Hill of the Red Fox and Lealt Tups 29th Jan

The alarm went off and I was awake but Vince told me to roll over and sleep. So I gathered he need a bit more sleep - but it turns out he thought I needed the sleep so left me to it.

After about half an hour or so, I said to him I was going to the get up and go to the Hill of the Red Fox - so he decided to join me. It was a mad rush to get ready and we worked at double speed but we had left it too late and sunrise came over a small Loch on the way - Lochan nan Dunan, so we stopped to take some photos there instead.

Then we headed off to the Hill of the Red Fox. The snow and ice from that last few days had melted away with only the odd small bit of white snow here and there amongst the plants to show the remnants of what once was. The track in is pretty rough and ready and a few times I wasn’t sure if our little car would make it through the deep puddles laying in the potholes and areas of subsidence.

As we approached the small waterfall I had previously taken photos of in the last snowfall, it looked so different today without it’s white blanket decorations. I got very excited when I saw a red fox take off and run across the moor and up into the foot of the mountain - I guess that’s why they call it the Hill of the Red Fox - Doh!

We made our way to the inner lochs and the car scared away a flock of sheep as we approached. We crossed the rickety, slippery makeshift bridge over the coursing rivier, turgid with the extra water from the snow melt, and made our way around to photograph the Hill of the Red Fox itself.

We didn’t get to stay very long, as the gusts of wind coming in were so strong they knocked us backwards on our feet, and played havoc with the tripods. The constant rain was also a problem trying to keep our lens clean and I had to use my blue cloth constantly between shots. As our hands got colder and colder and the wind got stronger and stronger, Vince called it quits and we headed back to the car, over the rickety, slippery bridge again.

On the winding tack back though Lealt, we saw some magnificent Tups in a field, we stopped the car and they came so close. I was so excited that I forgot I had my landscape settings in and as a result my shutter was way to slow - so all my images weren’t sharp - SO FRUSTRATING TO MAKE SUCH A BASIC MISTAKE!.

I was concentrating so much on the animals and wiping my lens constantly in between (and my blue cloth kept getting caught on the barbed wire fence) due to the heavy rain, that I failed to notice the shutter problem! Vince however, got some amazing shots using my 85mm prime.

Then it was off to Portree, where I packed away and tidied my backpack of camera gear and realised I’d lost my blue cloth - must be back at Lealt we thought - but as it turned out Vince found it in HIS pocket - he had inadvertently borrowed it and not realised!

We had breakfast at the Granary - where else is there on Skye in the Winter? Then we popped into Skye Batiks, I was looking for a wall hanging like the one we have at Willie McLeod’s to take home with us. Dawn in the shop was very helpful, I showed her an iPhone photo of it and she told us it was the “Lindesfarne” design and we ascertained that it is the “teal” colour palette. However, she didn’t have any in stock but took our details and will email us when the next order arrives if there is one in it. She also told us they can ship it back to Australia for free and we will save 20% VAT - just claim it back at the airport.

Whilst we were there I saw a book for sale called “The Ripple Effect” by Gavin Major, with an adventure bike on the cover. I showed Vince, and as I did the man in the shop told us he was the Author. Vince and he talked about our 2015 Round The World on a BMW R1200 GSA trip and he said he’d love to know more about it, so I gave him our blog details of www.2upadventures.com He said that the novel is based on the same route we took but he had never actually met anyone who had actually done the trip - so he was pretty stocked! Vince bought a copy for 10 GBP and Gavin signed it.

We headed back to Willie McLeods via the Uig Road and I had hoped to see the Tups we saw yesterday, there was one with very unusual markings that came up yesterday right at the end but had to quickly hop back into the car as Vince couldn’t park and had double backed for me. I was hoping to get a photo of him today - but they were right down the bottom of the croft so we didn’t stop.

I asked Vince to stop at the roadside and let me out - and do his double back thing for me - so I could get a few shots of Duntulm Castle and the little island of it, “Tulm”.

Back at Willie McLeod’s Vince took some food scraps up to Alan, the crofter for his dogs (we keep out bits and pieces for his chickens and the dogs) and invited him in for tea and scones. So I was on notice - never having made scones here - they turned out edible but looked more like eccles cakes that scones - still it didn’t stop the boys from making short work of them and Alan left with the remaining 3 for his morning tea tomorrow. I also gave him a meal of Spaghetti Bolganase for his dinner tonight - as we will have too much.

Apart from tea, we also shared a dram of the new bottle of Ledaig we picked up at Rankins with our shopping yesterday. We also got a small bag of animal food pellets from Alan so I can feed the Highland Cows and Tups - we will keep it in the car boot just in case!

Then it was just relaxing watching the local TV - ITV3 channel that has “The Durrels” and doing some catch up on chores.

Tonight we will try to get a better night’s sleep as I need to get up by 6.00am to get our the door by 7.00am and then to Portree Medical Centre before 8.00am to try to get a Dr’s appointment as my sinus problem is no better.

NB - we got an Arora Alert around 8.00pm and that was that - action stations. We got changed, grabbed our gear and out the door headed for the military look-out. The wind was howling and it was freezing cold. There was no Arora visible to the naked eye that we could see and we weren’t sure if we’d missed it. I could see a bit of pink/purple in the sky but wasn’t sure if it was just light pollution or an faint Arora - we will check it out with some local photographers we know and get their opinion.