Tales of the Storr

24 March: Today we went out to climb & photograph the Old Man of Storr. Oh god another steep uphill hike…why am I doing this again?
This was 100% steeper than the fairy pools but not much shorter. It took us 2+ hours return. The weather started off looking promising and was meant to clear, so I didn’t take many photos on the way up (just phone pix) and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. Truly, that is exactly what it was like … don’t look up, just keep going. The weather was starting to clear below us and I thought I’d shoot from the top. BIG MISTAKE. We reached the cloud level before the Storr.   
By the time we reached the top you barely see the Storr & it’s huge 55 metres/180 feet high. The wind was howling, with horizontal … l was going to say rain, but I don’t think it was. I think it was rain laden cloud. Same diff in terms of how wet we got though.  On the way down the beautiful scenery available on the way up was gone, swallowed by the weather.  We met a middle aged, Asian couple coming up who asked “if we go 15 minutes more, will we see something nice?”  “No. It’s another 45-50 min and you will see nothing.” Pour souls. At least they did the sensible thing and turned around.  So, we get kudos for managing the climb, but zero points for the photos.

25/3 We visited Eilean Donan Castle. This is our clan castle. Well strictly speaking the McNaughtans are a sub clan, and to be honest I cannot remember which of the major clans we are part of. My niece will know, so I will have to get back to you on that one. Suffice to say Eilean Donan is one of those iconic castles everyone knows. It is beautiful.
The other major thing we did today, apart from driving for hours, was visit Glenfinnian Viaduct… you know… the Hogwarts train viaduct.  I was underwhelmed. I know it’s only just out of winter, but the place was tatty, wires hanging from the viaduct, coils of fencing wire left lying around, mud everywhere. Just grubby & rather disappointing really. I would not want to be there when the hordes of visitors arrive to see the steam train that resumes service on 1 April.
Tales of life on the road etc, I should tell you about Scotland’s public toilets. It is very surprising but quite simply there aren’t any. Or, they are few and far between. I know NZ has some pretty rubbish loos but at least you can pretty much go when you need to. I cannot conceive what the Scottish tourist board or local councils are thinking. In the summer, you have literally hundreds of visitors per day, for example, to the fairy pools. Everyone has to pay £6 for parking and there is not one single toilet. At least at the Storr there are toilets, but they have the cheek to charge £5 for parking & then ask for a donation to use the loo.  Very few of the many many towns we have come through, have a public loo either. People on tour who travel all day & cannot check into accommodation until 3 or 4pm are twisting into pretzels or visiting the bushes.  This has made me realise that NZ is much more geared to tourist bathroom requirements than I realised. Ours may not always be salubrious, but at least you don’t usually have to wee in the bushes.

This is what it should have looked like - courtesy of someone on the internet

And this is what it looked like at the top when the wind blew a moment of clarity through