Dornie

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Dornie reflected in Loch Long

In September we spent a week in South Uist, one of the Outer Hebrides, flanked by a few days elsewhere on either side. We started in Dornie with three nights in the Eilean Donan Apartments, where we had also stayed in 2019. We were allocated exactly the same apartment! On our evening walk after arrival we discovered that Dornie was just as pretty as we remembered.

Dornie from Eilean Donan Apartments
Kayakers on Loch Long
Eilean Donan Castle
Dornie
Loch Long reflections
Reflections and evening mist
Evening reflections
Dornie reflected in Loch Long

On our first day we did a walk which we hadn’t done last time, from Balmacara to Kyle of Lochalsh, a pleasant, undulating mixture of woodland and moorland with views over Loch Alsh and ahead to Skye.

Looking ahead to Skye
Loch Alsh
John with Skye behind him

In Kyle we got a closer view of the Skye Bridge, spotted some street art of a highland cow and, most importantly, had lunch before retracing our steps back to Balmacara.

The bridge and Skye from Kyle
Heilan’ coo
On the return journey

On our second day we revisited places we had been to in 2019 and which I have already written about, so I shall just briefly mention them here with links to the previous posts should anyone be interested. First, Attadale Gardens where we spotted some real heilan’ coos.

Attadale Gardens

Attadale and Balmacara

Then the circular Lochalsh Woodland Walk.

Loch Alsh from Woodland Walk

Achmore and Lochalsh: two short walks

John finished his day with a cycle during which he got beautiful views above Loch Duich.

Eilean Donan Castle from above
Loch Duich

The following morning, as we left Dornie, there was still a bit of mist hanging over the hills.

Morning mist over Dornie
Morning mist over Dornie

We drove to Kyle for breakfast in the same café where we had eaten lunch two days before (Hector’s Bothy, very good) before crossing the bridge to Skye and heading to Uig for the Uist ferry. By the time we got there, the mist had developed somewhat and there was much frantic checking of the CalMac app to see if our ferry was still on.

A misty Uig
A misty Uig

Fortunately, although some other routes had been cancelled, our ferry turned up on time for the two hour crossing to Lochmaddy in North Uist from where we headed south to our home for the next week. But that’s a tale for another day!

Scotland, UK ,

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  1. Pingback: South Uist: Shieling by the Bay – The Glasgow Gallivanter

  2. Hi Anabel – it looks like you had lovely weather … and what great pics you’ve given us to show off the place. Then John has ‘the audacity’ to get on his bike after your walk/hike around … good for him!! I’m glad the ferry worked out – cheers Hilary

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  3. Anabel, Such beautiful scenery and landscape. I crossed the bridge to Skye recently. I loved the real Heilan coos that I saw when I was in Scotland. The Heilan coo mural is beautiful too.

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  19. I like the circular photos. Very nice. Reminds me of Gage Taylor as I still have some of his circular art paintings in my hall. The Scottish Highlands definitely seem to have much more art work and murals on show than they used to have on my visits decades ago. Then it was mainly pubs, chip shops or evening walks between them for entertainment… and not much else to look at visually in any village or garden. Maybe you are just very good at finding the most creative gardens… or an influx of more artistically minded inhabitants over the last 20 years. Bob. BSS.

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