectusvarrus

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Thursday, 26-Dec-2019 and Friday, 27-Dec-2019

After Christmas day, we packed up the van (Yep, there was a van!) and headed into the great unknown!

Well, unknown for us. Bill and Greta had made this drive a few times already, so they were our tour guides for the adventure! We set off from Aberdeen (on the Eastern side of Scotland) aiming toward the far Western side… though not all the way West, just pretty far West. The lovely isle of Skye!

To get there, we passed through the Cairngorms, a beautiful mountain range in the center of Scotland. We’d done a bit of hiking there the last time we were in Scotland, so we really enjoyed this chance to tour through the mountains in their entirety – we made a few tourist stops to get some amazing views, and enjoyed ourselves immensely.

The weather and conditions were actually quite mild compared to our expectations – There was some snow, but none near where we stopped off, and I don’t think we actually got any snow underfoot at any point. It was absolutely cold, don’t get me wrong, but it was somehow a more enjoyable cold than I was expecting… not quite the sharp biting cold that I’ve gotten accustomed to in the Pacific Northwest mountains. More of a seeping cold, that slowly creeps up on you through the various layers and jackets.

It was amazing.

Our final stop on the first day was the historic Loch Ness, where we stayed at the Ben Leva Inn. After a long day of driving through the mountains, it was absolutely perfect. We had amazing sunset views over the Loch, and the Inn had the exact warm and welcoming feeling that you’d hope for in a Scottish Inn at the end of a long travel day. The main room had excellent / hearty food, and the fireplace was warm and roaring. We ate, played some cards, chatted, and turned in for an early night.

The second day of driving took us past Loch Ness and on toward our final destination on Skye. It started early, but thankfully it also started with some very lovely bagged lunched by the Ben Leva staff – so absolutely a win in my book. Though… maybe not so much a win for the drivers, who had to navigate the dark Scottish roads hours before sunrise. But they handled the van adroitly, and we wound our way steadily toward the coast.

One quick side story here: The Loch Ness Monster.

We never saw Nessie, though I do now have a personal encounter story. You see, we stayed over at Loch Ness, and the morning that we left our hosts gave us some lovely bagged lunches. There was a sandwich, a fruit, and a soda for everyone. Cokes, Sprite, and even a few IRN-BRU Scottish drinks.

We stopped off to get groceries later on in the day, and when we came back one of the IRN-BRU cans was leaking everywhere. “Ohh no! I must have left it open on the seat!” I cried.

But no – the can wasn’t leaking from the top! It was leaking from a puncture mark on the side?

And wait a moment… there wasn’t any soda anywhere. No wet spots, no puddles, no sticky residue. It was as if the soda hadn’t ever even existed.

That was when I realized that the puncture hole bore a striking resemblance to a Plesiosaur tooth.

Now, any logical person will cite Occam’s Razor, and will tell you that the soda must have absorbed into the seats, or dried up, or something of the like. But I know the truth. In my heart of hearts, I know that Nessie likes IRN-BRU.

Anyways aside from Nessie, there was Skye.

Skye was beautiful. We saw it first from the shore, a bit after we stopped at Eilean Donan castle to see the most photographed castle in Scotland, but before we crossed the huge bridge connecting Skye to the mainland of Scotland. It was gorgeous, even with the omni-present rain.

Somehow, to me at least, the rain really makes the whole picture. Scotland in my mind isn’t sunny and warm… Scotland is harsh, and bleak, and has at least semi-constant mist. That makes the few rays of sunshine that much more poignant… and boy did Skye not disappoint that first day.

We started off with a quick stop at a beautiful seaside down, moseying inland past Sligachan bridge, and toward the Talisker Distillery. We even stopped in at a beautiful artists shop above the distillery, where Sarah got a chance to chat and talk shop with one of the owners.

We explored, photographed, got a bit rained on, and enjoyed ourselves immensely.

Later on the day, once the house we were staying at was ready for us, we headed into Portree to the nice warm house…

Mar17

A Scotland Adventure – Part 3, Aberdeen the first

Posted on March 17, 2020 by perfectusvarrus

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Tuesday, 24-Dec-2019 and Wednesday, 25-Dec-2019

Our visit started with a trip to Sainsbury’s.

I mean, not really. It started with a lovely evening visiting with Greta and Bill, and then an amazing breakfast with the whole family the next morning. After all of that, though, we headed out and got Sarah the fix that she’d been craving for three years – Sainsbury’s butter chicken takeaway. Seriously, I think Sarah may possibly like that takeaway better than me… not that I blame her, of course. It’s freaking amazing.

Aside from the grocery run, our first few days in Scotland were gloriously relaxed – very much appreciated after the hectic end to 2019 that we’d been having with work and projects. We visited, caught up with everyone, and enjoyed being able to sit back and relax.

For Christmas Eve, we went back to St. Maccar’s cathedral in Aberdeen – it looked exactly like we remembered it from last time, and even though we’d seen it before it was no less awe inspiring to see such a massive building carved from equally huge granite stones.

The service was lovely, but one fun item of note actually happened afterward, when we were walking back to the car. The path to the cathedral itself isn’t lit, and as we left the building we saw two lovely little old ladies tottering their way down the unlit path, trying their best to carefully walk over the uneven cobblestones. I don’t know who got to them first – Greta or myself, offering our arms, or Sarah and Henry shining their flashlights to illuminate the path.

Whomever got their first, the results were excellent – we made it to our car, and the ladies made it to theirs. All unharmed, and with us all feeling good that we’d helped them out, and them feeling happy that we’d so enthusiastically zipped by to help.

Christmas day was equally relaxing, with the traditional Lydecker breakfast of waffles and bacon being served up with the always-excellent nespresso lattes. Following Christmas morning unwrapping of presents, we rested a bit more before heading out on a quick jaunt to the beach to sight-see and bird-watch.

We even happened to arrive at exactly the perfect time to see a whole pod of harbor porpoises hunting! Thankfully, Bill had brought binoculars along, so we were able to see the porpoises circling and jumping as they chased after whatever school of fish they were hunting… it was amazing, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it before.

The rest of the day? There really wasn’t much, actually – one of the downsides of being so far North is the impressively short days. Not a problem though, since we had just enough board games, and an excellent dinner, to keep us entertained.