Day Six--Over the sea we'll go to the Hebrides

As I was unable to post this yesterday, this is post-dated for Tuesday, September 4, 2007. Pictures to post later.
I stopped counting Land Rovers days ago. there are so many here. And rightly so. If you need on e anywhere, this is the place. the Defender is Dave's favorite, so he's been eyeing every unusual one he's nver seen in America--like the truck style Defender that has a hard top you can attach on the truck bed to make it into an SUV. Today after check out we headed north towards Uig on the Totternish peninsular--our last stop until catching the ferry for the Hebrides at 5:30 pm. We wished well to our fine hostess, Anne Houston, at Toravaig house and decided to make our first stop an art exhibition by Glasgow artist Pam Carter just up the road. Her work is superb and she really has a way of using oil paints to draw out the beauty of a place. They are pricey by our standards--those being Americans with a declining dollar--but I'm sure for natives or Europeans they are well priced. One painting cuaght my eye of a dark foreboding sky and glowing white traditional homes in the foreground. It's a scene repeated here often when the sun comes out to bless a small bit of land with its rays while darkness looms all around. It's a magical moment and she caught it so well. This got us talking with the art gallery owners about the tradition of the white houses here. It seems that in the oldest days of these homes, the paint was made of a mixture of lyme and water, giving off a milky appearance. Later innovations introduced sand into the mix which provided Scots with a more durable exterior against the elements. Now, of course, there are a plethora of synthetic paints available to the consumer, the hardiest of which are used on the lighthouses (for obvious reasons). After we had been back on the road for a while we stopped for petrol and bought 2 CDs for our further journeys. One CD was a compilation of flook music, very popular right now. The other was by Scot singer Kate Rusby entitled "Little Lights". Kate's CD is a real stunner and just perfect as our day's accomaniment. It's a gray day today, the air full of sky. The name "Skye" atually means "Isle of Mist", and on days as today one reckons it was rightly named. The air is thick and wet and there is no difference between the sky and the air. Today there is only a thich veil drawn over all of this island. It's as if the sea is picked up and dispersed in the air. So when we drive north out of Portree towards the Old Man of Storr (which in old Norse means "big" or "great")--a very unusual rock formation--it was cloaked in a misty fog. Missing it, and not wanting to venture through the wet fog to find it, we decided to pass it by. The sea came out before us on our right as we moved north towards the Quirang. Dave commented that he's never liked the sea so much, being that it seems so uncertain, so vast, so indefineable. He said he'd learn to sail just to conquer it, which seemed like a very masculine comment. Mastery of nature, or nature will master you? Indeed it is immense, for its sheer distance alone is enough to send the mind into thoughts of isolation, emptiness and Kantian awe. But its depth is the most terrifying to me. The true last frontier, excepting other galaxies. So deep that the tallest mountains in the world lie in the deep mountian range between North America and Europe. I look out and see a terrifying immense abyss. I don't think I could stomach being a sailor. With this racing through my mind we reached the look out for point for Kilt Rock. We stopped for pics. It's a rock formation that looks like the ripples in a kilt. Quick pics and we're off to find a bathroom. We stopped in Staffin (a small village where there are dinosaur fossiles) at a convenient store/restaurant/community hall. Almost every village has a community hall. It's where they meet to discuss, as well as have their dances. Then we headed towards the Quirang, one of the most dramatic areas of geological formations on Skye. In Gaelic Auriang means "round fold or pen" and comes from quoyrand or kvirand--an old Norse word. It was created by a succession of the largest landslides in Britain. According to a tourist guide, "Huge blocks of rock slippd down-slope when Jurassic sediments buckled under the weight of the basalt plateau which lies above." It is visually stunning and makes for great photos...when you can see it. Today its hidden. My plan had been to hike it as far as "the Needle" formation or "the Prison".But with the Skye spitting on us and winds pushing every which way, we decided against it. instead, we drove up to the car park and took pictures when the clouds parted enough to grab some pictures of "the Needle". Then we turned around and headed to Flodigarry to visit Flodigarry Country house hotel where we had (a terrible) lunch.I wouldn't advise this place for food--only for tea in their drawing room. The food was terrible and overpriced. It was the first bad meal we've had since we arrived. While lunching i got back into The Road North--in particular the Alexander Smith excerpt on Skye. It was very amusing to see what another traveller's impresions were of the place over 100 years ago. It's been a great companion book on our journey. Dave picked up The Financial Times earlier in the day and pulled it out to read. After warming up a bit we headed off north to make the journey complete to Uig. On the way we passed Duntulm castle, which lies in ruins on land which had once served as an iron age broch, a Pictish fort and Viking stronghold The MacLeods and MacDonalds each had their turns at the castle before it fell into disuse. Just before we had arrived a tour bus unloaded at the site, and because of rain and my not wanting to trapse up with 30ish other people or so, we decided to keep on in the car to Uig. Caledonian MacBrayne has the ferry monopoly around here, so we headed onto their gigantic ship, left the car in the hull and headed up top the shop for tea in the cafeteria. Back in Portree I had picked up some sea sickness medicine, remembering two previous "cruises" when i was fairly green the whole of the journey. Two hours passed uneventful as Dave and I read. We came up upon Harris around 7:40pm and with the deep fog clinging to the sea there suddenly emerged very green patches of earth spotting rocky outcroppings. It was a treeless earth made of small hills and little islands.I couldn't help but think of the hardiness of the people who live here. It reminded me alot of the film The Shipping News, which takes place, for the most part, in New Foundland (populated in most part by Scot and Irish immigrants). A rugged hardy people to match such a place, where it seems the wind must howl over the land and the people fight for their right to live there. After disembarking we headed north out of North Harris towards Lewis. Tonight our journey was to end at Planasker Old School Bed and Breakfast in Marbig on Lewis. The drive was difficult as the fog was so thick we couldn't see the road out in front of us until we reached Lewis. From there our partly revealed guest began to show itself as an other wordly landscape of big rocks and earth clinging to them. We were later to find out that part of the 2001 Space Odyssey movie was filmed in this lunar landscape on the east of the island. We drove into what seemed like the farthest reaches of the world as we made the approach to Planasker. Our journey ended at the head of the loch in front of Planasker.We stepped inside for a delicious homemade late supper and then tucked ourselves in bed for the evening. Today's journey had seemed like the longest. But this land held great possibility for discovery.