15, 16 July; Fri, Sat

It’s the 20th and I am in Applecross, mainland Scotland, overlooking east coast of Raasay.  In the charming “Flower tunnel camp site” – the flower tunnel does have flowers down the sides    but is the cafe serving good food.  But am starting at the end so will go back to Friday.

Had some rubbish weather – today is nice and am sitting outside in the sun, weeks since I did this.

On Friday 15th, back on Skye,  weather poor I went to Dunvegan Castle, home of the MacLeods.  It was massively crowded – coach loads.   It looked a bit down at heel both inside and out

and the most interesting thing, for me, was in the basement, a little St Kilda display – with a sheeps bladder letter carrier

and nooses for catching puffins etc

The MacLeods were the owners/landlords of  St Kilda.

I was in the north west of Skye as that evening I dining at the Three Chimneys, Carbost.  Next to the restaurant is a black house museum,sad because it needs a lot of love, attention and maintenance

 

Unloved museum, Three Chimneys restaurant in the background

My next museum restored my spirits – the Glendale Toy Museum – not so much the museum itself but the enthusiasm and verve of the proprietor – I got a personal display of a number of toys – sadly, for me,  other visitors arrived half way through

Not Infinity and Beyond, yet

A Ken & Barbie party

 

You have to be a certain age to appreciate this

Where’s Michael Parkinson?

Company for the Furbie?

The museum is in the 2 front rooms of a private house and it transpired that it had burnt down 10 years ago and they had built it up again from donations.  They claim this is the last year and they are giving up…

Dinner at the Three Chimneys – makes it into the top 10 but low down – good but not great – they had an 8 course menu which, with good company, might have been the experience…

I wild camped abut 300 yards up the road from the Three Chimneys and it rained heavily all night.  It cleared up the following day.  I went back to Portree.  There was a big cruise liner in town so Portree was full of cruse liner folk as well as coach trips. 

To escape I took a “sea eagle” boat trip – they chuck fish out for the sea eagles – there are so many boats doing this that the sea eagles are a bit sluggish – but he/she did come out, reluctantly, to pick up the fish.

Stayed at the Portree campsite, very wet overnight.