Over the Bridge to Skye: September 2020 food & trip report (complete)

[rebeccarobbins]

I'm really enjoying reading this! Stunning scenery, and the food looks delicious!

[Wordsworth]

Originally Posted by rebeccarobbins

I'm really enjoying reading this! Stunning scenery, and the food looks delicious!

See more...

Thanks for reading.

[Wordsworth]

We didn’t have to go far for dinner tonight; we were booked into the hotel restaurant, for our third and final tasting menu of the holiday.

There may be limited words in this entry, because rather a lot of alcohol was consumed and things got a bit fuzzy towards what was the end of an excellent night. DH was making the most of not having to drive tonight too.

We started with a gin and tonic, with the lodge’s own gin, distilled for them by Isle of Skye spirits. We were asked if we could guess their choice of botanical and I correctly identified blueberry - admittedly the garnish in the glass may have given me a clue, but the flavour did come through. A bottle of said gin may have later made it into our luggage...

We also chose to do the drinks pairing with dinner, basically because I really struggle to resist a drinks pairing. I doubt it’s great value but I enjoy being able to try new wines.

If you don’t have haggis, have you even really been to Scotland? I imagine it’s in canapé form to make it more palatable to the tourists

I love a bread board almost as much as I love a wine pairing.

I think the tortellini might have been my favourite of all the dishes.

The beef was delicious too.

I never used to enjoy cheese that much but it’s definitely something I’ve learned to appreciate as I’ve aged!

Chocolate and mint is one of my favourite combinations.

Having eaten our way through all of the above delicious dishes, we were then offered tea, coffee, or an after dinner drink. Given the amount of wine consumed, DH went for tea. I, on the other hand...

...decided there’s always time for a negroni. A perfect accompaniment for some final sweet treats.

This made it three tasting menus, three hits! Our research into food offerings on Skye had definitely paid off.

At the end of the evening, the chef came around the remaining tables for a quick chat. When I told him we were originally meant to be at Disneyworld, but our dinner at Edinbane had been better than being there, he was delighted with that feedback and took it as the intended compliment. He was also a big fan of WDW, as all the best people are.

We ended up being one of the last two tables in the restaurant by the end of the night. I procured my bottle of gin then, having decided we’d at last eaten - and drink - enough, we made the short trip upstairs to our room.

Time to bring on the a la carte menus for the rest of the holiday...

[Dr.JumbaJookiba]

Absolutely beautiful scenery and the tasting menu at Edinbane looks sublime

[Wordsworth]

Originally Posted by Dr.JumbaJookiba

Absolutely beautiful scenery and the tasting menu at Edinbane looks sublime

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It was a lovely place to base ourselves for a couple of days, I’d be happy to return which I guess is always the acid test!

[Wordsworth]

This morning’s breakfast was our final meal at Edinbane Lodge and I scandalised my husband by asking for eggs alongside the sausage (with Edinbane ketchup) dish on the menu.

It was all delicious again.

We then packed up the last few things and checked out of the lodge, as tonight we were staying somewhere else on Skye. I definitely recommend Edinbane Lodge, we really enjoyed our stay.

Our first stop of the day was the Fairy Pools, recommended for the apparent colour of their water in certain lights. DH stopped for a brief scenery photo on the drive:

We dealt with what was by now standard - slightly hair-raising trip on a single track road with less careful drivers coming the other way, paying for a space in a car park under construction - and set off for the short walk to the pools.

Aware that although midge season was coming towards its end, they were still likely to be around, I had been diligently applying Avon Skin So Soft every morning. DH had been mocking me, as we hadn’t seen a midge so far. He was about to regret that...the start of the path to the Fairy Pools was swarming with them. And soon, so was he. I, meanwhile, can vouch for Skin So Soft’s effectiveness. Thankfully, the midges disappeared the further we moved up the path.

If I’m honest, I was a bit underwhelmed by the fairy pools at first. It was pretty busy and the famous colour wasn’t coming through at all - it was quite overcast.

The crowd thinned out the further we went, however, and even though the water colour wasn’t that spectacular, I really just started to enjoy the walk and the scenery.

We essentially walked a little bit beyond the uppermost pool, then turned around to retrace our steps. I enjoyed the views on the return trip even more.

You can start to see what they mean about the colour of the water as the sun comes out.

So I’d ultimately recommend it as a stop, but don’t go with massive expectations based on some of the online photos!

We’d decided next to check out Coral Beach, reputed to have beautiful white sand. This required driving to Dunvegan castle, then continuing on a few miles on yet another single track road.

Another quick scenery stop on the way:

Unfortunately things didn’t quite work out with Coral Beach. The single track road trip was the worst in terms of other sizeable traffic, and when we finally reached the end we learned that what was described in the guide book as a “car park” was little more than a narrow strip of shingle with massive holes. There were no spaces available and people had therefore abandoned their cars on the verges, making it incredibly difficult to negotiate the single track road, let alone turn around.

DH ended up driving to the far end of the “car park” and reversing carefully and deliberately down into the ditch, so that we had traction on the front wheels to get back out. He negotiated it well, but was irritated by the awful road condition and inconsiderate parking (although he is not responsible for any of the trip advisor complaints ), so we decided to skip the beach and instead drove back to the castle.

Dunvegan Castle itself was closed due to COVID, but you could pay for garden access. We ended up spending over an hour just wandering around, it was nice.

While checking out the view above, we noticed a group of people heading out to a crop of rocks, so followed them through the trees. Once through, we realised they were watching all of the seals on a nearby island.

This guy hung out on his own, while the others gathered on the opposite side!

We watched (and listened to) them for a while, it was great to see. No need for a wildlife watching boat trip!

We eventually headed up to continue exploring the gardens.

Once we’d finally run out of things to photograph(!), we headed back to the car park and popped our masks on to browse the gift shop. I bought a cute Highland Cow magnet and we had a tub of Mackies ice cream each (chocolate for me), before setting off for our final sightseeing stop of the day.

[Wordsworth]

Neist Point is the most westerly point of Skye, and is home to a lighthouse, not that you would necessarily know this at first!

The lighthouse itself isn’t visible from the start of the path.

It was getting later in the day as we arrived, and the weather was taking a turn towards dreich, but there were still quite a lot of cars around, both on the single track road and parked at our destination.

After a fair amount of downhill walking, the lighthouse came into view!

The views around the point were also dramatic.

We did actually walk all the way to the lighthouse, but this is as close as we took photographs for some reason!

To be honest, I probably enjoyed the walk to the lighthouse more than seeing the lighthouse (we couldn’t go inside).

It was also now apparent it was about to rain, so we thought we’d better start the - now sadly uphill! - trek back to the car.

The rain started as we headed back, but it was brief bursts at this point, rather than constant. It did, however, make parts of the path slippy. There are steps to navigate the steepest bit, and i did briefly lose my footing at one point after my sole slid on the damp stone, but there’s a handrail to grab so no harm done! We were soon back to the safety of the car.

We’d actually driven past our accommodation for the evening on our way to the point. The Three Chimneys was probably the first “foodie” destination on Skye, at one point boasting a Michelin Star. Given its long held reputation for excellence, there was no way I wasn’t going to eat there during our visit.

Thankfully, they also now have bedrooms available in the “house over by”, and we’d managed to book one for the night, meaning we only had a short walk to the restaurant to contemplate later.

Check in was easy and we were soon in our room.

This was the first hotel we stayed at that provided disposable masks as well as sanitiser. A one way system had also been implemented for guests.

About an hour before our dinner reservation, we headed to the residents lounge for a pre-dinner drink.

First ones in! So of course I picked the table by the front window.

Like Edinbane Lodge, the Three Chimneys also had an eponymous gin, so of course I had to try it.

I wasn’t able to buy a bottle to take home, unfortunately, as they were out of bottles for retail!

The lounge soon filled up but it was spacious so never felt crowded. At the time of our reservation, we headed outside (brollies at the ready!) to walk next door.

The numbers gave a clue as to the size of the dishes, and you could have as many as you cared to order from each! We decided to go for 1 each from each category, plus a shared cheese.

We also ordered a carafe of white wine to start; to accompany the later courses we subsequently ordered a carafe of red! If only I could remember which ones

I started with the Peking Pork tea dish:

While DH had the cured monkfish:

I followed the pork dish with the lasagne:

But also pinched a bit of DH’s langoustine dish, as I’d struggled to decide between the two:

(To be fair, when we order separate dishes, we do always swap a bite or two, so we can both try everything!)

Grouse is never available on menus for that long, so I do tend to order it if it’s in season:

And DH loves lamb so this course was a no-brainier in terms of choice for him:

We’d finished both carafes of wine by now, but I wasn’t quite ready to call it a night on the drinks front, so ordered a glass of strawberry wine to try:

We next shared some cheese:

Before heading back to separate desserts:

The Edinbane blueberry, yogurt and cookie dish for me, and cheesecake for DH.

It was a different style of dinner, after the three previous nights of tasting menus, and it was nice to have a choice of dishes - but everything was delicious so I don’t think we’d have gone wrong with any pick, to be honest.

After tea and a final sweet treat:

It was time to head to bed!

[Wordsworth]

The rain that had started the night before was still going when we woke up this morning, for our last full day on Skye. Thankfully we had brollies handy for the short walk to the restaurant for breakfast.

We both started with porridge; my husband went for the honey and whisky option, while I went cream and brown sugar.

Then, the glory of a full Scottish breakfast for us both - I prefer scrambled eggs but that was the only difference.

Just missing a potato scone IMO; I’d swap out the tomato for that.

We enjoyed the toast alongside this and I even made room for the croissant. #greedy

Back to the room to pack up and check out, then it was time to make a decision. As the pictures show, it was a fairly dreich day; we decided that given it was raining, we’d take a drive around the island to see the scenery in a different light.

It was actually fascinating to see how different the island looked today; still beautiful but definitely more forbidding without the blue skies! We took a shot to two from one of the places we’d stopped at on a previous day that highlights this.

When we’d basically driven a circuit of the main road to end up to the east of Portree, the rain stopped. We decided to take the opportunity to continue onto Portree for a wander.

We parked in the free long stay car park, which - you guessed it - was under construction. We got one of the last spaces. It was a few steps up from the car park to the town; there was more expensive short stay parking available in the town itself.

We explored the harbour area first - it looked like boat trips were available but we didn’t much fancy it in the weather!

Then we headed back up the hill to check out the view from above.

We had a wander around the town centre but this was where i really felt the impact of COVID; many of the shops were closed for safety reasons, and I felt uncomfortable just browsing in others if I wasn’t actually intending to buy.

I did briefly queue to get into the local gin distillery’s shop, to pick up a couple of bottles.

After we’d explored what Portree had to offer, we decided to head to Dunvegan to do the same there. Double victory there - we found a free, fully constructed car park with public loos!

There were only a couple of shops there, but I enjoyed browsing the local crafts and ended up buying a handmade soap wrapped in alpaca wool.

We started on the woodland walk that began next to the church, but found that the ground was just too sodden underfoot (with a fair amount of flooding) to make it enjoyable, so we turned back.

That decision was definitely because of the puddles and not because I was in any way freaked out by the fairy sacrifices in the trees...

Proper Blair Witch territory if you ask me!

We almost got a cake from the local cafe to try, but I got bored waiting, as the group of 6 people of front of us all insisted on individually hearing the full menu before they could order.

No matter; we figured out that given where we were currently situated on the island, if we headed for our final night’s accommodation now, we’d arrived just after check in time and could settle in. So off we went!

[Dr.JumbaJookiba]

Some more great looking food there, The Peking pork, grouse, lasagne, cheese, langoustines etc all all right up my street, and that full Scottish breakfast looks spot on too. I really should have made a better effort to see all that wonderful scenery on my last visit instead of spending most of my time in the pub

[Wordsworth]

For our final night, we were staying towards the east of the island, at Kinloch Lodge kinloch-lodge/

We were met on the front steps and quickly checked in, then shown to our room. I would describe it as having slightly faded luxury charm, of the type I’d associate with Sunday night telly like Monarch of the Glen, so basically what I’d expected!

I was keen to have a bath as I knew the water at Kinloch Lodge was rich in peat, which is meant to be good for the skin. You could certainly see the effect of the water coming from the hills...

Mmm, brown.

DH, meanwhile, decided to take himself off for a walk.

Shortly before our dinner reservation, we went downstairs for a pre dinner drink in the lounge. We ended up sitting in front of the roaring fire, which was lovely but toasty.

I ordered another local gin to try.

DH had Rock Rose gin.

Shortly thereafter, we were escorted to our table in the dining room. I had a French martini while we looked over the menu.

The blue murder pate was amazing! We also ordered a bottle of white wine to enjoy with dinner.

I started with the sweetcorn risotto, while DH had the mackerel club sandwich.

For main, I had the beef short rib - and the meat just fell off the bone!

While DH had the sea trout:

The oat and raisin biscuit was the highlight of the creme caramel dessert for me, lovely and chewy. DH enjoyed the cheesecake.

The petit fours were a bit of a disappointment though; the meringue too hard on top of the tart, and the chocolate too bitter for me.

We enjoyed our meal, but were pleased we hadn’t paid the stated price (shown on the menu above), as although it was good, solid cooking, it didn’t match up to what we’d had on the previous evenings for only a little more money than that.

Our dinner, bed and breakfast rate was only £40 total more than the B&B rate, though, so that certainly seemed like a good deal.

Tempted though I was (as always) by another drink, we decided instead to call it a night - we only had to go a few steps down the hall and up to bed, so that’s what we did.

There’s only breakfast and our final sightseeing stop on the way home still to come!