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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Monday, 30-Dec-2019
There were a few main hikes that we wanted to explore on Skye – One of the most famous was a hike along the base of a rock formation called The Quirang.
The Quirang is similar to the Shawangunk ridge in New York – It’s a huge ridgeline of exposed rock, scoured away by huge glaciers in epocs past. We didn’t learn about any rock climbing at The Quirang, but I’m sure there must be some that the locals keep to themselves. The hike though, was gorgeous. Where The Gunks are well hidden by trees and undergrowth, The Quirang was fully exposed along the route that we took, with nothing shielding it from the beauty of the landscape around.
The drive into The Quirang was rainy. Surprising, I know, but it’s true.
We did get to see some peat bogs, along with stacked bricks of peat, but finding the parking lot took a bit of time, and definitely wasn’t assisted by the near-constant drizzling mist that clung around the area.
We pressed onward though, and soon enough the clan found ourselves at the parking lot for the hike. We explored, took some photos, and then prepared to head back to the van and mosey onward…
But Sarah wanted to hike. I didn’t blame her, and I absolutely wanted to as well, but since this was a family trip I let her take the lead, trying to convince everyone to join us on the hike along the base of the rock formation.
Sarah didn’t find any buyers for her adventure though, aside from myself, and so off we set on our own – The rest of the crew headed toward the far side of the island to search for sun and adventure, while Sarah and I set off into the mud and muck, planning on hiking along the base of the Quirang and meeting the family in the small town where the trail ended off.
About 20 minutes after we left the trailhead, the clouds started to break apart, and the sun started burning through the mist. We couldn’t make it 500 yards without stopping to take more pictures of more gorgeous views… so please forgive the sheer number of photos uploaded to this gallery – this is a tiny portion of the total that we took, but it’s still a pretty heavy album.
We walked, chatted, took photos, walked some more, took more photos… it was lovely.
Not really much else to say, aside from that. Sit back, grab a snack, and enjoy the huge album!
