Pictures from this part of the trip can be found in the Skye gallery.
Since it had been such a late night, we got up and had breakfast before showering. Then, we went back to our room, showered, and finished packing. We checked out and hit the road around 10:00am.
Our first stop was Dunstaffnage Castle, where we bought a "7-of-14 days" pass from Historic Scotland that served us well over the remainder of our trip. It saved us money, and we got to skip the ticket line at crowded venues like Edinburgh Castle.
Then, we headed to Glencoe and tried to find the visitor center. That turned out to be a mess. We made 3 wrong turns in 15 minutes and once ended up on a dead-end road behind a van picking up handicapped people. Ken's blood pressure was on the rise.
Eventually, we found the Glencoe Visitor Center, which is mostly focused on mountaineering, since Glencoe is near some of the largest mountains in the highlands. Julie has been reading a book about Mt. Everest, and some of the climbers in that book got their start at Glencoe and were mentioned in the displays at the museum. After visiting the museum, we got lunch in the cafe and then walked a little on some of the hiking trails in the area (although the route we picked didn't seem to go anywhere, and we eventually gave up on it).
Next, we headed to the town of Ft. William, parked the car in a pay lot, and wandered around a little. Ft. William's main drag is very "outdoor" focused — lots of stores selling hiking, mountaineering, camping, and ski gear. We got the sense that a lot of people use Ft. William as a jumping off point. Ft. William is also the endpoint of the West Highland Trail, which started a few minutes from Aunt Morag's apartment in Milngavie.
In the middle of town, we stopped at the little West Highland Museum, which was quite nice. Besides general Scottish history (especially about the Jacobite period) there was a room devoted to the original British Green Berets, which were based in the area during WWII.
After leaving Ft. William, we headed to Neptune's Staircase, a set of locks on the Caledonian Canal, which connects Scotland's east and west coast. Fortunately, while we were there, two sailboats were navigating the locks, so we got to watch them lowered through several steps, and also watched two swing bridges (road and rail) in operation. Around this time, we also found the mountain range containing Scotland's highest mountain peak (Ben Nevis), but we're not sure we ever saw the mountain itself.
We found our hotel (Balmacara Mains Guest House, near Kyle of Lochalsh) just after dusk, and got settled into our generous room. Then, we headed across the bridge to the Isle of Skye to get dinner. Unfortunately, both restaurants from our guidebook were closed, so we ended up at a dive called Saucy Mary's, the pub attached to the local hostel in Kyleakin. It was forgettable.
Around this point, it became clear that Julie was beginning to get sick. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel, sorted some laundry, and called it an early night.
We spent Saturday driving around the Isle of Skye. We got a fairly early breakfast at the hotel, and dropped off a load of laundry with them at breakfast. (The hotel provides a convenient laundry service — for only £5, they threw our laundry in with their daily wash of sheets and towels.)
After leaving the hotel, we headed across the bridge to Skye. It was threatening to rain when we left, and was raining steadily (if not hard) by later in the morning. We stopped in Portree (which Ken kept confusing with a Harry Potter "portkey", ha ha) and visited the harbor and the tourist center. We also grabbed take-away sandwiches and pastries from a bakery near the tourist center.
After that, we followed the Rick Steves tour of the island. We started with the Trotternish Penninsula, which is mostly single-track roads through beautiful scenery. It was fairly empty to start with (due to the rain?), but we started to see more people as it got later in the day. We stopped at a lot of the pull-offs to look at views or waterfalls.
Part-way through the day, we ate our lunch at one pull-off and then later we stopped at the Skye Museum of Island Life (and its convenient bathroom). The museum was definitely worthwhile. We were surprised to see how many people stopped just to take pictures from outside and use the bathroom, but didn't pay admission to go in.
Throughout the entire island, sheep and sometimes cattle were our constant companions. This had also been true on Mull and Iona, and it continued to be true throughout the rest of the Scottish highlands and up in the Orkneys. Virtually any land not used for something else was used for cattle or sheep grazing, and cattle and sheep often roamed the roads. On a lot of the smaller roads, we periodically drove through gates in fences, protected by slotted cattle guards on the road surface (like on a cattle ranch).
After leaving the Trotternish Penninsula, we took another long single-track road to Elgol, where we looked at the harbor and some of the biggest mountains on Skye, the Cuillins. By this point, Ken was getting used to the single-track roads. In some ways, single-track roads are easier to drive and less stressful than normal Scottish roads, because speeds are lower and there's less chance of running into wide buses or trucks around narrow corners.
We caught an early dinner at a hotel in Broadford, memorable only due to its surly bartender/waitress and mediocre food. By this point, we were beginning to think that there wasn't much good food in Scotland as a whole.
After dinner, we drove back to the mainland, past our hotel, to visit Eilean Donan Castle. It was closed for the day, but we were able to walk around the grounds. Then, we headed back to the hotel and did postcards before heading off to bed. (Julie was continuing to get sicker, and by now had developed a cough.)
On Sunday, we got up, got breakfast at the hotel, picked up our laundry, and hit the road north toward the Orkney Islands. Our first stop was Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness, which is a large and popular castle. There were lots of tours there, both from buses and from lake cruises that make a stop at the associated dock, so it was the most crowded place we had been in several days. The friendly castle staff helped us call another Historic Scotland site in the Orkneys (Maeshowe) which requires advance tour reservations. We did not see any evidence of a Nessie while at the castle. :)
After leaving Urquhart Castle, we headed toward Inverness to visit the Culloden Battlefields. We got lunch at the vistor center cafe and then spent a few hours in the area. Culloden was the site of an exceptionally bloody battle during the Jacobite revolution of 1746. There's a large visitor center and museum. After finishing up at the museum, they hand you a slick GPS-enabled audio guide, which tells you about parts of the battle as you wander around the battlefield itself. It was quite well done.
The battlefield area was also the site of a "Scottish Culture" festival over the weekend. After finishing up at the museum, we walked around the festival and Julie spent 15 minutes playing guitar with some folk musicians. It was a nice way to end our time at Culloden.
After leaving Inverness, our next stop was Thurso, up on the northern shore of the Scottish mainland, about a 3-hour drive. By the time we reached Thurso, it was starting to get cold and rainy. We caught dinner at a little hotel in Thurso, and then got back on the road for our 25-mile drive to John O'Groats.
On the way, we stopped at the Castle of Mey, the queen mother's home in Caithness. It wasn't open, but we were able to look at it from the outside through the rain. After reaching John O'Groats, we drove a little past it on single-track roads to visit the lighthouse at Duncansby Head, the north eastern-most point of mainland Scotland. By this point, the rain was coming down sideways and the wind was so strong it was difficult to stand up. Welcome to the North Sea!
Now dripping wet, we headed the few minutes back to John O'Groats and checked in at the Seaview Hotel. Our room was tiny, but it was warm and cozy as the rain and wind lashed the building overnight.
By this point, Julie was really sick, so she went to bed around 9:00pm. Ken stayed up a little later and took a shower, so he wouldn't have to do that in the morning before setting off to catch the Pentland Ferry.