Scotland 2.7: A full day boating with seals and dolphins, the Cuillin mountains, fairy pools, and our first broch

We left at 7:30 am yesterday and did not return home until 10:00 PM.  It was fantastic.  We drove to Elgol, for our boat tour.  I had booked the full day, but they did not have enough people sign up for.  Therefore, we had the trip split in half.  First, a few of the Small Isles, and then a separate trip to the Cuillin Mountains.  By splitting the trip, we missed out on being able to go onto the island of Rum and tour the castle.  We got a partial refund.

As we left the harbor, we got to see the beautiful Cuillin mountains.



We began by going by the island of Soay, which only has three inhabitants.  It was a place that vikings used to leave sheep upon, to return to once there were more sheep.  We then headed toward Canna.

One little boat in the distance, where the sea meets the sky.

We were taken to see the mating grounds of the local birds and a nearby rock formation.



Next, we stopped on Canna, for a quick lunch.  We ended up having to wait for a ferry to load up a garbage bin, which took a surprisingly long time.  We left toward the coast of Rum.  We saw some seals on nearby rocks.  Then, we saw dolphins in the distance, which ended up coming right over to our boat.



Near Rum, we saw a shipwreck, that I believe was from a French ship that went on autopilot just a bit too near the island.



There wasn't much on Rum to see from a distance, so we left for our original departure point.  We had a snack and then left for the Cuillin mountains, where we were dropped off for an hour and fifteen minutes.  We saw seals closer than we had before.



The mountains were absolutely beautiful, and we spent our time in the area, hiking to get as close to them as we could.



On the way back, we were served some very bad hot chocolate, and got to see the seals from the other angle.



We left the dock at around 5:00.  The fairy pools were our next destination, that was actually just on the western side of the mountains that we were dropped off at.  In order to get there, we had to drive an hour and 12 minutes from the dock.  While we had to stop for sheep in the road many a time, we had to stop for our first cow.



The fairy pools are known as being a popular place to visit, so I was shocked that at a little past 6:00, there main car park was overflowing onto the street.  Luckily, most people were headed back, and only a handful of people were actually there by the time we hiked twenty minutes to the first pool.  Miles really, really loved climbing amongst the rocky areas surrounding the pools.



We spent a decent amount of time there and really enjoyed it.  By the end, the midges were completely overwhelming.  For our last stop of the day, we journeyed to the Dun Beag Broch, about twenty five minutes away.  We benefited from the near nonstop sunlight of Scotland, and it was plenty sunny when we arrived around 8:30.

Brochs are ancient housing, built mostly by the wealthy.  This broch was built over 2000 years ago, and I was surprised at how much of it was in tact.  Sheep were all over the broch, its current inhabitants.   



We stopped at a coop for snacks, dropped Stephanie off at the bed and breakfast, to rest, and went to a pub that was two minutes away.  The menu didn't have much on it for us, and I'm not sure that they were serving food anymore, as it was past 10 at this point.  We decided to turn in for the night and just eat some snacks.