Last we left you, we were on a smaller ferry, scraping the bottom of the hull along the shallow channel from the Isle of Harris to the Isle of North Uist. We made it! We drove off the boat in search of our next stop – Langass Lodge.
Langass Lodge was a bit of a tricky bugger to find, so many things in that area are called Langass (Langais). It’s not Langass Wood, or Barpa Langass, in fact, you must turn in at the Scottish Salmon Company, finally catch a chance to squint at a sign for Langass Lodge, and continue to the end of the road. Victory! We were shown to our room in the newer addition of the old hunting lodge, complete with a patio, by a very helpful staff member. She referred us to the bar and let us bump up our dinner reservation since we were starving from our long-ago breakfast – I failed this day and had only had avocado toast. So up to our room to unpack a bit, change into something more appropriate for dinner and wander down for drinks and dinner. Our dinner companions the first evening were – loud. But, the curry for me and the fish and chips for Jason were phenomenal. We wandered back to our room and called it an early night. It had been a really long day.
The next morning, we were the first down for breakfast – if you know me, you know this is very odd. I’m not a morning person, but the total reset from jumping time zones helps a bit and I see a lot more sunrises. Having our very own server was a bit awkward and we were a bit relieved when others started to filter in. We loaded up on a hearty breakfast and learned we were the only ones not checking out that morning. Neat. We had the whole place to ourselves for a few hours, so naturally, we decided to go for a long hike – unintentionally. Remember that server? It was his first week and his recommended hour-long hike was nearly 3 hours. It was great but I had a real hard time dragging myself back in at the end. I was unprepared and paved paths are not my friend.
We took off out our patio door to the back of the lodge for our hike, through the garden that was just starting to green up, through the massive metal gate at the ground’s edge (I’m assuming it was to keep the deer out), and nearly down to the loch. We took a left just before the path to the loch and went up the mountain. It was a small mountain, no worries. Our original destination was Pobull Fhinn, a stone circle that our loud dinner companions from the previous night had sworn was the only real stone circle on the island. The rest are supposedly tourist trap fakes. The stones were about halfway up the mountain where a plateau had been dug out to accommodate the circle. It was actually quite difficult to see the entire thing as some of the weathered stones had fallen and were half-buried and blended into the braken, but the view! Wow! Jason put the drone up for a better view and shot a couple of short videos. I didn’t get any really great photos of the stones, I was too mesmerized by the whole view! It was after this we found the actual gravel path and continued up and around the mountain. That was a bit easier than trudging through the braken. Whoops.
Through another large gate and into Langass Woods we went. A sign informed us if we kept on going we would encounter “the bear.” I wasn’t entirely sure what this was referring to, so we made a lot of noise (remember the large gate – yikes). That’s what you do in bear country, right? We put the drone up again and flew it in front of us for some fun forest footage. I may have let Jason go on ahead with this while I darted off the path periodically and found little treasures. Apparently, a school class had been by recently and added tons of little faeries doors and villages just off the path. They were pretty cute. And then we encountered “the bear.” It was a statue and a grave. Whew. Hercules the bear, however, was in fact at one time a real bear. He was a film star and at one time escaped and went missing on the island for 24 days in 1980, nearly starving himself to death because he didn’t like to eat raw meat, he had been cooked for his entire life. He died of old age in 2001 and I’m assuming was buried on the island considering we stumbled upon a grave. We found a few more fun things along the path carved out of fallen tree trunks – mushrooms, a gnome, small huts – and tried to fly the drone between the trees. Its sensors did NOT like that! We only ran it into one tiny branch and didn’t crash, so I would say that was a victory. Dodging fallen trees from the recent wind and rain storm, we finally found the way out, into a car park and were immediately confused as to where we were supposed to go. Down to the road, the map said. Ok. We ended up walking along the road for a mile and a half – not quite what we had in mind for hiking. We passed Barpa Langass, a chambered burial cairn (aka, huge pile of rocks) but didn’t hike up the hill to look closer. My energy was quickly being zapped by the pavement.
We finally made it back to the Lodge, collapsed in the bar, and begged for tea and scones. We were rewarded. That restored enough energy to wander back down to the loch to fly the drone again and check out the landscape from the water level. We played at the water’s edge until it was almost time for dinner. This night we had the restaurant to ourselves. It was so quiet while we watched the light disappear behind the lodge and cast some fabulous light features on the landscape. Before heading back up to our room we checked out at the front desk. Why you might ask? We needed to leave the lodge before 6am the next day and no one would be there to check us out. Small hotels often do not have overnight staff, only an emergency number. Plan ahead!
We miraculously made it out the door before 6am, dropped our keys off at the desk, and drove to town to catch the ferry in the dark and rain. It took forever to load, I got a nap in. It turned out to be a good day for travel and not much doing – it rained ALL day. Our ferry journey back to Uig on Skye only took a short two hours. We got some breakfast on board and were ready to hit the road once we drove off. We waved our final goodbye to our Uig hotel from our first night in Scotland and view of the bay before we headed towards the mainland. We made a quick stop at Talisker Distillery – home of Jason’s favorite Scotch – to grab a couple of bottles of the dark, peaty, smokey Scotch (it smells sooo good!) that we can’t get at home. Let’s be real, the entire reason Jason agrees to go to Scotland with me so often is to restock his Scotch supply. Back in the car, over the bridge at the Kyle of Lochalsh, and we were back on Mainland Scotland. We stopped quickly at Eilean Donan Castle to use the restroom, snap some photos of the moody day and peruse the gift shop. We’ve been inside the castle before, so we didn’t go in this time. It was only a 3-hour drive to our next hotel, so we took lots of roadside stops to appreciate the views and stand in the mist and rain. There’s just something magical about the rain in Scotland. I don’t mind it at all and it almost feels…healing. If we lived there full time I may change my mind but for now, it’s magical.
We arrived at Invergarry Hotel too early to check-in, so we grabbed some tea and drove down the road a bit farther to a distillery in Fort William – Ben Nevis Distillery. Super friendly folks, a free tasting from the exhausted barkeep (he had a massive tour bus group in the bar and I think he felt bad that we were stuck with them), average whisky – not my favorite. We didn’t do the tour as they were sold out for the day, but we’ve done so many of them we know the drill. Luckily their history was written on some wall placards, so we got the scoop, tasted some whisky, and headed back to the hotel.
Once checked in to our delightful little roadside hotel, we decided to go for a walk along the river just on the other side of the road before dinner. Invergarry had also fallen victim to the recent windstorms and excessive rain so there were fallen trees in our path everywhere. I’ve always found trees a bit spooky (there’s a story here – ask me sometime) and this was no exception. These massive trees that had been standing for decades, if not centuries along the pathway had been uprooted and thrown down the hill towards the river like they were twigs. Part of an ancient stone bridge was washed away as a result of high water and trees smashing into it, so we didn’t venture to the path on the other side. We finally had to turn around as the fallen trees were too thick to continue, which in the end was good because I suddenly got really dizzy on the way back and needed to sit for a while before I was able to be convinced to go eat dinner. We grabbed highland burgers and apple rhubarb crisp for dinner in the hotel bistro. Both were phenomenal. We called it an early night because I still didn’t feel right, my head was still reeling and my stomach was giving me grief.
A good night of sleep kicked most of whatever happened to me the night before and we were off in the morning towards Oban. We stopped at the Glen Coe Visitor’s Centre (we’ve also been here before) for a quick walk along the trail and an exhibit about Munro bagging (mountain climbing over 3000 feet – there are 282 peaks to bag in Scotland) and rock climbing. I’m not sure we officially have any Munros in our bag, but we’ve climbed LOTS of smaller mountains in Scotland. They had also recently finished an example of a peat house inside the grounds. I loved the design in the way the peat walls were laid. We wanted to spend more time in Glen Coe since we’d only just driven through before and send the drone up for some footage of the amazing landscape, but my stomach was not allowing any adventures far from civilization that day. Major bummer. Next time.
Not only is Glen Coe absolutely breathtaking, it’s the home of Fingal the great Celtic leader who defeated the Vikings and his poet son Ossian who took inspiration from its beauty. You know that opening scene from Outlander where they’re riding horses through a vast landscape – yep, Glen Coe. It was later home of the MacDougall Clan until they sided against Robert the Bruce – it was then awarded to the MacDonalds upon Bruce’s victory as King of Scotland. The MacDonalds met conflict from the ever reaching Campbell Clan in disputes over land and stolen cattle. This came to a head in a misunderstanding over a delayed pledge of allegiance to the new English King William III over the Scotland’s deposed King James II (King James VII of Scotland) by the MacDonald Clan Chief in 1692. This delayed pledge was rejected by officers in Edinburgh and lead to Campbell soldiers massacring 38 the MacDonald Clan in their sleep after the soldiers had peacefully quartered with them for 10 days. To break to rules of hospitality and commit “murder under trust” is a most grievous act. This lead to the glen being known to this day as the “Glen of Weeping” despite its dramatic beauty. Yay history!
We headed into Oban, grabbed the final bottle of Scotch that would fit in Jason’s bag at the Oban Distillery, an SD card for the drone (we were woefully unprepared for the file size that thing creates!), and packed back in the car to head to our destination for the day– Ardanaiseig Hotel. Of which I will tell you about, next time. It’s one of our favorite places in Scotland – seriously.
See you out there!
