Sunday 11th April
The highest priority today was shopping: it was fortuitous that we had chosen Portree for our starting point on the Sunday: religious fundamentalism forces the closing of pretty well every shop on the island except for Somerfields (now owned by the Co-op, gawd bless ’em) and the Co-op itself. We bought food and, too early in the season for Somerfields to stock it and for the Co-op to put it on display, sun tan lotion.
We left along the B885, towards Bracadale, unable to believe our luck that the weather, if anything, was even better than yesterday as the wind had dropped. We climbed again, but there was only one stretch in which we felt obliged to walk. This was just after we had stopped to photograph a wonderful view along the Snizort river, the Cuillins framed perfectly above.
A few minutes later we stopped again, for a very good view of what we thought at the time was a sea eagle, but in fact was a juvenile golden eagle (it was the white tail which fooled us).
The second photo is from Wikipedia, but ours looked just like that through the binoculars.
A while later, in Struan, we ate our lunch at a picnic table – rolls with finger-applied peanut butter.
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We conversed with a motor cyclist with a Black Country accent (Jan had him coming from Cumbria). He had ridden up from the Lake District and bore useful information about the pub in Carbost.
We found an isolated hotel where we bought tea. The landlady advised us that Dunvegan would be the best place to buy provisions for the youth hostel at Glenbrittle the following night, and that the Old Inn in Carbost serves food all day in the summer months. This sort of information is vital when cycling in remote areas.
Gradually we inched our way towards Glendale, stopping every so often to take photographs – it’s much too easy to run out of superlatives when describing highland scenery in the sunshine.
After a very steep ascent out of Colbost, during which we read of The Crofters’ Struggle in the late 19th century, we hurtled down the other side and arrived at The Byre, a lovely little B & B looking down the valley towards Loch Pooltiel.
Julian & Diane supplied us with a very good dinner consisting of cullen skink, roast beef etc. and apple crumble, after which I rode solo down to the loch to have a look around, returning just in time to watch a spectacular sunset.