The Isle of Skye and Shetland

There are mysteries beyond the minds of mortal man, and to deny their existence is to spend a life in half consciousness.

– Juliet Marillier

So, we’ve spent the last couple of days on the Isle of Skye and I have been a negligent blogger ever since we got there. On my last post, I didn’t talk very much about our travel, so I’m going to go over Tuesday a little bit more. Don’t worry; I don’t have much to say. I just want to describe our travel to the island and then the island itself in an attempt to give you a feel of the landscape, since there is no single norm for Scotland’s landscape. This post shouldn’t be that long even though it covers a couple days because they have been the most laid back days we have had yet.

The train ride to the islands was mundane but outside of the cabin the mundane world fell away and mystique and wonder grasped the earth. Looking out the window revealed lochs, forests, and mountains covered in mist so that you almost begin to believe you have fallen into a mystical world where you are just as likely to see fairies flitting from tree to tree or a dragon winging its way across the sky towards some unknown destination as an seagull or a herd of sheep. I was trapped inside a modern convenience while I passed by a world from my dreams, one that I imagined whenever I picked up a book or daydreamed. I found myself wishing we could stop the train, get out, and join it, however imaginary it may have been. This land is truly the place where mystical imaginings can seem to come true before your eyes.

A little note about trains that I’ve been forgetting to mention. I know what the clickety-clackety of the train wheels is supposed to sound like, but the trains that we have been riding sound nothing like that. Instead, when the windows are open what you hear sounds more like the slow gallop of a horse. I listen and imagine a horse galloping in slow motion towards me.

Once we got to the train station, the fog that had followed us for most of the train ride had dissipated, revealing the real world yet again. We were on the ocean once more. We took a taxi over the bridge and along a windy road that seemed to have been designed to incite carsickness for 20-30 minutes until we reached the college. We ate dinner in the dining hall, which had a wall of windows that overlooked the ocean and the mountains just beyond. These mountains were the tallest I had seen yet, so that the clouds, rather than just brushing their tops, were forced to go around the peaks. The Isle of Skye has very temperamental weather, so that one minute it is sunny and the next it is cloudy and raining. As a result, the mountains across the expanse of water were sometimes obscured from view by the rain, making them look like the mythical island of Avalon, where King Arthur is said to reside.

Wednesday, we had a tour of the college. All over Scotland, they have been putting up signs in Gaelic along with English in an attempt to reintroduce the language across the country, but while at the college I learned that Gaelic speakers only make up 1% of the population. The Isle of Skye is the only place in Scotland where Gaelic is the main language spoken and English is more of a secondary language. I had someone come up to me and speak to me in Gaelic before they realized I was one of the American students visiting.

The college was very isolated and a little spread out. They have around 800 students, but only between 100 and 200 of those students are actually on campus. They also only have a few majors that you can take and it seemed to me that the ones they stressed the most were Gaelic, music, and new media studies (the offices on campus work as PR for spreading Gaelic).

That night, we went to listen to some live music by some of the students. There was a wide assortment of instruments and some singing as well. Everything they said was in Gaelic, so I didn’t understand anything, but that just seemed to enhance the performance.

Thursday was a free day. We got to do whatever we wanted. I went on a picture hunting expedition and took a walk up the road for a little bit. Skye is absolutely beautiful. All there is, once you get away from everything (which isn’t hard, since where we stayed it was rather bare of civilization) is grazing land and mountains. Everywhere I looked, I saw the perfect picture and the sky was helpful as well. It was full of puffy clouds that moved so quickly I could take a picture of the same thing but have a different sky. I literally watched the shadows and the light from the sun play across the landscape.

Now, for Friday the 13th. The day when the horrors of the world come out to play! MWAHAHAHA! What a PERFECT day to travel all across Scotland! This is how it went. We caught a 12:00 train, then we got on a bus, then we got on a plane, then we got on another bus, and after a few ferry crossings it was 10:30 at night and we had reached our destination: Saxa Vord resort on the island of Unst in Shetland. (By the way, Shetland if famous for its Shetland ponies, and they are everywhere here, along with the sheep, which are often not kept in a pasture but are allowed to roam as they please).

Saxa Vord Resort is basically a hostel. It is in a building that used to be a Royal Airforce Base. It’s a nice place, with public kitchens, bathrooms, and showers. Once again, you have to pay for a towel, but they gave us 180 minutes of free wifi. It’s rather slow, but it works well enough.

Today, we went on a hike to the Hermaness National Nature Reserve. We had 4 hours to wander as we liked, but we had to stay on the paths since there were some endangered birds that nested there. The thing about Shetland is that there are no trees anywhere, so the birds have to nest on the ground. What they don’t tell you is that there are a lot of parts where you can’t find any discernable path and you just have to wander for a while along sheep paths until you find a marker. Yeah, they kept sheep in the Nature Reserve. I found that rather interesting.

On the reserve, there are some bird called Skoors. They dive bombed our teacher last time he visited, so I wanted to see them for myself. Skoors are good sized birds that are a brown that camouflages easily with the landscape. I watched one land on the ground, throw up its wings, and attack some sheep, which then ran away. While I was walking some of them circled me and they came rather close, but they didn’t attack. I don’t think they had any eggs or chicks yet, since the seasons this far north are a little different. Apparently, there were also some puffins near the ocean, but I didn’t see them. I did see birds that were similar to seagulls but had yellow heads. They were really prominent along the coast and there were some rocks that jutted out of the water that had turned white from the birds that were on it and the poop they left behind.

In the evening, we had a group dinner. I ordered chicken and it came wrapped in bacon with some type of stuffing and covered in gravy. It was delicious and the stuffing added an interesting flavor to it. After I was finished I found out that the stuffing was haggis. It really wasn’t too bad, but then again I wasn’t eating it stuffed in a sheep stomach.

There is a party that is being hosted for us here with live music and a bunch of people from the community, but I left early. I think I’m coming down with something, so I’m going to rest. And by rest, I mean read the article I have to lead group discussion on tomorrow and then sleep.

Now, a few side notes. There are some things that I’ve been meaning to mention for several blog posts but I always forget. One of these is that Scotland doesn’t have flies or mosquitoes. In fact, they don’t have any pesky bugs except for a horsefly type but that I have yet to see. Since there isn’t a bug problem, they don’t have to put screens on their windows. Everywhere we have gone so far it has been like this.

Another thing. As we all know (or you at least should know), the wolves in the US were hunted close to extinction and are only now making a comeback. Here in Scotland, they weren’t nearly as merciful. There are no longer any wolves here so Scotland’s main predator has been eliminated. I had no idea that wolves had been completely eradicated here.

Lastly, everything here is either a bright green or a dull brown, depending on where you are. It is brown in the open plains, where scrub grasses (at least, that’s what I’m assuming they are) and other hardy plants grow and a bright green near rivers and in the forested areas. There is what I’m assuming is a type of moss that grows alongside the grass that, when it’s stepped on, feels rather spongy.

Since the landscape is so varied and so beautiful, I’ve been feeling a growing urge to go horseback riding across it. Maybe one day I’ll come back and set out across the countryside on a horse, but that is an experience I cannot have this time.