Home -> Europe -> Scotland -> Travelogue 2003 -> Friday 14 March

To the west coast, Glenelg

The weather seems to be improving every day! Today we want to visit the west coast. Through Glen Shiel we drive to Glenelg where a ferry goes to Skye, normally. But it starts only in April, so we cannot cross to Kylerhea and we decide to explore this peninsula more extensive.

Naturally, there are plenty of splendid views and we drive around for hours, with only now and then a break for a walk. In the distance we see Skye and the hazy sky over it, like we had seen often last year when we stayed a few days on Skye. The word Skye is derived from a Celtic word for cloud or mist.

Near Glenelg there are some remains of old settlements like this fort (broch) from the Iron Age. The remainders of towers (with an original height of about 10 meters) lie a bit apart. The towers (Dun Telve on the picture and Dun Troddan farther on) were build 2000 years ago, probably to protect the surrounding settlements against robbers. More pictures on the antiquities-page.

We can take off our coats when we go for a walk in the afternoon, the temperature is very pleasant. We won't need our coats anymore throughout the rest of our holiday.

When we leave the Glenelg peninsula we take a late lunch in a pub in Dornie. The same where we have been last year and the year before. We feel quite at home visiting places like this where we have been before.

We pass a few times Eilean Donan castle, but we have visited it already twice, so this time we just enjoy the view and continue our way to Plockton, just to have a look at the Scottish palmtrees. Next, we take all different roads where we haven't been before: slowly more and more roads can be marked on our map.

The sun still shines on our castle when we return from this long trip. It is the last night we spend in the Gate Lodge and after tomorrow it will not be 'our' castle anymore.

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with Elisabeth and Teije