Isle of Skye

      Monday was quite the adventure for Paul and I. We had our last morning with Liz and Peter Wilson. I just have to say that Liz is one of the kindest women I know. She let us stay with her for 3 nights, giving up her bed so Paul and I could be together. She also made us breakfast and dinner multiple days. To top it off, she put together a super cute little lunch for Paul and me so that Monday on our drive to Skye we didn't have to stop and buy food. She truly is an amazing woman and I am so grateful that I had the chance to stay with her and her son for several days.

Paul and Me with Liz Wilson, and her son Peter. They were SO kind and hospitable to us. 

    Monday our first stop was Loch Ness. We looked and looked for Nessie, but couldn't find him, so we just took a few pictures and set on our way. The plan for today was to visit the Isle of Ske. Its an island just off the coast of Scotland. Paul said it is beautiful drive so we just had to go see it. I had heard of a place on Isle of Skye called the Fairy Pools and I really wanted to go there. All of the members that we talked to had never heard of it. Paul doubted that it even existed, but I was determined to find it and prove that it did. We found some vague directions and attempted to find it.

Loch Ness in the morning

I guess they sent this yellow submarine to look for the Loch Ness Monster some time ago.

We found Nessie!! Hehe

      Before we drove to the Isle of Skye, we did stop at the Urquart Castle and the Eilean Donan Castle along the way. Urquart was pretty neat. It is just another castle ruin, but it was cool to see where the moat once was and to learn some of the history about it. Eilean Donan is the castle they filmed Maid of Honor at. We didn't actually go inside, but we walked around the outside of it and it was so fun.

I am showing Paul how to use the latrine in the Urquart Castle

Some of the Urquart Castle ruins. It is looking out over Loch Ness

      The drive out to the Isle of Sky was just beautiful. I am sure that my snapshots from the window will not do it justice. The hills were lush and green. Small trickling streams ran down the side of the hills like long steep flowing waterfalls. It is just so amazing how different and beautiful the terrain is.

Everything is SO GREEN!

This Picture and the next are just snaps of the scenery on the way to Skye

Eilean Donan Castle 

This is Eilean Donan from the other side

     Thankfully, for my sake, we found the Fairy Pools. The fairy pools actually exist. We were so surprised that for such an amazing and beautiful place, there are not any good directions to get there. There were tons of tourists though, so somehow they all found out about it. The plan was to try and see some of the beautiful sights before the rain hit us hard. The only problem was that I had to go to the bathroom SO bad. There was no public bathroom and tons of people and I had been holding it for a REALLY long time. So we looked around and tried to find a place I could.. ya know. So we find this really big rock. Its kind of off to the side and bigger than the grass and stuff out there. Paul and I hike up to it, I make sure no one can see me, and I go. Sweet, problem solved. Then I walk over to Paul and he is laughing. He says I have to show you the greatest picture I just took. He snapped a picture of me behind the rock! What a little stinker! I won't post it for everyones sake, but man, what a little sneak!

    The Fairy Pools are amazing. Its basically a series of really awesome waterfalls that are small and have lots of pools. Its like a natural water park. Some of the falls you could slide down, some you could jump off, there were pools to swim in, and it was just amazing. Whats better is that the water is crystal clear. Seriously Crystal clear. It is also surrounded by tons of bright purple flowers. Insert note here, the picture going around pintrest with the crystal clear water and lots of purple flowers is not real, but the pools are that clear, and there are purple flowers, just not that many. Any how, Paul and I didn't have our swim suits but we were just dying to get in the water. Mind you its chilly and raining on and off. But when you see something so clear and amazing you just HAVE to jump in. We chatted with a few others who were swimming and decided to get our suits.

When you google image Fairy Pools you see lots of pictures of purple flowers. There are TONS of purple flowers at the Fairy Pools, but not as many as the pictures show. They still are amazing and beautiful. I tried to get a picture of some of the purple. 

Us just being us while we hiked around

One of the first sets of cascading waterfalls. The water is seriously crystal clear

More waterfalls

I wanted to swim. I was jealous others were in the water!

Paul posing for the camera

Paul told me to stick my feet in so he could take a picture of how clear the water is. The deeper part is around five or so feet and you can still see right to the bottom!

More beautiful waterfalls

The waterfalls and pools here just keep going up and up the mountain. We didn't continue to follow it up, but I am sure there are even more nooks and places to swim and play in. It was like one giant water park!

I can't believe how beautiful it is here!

    We trudged the long half mile hike back to our car, attempted to secretly change into our suits, and hiked the horribly tiresome half mile back to the water. The looks from the tourists was so great. I think were surprised that we were going to swim in the weather. We knew from talking with some other locals that the water was cold, so we were prepared. I told Paul he just had to jump in. If he tried to work his way in, he would never get in. So I took pictures of him jumping into the frigid water. I knew it was going to be freezing, but I didn't want to have any regrets about being there. Paul snagged the camera from me and got so pictures as I jumped in. It as cold. I have been in colder, but man it was cold. It was not so cold that I hated it, once your body was numb it actually felt pretty good. We swam around for a little and swam up to some other waterfalls then decided we didnt want hypothermia so we headed back to the towels. A group of older people (like 70 year olds) asked if they could join us. We warned them that it was cold but they wanted to swim. So we had to stay and watch the old people swim. It was so impressive to see a 70 year old woman get into the cold water. I want to be a cool old lady like that when I get old.

You can tell by Paul's expression that the water was COLD!

I was having a hard time deciding if the cold was worth it

Okay so I finally jumped in. So cold, but SO worth it

We asked someone to get a picture of us in the water together 

This old lady was determined to swim in the Fairy Pools. So cool. Had to get a picture!

The crystal clear, beautiful, freezing water

Me just being silly on the hike back to the car

    We had a long drive to our B&B after Skye so we didn't stay too terribly long. We did have time to stop and look at the Harry Potter bridge, (which is really cool), before we headed in for the night. We got ourselves a chippy for dinner (fancy that), and checked into our room. We were kind of lazy and just lounged around the rest of the night. Being on holiday is great. I don't feel like I have to be on the go all the time. Its nice to just relax for a little bit.

This is a picture of the Harry Potter bridge. It has a real name but it is long and I don't want to spell it wrong. So we will just call it the Harry Potter bridge. 

It rained on us most of the day

We got a chippy for dinner. Notice how HUGE it was! I didn't eat all of mine. It was great fish though. We watched them hand batter it fresh!