Stepping off the edge

Owlmother's adventures

Picking up where I left off… kinda

I started a blog called Stepping off the Edge when I left my comfortable middle class and middle age life in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and headed to Adelaide, Australia to return to school in 2012.

For 8 years I blogged about events in my life…family weddings, birth of grandkids, travel. I no longer own the email address associated with that blog so couldn’t continue, hence starting over in this space.

So I picked up where I left off with our trip in fall 2024 to Europe and will continue with India and the Maldives .

Isle of Skye and Loch Ness

We started our trek around the Isle of Skye in Portree, a quaint little town on the coast. Keith had his first Scottish Breakfast with Haggis, baked beans, hash browns, mushrooms, tomato, sausage, bacon and eggs.

Our first stop was The Old Man of Storr, a distinctive rock formation we could see miles (the Scottish use miles not kilometres) back. We could also see lots of traffic as it’s the most popular attraction on the Isle. We had a lovely hike up to the rock and looked back to the lakes and mountains and Keith burned off a little of his breakfast!

We continued north to Kilt Rock and waterfall. The columns on the rock resemble the pleats on a kilt. The coastline was equally impressive looking south, in fact no matter where you looked on the Isle of Skye it was spectacular!

Every single home and building on the Isle was painted white and every field had sheep.

As we traveled to the north tip of the island the road went to one lane with a small pull over spot signed as a “Passing Place”. If you didn’t stop to let oncoming traffic by when you were the car closer to a passing place you had to back up. Now this is difficult enough on a narrow road with the ocean on one side but add in that the roads here are right hand drive! I had sweaty palms much of the time!

We arrived at a museum that documented the life of the Crofters, the people who farmed the land beginning in the 1770’s by renting parcels. Crofting ended in the late 1800s when the government took over the land. This photo shows the thatched roofs of the homes they lived in, typical of the time in many parts of The Highlands.

We were sad to leave beautiful Isle of Skye however looking forward to the famous Loch Ness. It is the largest loch or lake in Scotland. We didn’t see Nessie but we did visit the ruins of Urquhart Castle, majestically overlooking the loch.


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