Sligachan Sunrise and Droning 4th March

I was awake when Vince’s alarm (YES - that god forsaken alarm I hate) went off at 5.00am for us to get to Sligachan before sunrise. There was a gorgeous sunrise yesterday so he was hoping to get the same today - but it was not to be.

The car was frozen shut so it had to be defrosted before we could be on our way, the roads were slippy with ice, even though the “Gritter” truck had been out, so it was slow progress down to Sligachan to a secret little spot the Harry (from Skye Photo Academy) had shown us on the tour we had (where our cameras never saw the light of day due to torrential rain).

We arrived in blue hour and hiked over the frozen moor, though the bog and heather to eventually arrive at the spot. My leg (the one that was broken) is sore at the moment as all the rain has made the peat bog very bad everywhere, so it’s had a really hard work out the past few days and today didn’t help it much.

Vince got the drone up over the Cuillin and I took some shots with the ponds and little islands in the foreground, but nothing fantastic. It was 1 degree so very cold and it rained continually, so keeping the lens free of water was neigh on impossible.

As the rain started to pelt down harder we made our way back through the boggy marsh to the road and headed into Portree, as I desperately needed the Public Toilet. It was 7.30am and everywhere, bar the Bank St Co op, was closed. We popped in there and got some milk and bread and headed back home to Willie McLeods, along the road you couldn’t even see the Old Man of Storr and the snow started falling.

I cooked us some bacon and egg rolls an we watched as the weather changed entirely, the rain eventually stopped and the sun popped out shining brightly. Vince went out the front to do some droning over Willie McLeod’s whilst I took some shots of some Alan’s puppies - Glen, Corrie, Pirkko, Amelie, and Scamp.

I got a WhatsApp call from my sister in Darwin, she is off to New Zealand on the 10th and is busy getting organised. My daughter also sent through some photos of her youngest, who is turning 3 on Saturday and had a party at daycare - little Piper.

Given the state of the world in Corona Virus chaos, and messages from friends and family in Australia about toilet paper shortages as people panic shop, old hospitals being opened, tent hospitals in car parks planned and those at risk to wear masks - we thought it all sounded a bit serious and we better check out any impact on our travels home. Sure enough we will be travelling with Malaysian Airlines via Kuala Lumpur and they have issued instructions that all travellers must wear masks at all times. No drama I thought I’ll give Boots Chemist in Portree a call - oh dear - they don’t stock it and suggested I go online - which I did - all sold out! Those that have stock have requisitioned them for hospitals and medical staff - WTF! I did manage to order 2 via Ebay - the seller says they are in the UK but the payment went to Hong Kong - What The???? So I contacted my sister Jacky, who works at Darwin Hospital, and she will organise to send us some over.

I caught up with a few social messages from our new friends here on Skye, Penny to organise a catch up with her and Clive, Kay and Nigel who are now back in England, and we also managed to arrange with Dugald Ross (the Dinosaur Guy) for a private viewing of his museum this Saturday - Yeah!

We had hoped to get into Uig and take some photos of the Bay, especially if the Cal Mac ferry is in, but the weather was so cloudy and rainy we didn’t bother as we knew we wouldn’t get any good shots.

So curled up on the lounge in front of the fire was were I spent most of the day.

Dinner was left over spaghetti and meatballs from last night and we had a quite nite at home - no auroras or astro due to the heavy cloud cover.