Fairies and Whisky

Before I begin with our adventures today, I just wanted to mention the lovely meal that we had at the Duisdale Hotel last night, as its not often you get oysters served as canapes!


I'm not so sure Iain was as thrilled as I was! 

Aside from the oysters, we had a lovely meal in the sister hotel. There are lots of staffing shortages, so we were given complimentary transport and it was only 5 minutes down the road.

We did however, have breakfast in our own hotel this morning which was delicious; scotch pancakes for me and Eggs Benedict for Iain.

After breakfast, we set out on our first adventure to Armadale Castle, Gardens and Museum of the Isles. I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting too much but I was pleasantly surprised, especially by the museum. We walked past the castle ruin, once the seat of the Macdonalds of Sleat, around the ponds and into the museum where I refreshed my knowledge of Scotland and in particular Bonnie Prince Charlie and the clans. The museum really was excellent, and you could tell a lot of money had been spent putting it together. 




We also decided to take a wander around the gardens, not realising that we had ended up on one of the "trails" around the 40 acre site. Thankfully, it was only 2.7 km /1.7 miles so we made it around reasonably quickly.

It was already noon and we wanted to get to the Fairy Pools and back to our next hotel for 3pm. The drive to the pools was interesting, particularly as it started pouring as we travelled further north. After driving for about 45 minutes, we made it to the single track road leading to the car park. It was 4.5 miles of weaving in and out of "passing places" and staying as far to one side as huge campervans came careering past you! 

Eventually, we made it. There is now a designated car park, with attendants, where you pay £5 for your stay. It seems a bit steep, but this is a new project to address the issues brought about by increasing visitor numbers.

As I said, it was pouring so we decided to get out the waterproof gear and at least look the part. By the time we were ready, the rain had stopped and there was a mad rush of people to get to the first pools. The walk is around 5km /3 miles, that's there and back, and it is beautiful when there is a break in the weather. We seemed to time it to perfection and really enjoyed the majority of the walk, although we did get caught with the rain on the way back.




We literally chucked all the wet gear in the back of the car, and headed to Carbost, only a 15 minute drive away. Trien Lodge is our home for the next few nights and we were desperate to get checked-in and make our way to Talisker distillery for a whisky tour and tasting at 4pm. We knew it would be another 30 minute walk to the distillery and just hoped it would stop raining!

Thankfully, our lovely hosts offered to drive us to Talisker, and even offered to pick us up again afterwards. We were delighted as it gave us time to unpack and have a cuppa in our new surroundings. 

Ted dropped us off just in time for our 45 minute tour with a couple of tastings. The tour was great, and extremely informative! I've learned that when you nose your whisky, you should keep your mouth open a bit as this opens your senses even more. I also learned that the slight peppery and copper taste you get from Talisker is due to the really tall stills that they have. We tried Talisker 10y and a Distillery only edition which was very light and smooth, but £95!




We didn't buy the distillers edition, but we may have bought a memento from our travels (FYI, this is the first of 5 distillery visits on our trip - we will be very drunk and very skint by the end of this holiday!)

It was now 5pm, so we wandered 100 metres or so to The Old Inn. It overlooks Loch Harporta, and is the meeting place for locals and tourists. The hotel tols us to be there before 6pm otherwise we woudl struggle to get a table, and they were right. The pub was heaving but we managed to get a table and sat down for a nice cold ale (Skye Gold) and some pub grub. The food was really good, and we were stuffed after just a main course.




By the time we left the pub, the rain had stopped so we decided to wander the route back to the hotel. Its only a 25 minute walk but the scenery is beautiful, including the cows who wouldn't stop staring at us! 


It's now 9.30pm and I have done 18,643 steps. Tomorrow is going to be another day of walking, hopefully not in the rain, so its time for bed after I finish my cup of Scottish Blend.


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