Wild and Sexy Scotland - Day 2

Day 2 got off to an early start in which the tour headed even deeper into the Scottish Highlands toward the island of Skye. Much of the day was spent in the bus driving, but we made several "wee stops" along the way to look around and give out legs a stretch.




One of our first stops was at Eilean Donan Castle, the most photographed castle in London and where Highlander and the original James Bond movie was filmed. Interestingly enough, the family that owns Eilean Donan Castle turned DOWN the filming of the Sean Connery/Catherine Zeta Jones movie, "Entrapment" - which they're QUITE proud of - HA!



However, my favorite part for the day was stopping to climb this mountain (I'm serious - it was a TRUE mountain climbing experience!) in order to get a spectacular view of the Isle of Skye. It was AMAZING! The climb up was quite comical though b/c a TON of the backpackers on the tour were smokers and they were wheezing and cursing all the way up the mountain. My "classy" Canadian friends went so far as to light up some Marlboro reds on the way up for "extra strength." As if! Also, some of the girls were a bit unprepared and chose to wear flip flops (uhhhh hello!!???) for the day and had a bit of a hard time making it up the mountain between the steep incline and the fair amount of mud on the ground following the rain. Made me glad I had my trusty tennis shoes on and that I don't smoke!

The view from the top was absolutely amazing though and the best view EVER! You could literally see for miles and it was incredible! We were all pretty sweaty and gross by the time we made it to the top, but of course didn't care once we saw what we'd climbed up there to see! After spending a bit of time at the top, it was time to climb down, get back on the bus, and head off to yet ANOTHER site!

We went further up the Isle of Skye and drove to the top of this big cliff/overhang. First of all I wasn't sure the bus was going to make it up the steep incline and several of us bucked ourselves in tight and said a quick prayer that we weren't going to be some horrible headline in the next day's paper, but all ended up OK - no flying over the side of the mountain in a big yellow Haggis bus - HA! :-)

The waterfall up there was fantastic (BTW, Scotland is FULL of random waterfalls all over the place!) and although it was quite windy - still VERY nice!

I had a classic "Vicki moment" on the walk up this one hill we climbed though. As usual, I fell "UP" instead of "DOWN" and ended up with a left pant leg COVERED in mud! I was walking and all was fine, but then Ryan made some comment about sheep poop and I busted out laughing and turned around to look at him, completely losing my footing and falling UP the hill - HA! It was a mess, but I was very lucky to NOT land in any of the sheep poop considering it was everywhere on the mountain...

After that, we headed to our hostel that overlooked the Isle of Skye and I called it an early night after dinner and drinks. Had to gear up for the last day of the tour!!!