Skye Day 6 - Bye Bye Skye!

The Voltarol wonder-pills helped my knees a great deal. Still felt a bit stiff this morning, but walking was pretty much okay. Phew.
Gone was the magical weather of the last few days and a typical all-day-grey greeted me when I got up at 7am. There was a more or less contant drizzle and I knew it wouldn't change much.
Packed my gear into the trunk and off I went to meet the others at Sligachan. Driving around the island is as simple as it gets navigation-wise if you know rughly where the few villages are. I already felt very comfortable driving around without even looking at a map. From Sligachan we drove over to Broadford and then a small single track road pointing to Elgol cross country around a small Loch and to a car park where our ascend of Blaven was about to begin.
We donned full rain gear and walked along a river up into the low hanging clouds. So far it had been surprisingly warm, but further up a breeze set in and the rain once more set in. My knees were okay so far but again I dreaded the way back down as we were heading up a scree strewn path again. It wasn't by far as bad as the ones I had seen so far, though.
Reached the top in what felt like 2 hrs altogether. DONE! All 12 munros on Skye! Woohoo! And we kind of were right back at where we started since we reached only the first one and the last one when they were hiding in clouds. All the other ones had presented themselves in perfect sunshine. Should've taken the hipflask and some of my whisky to celebrate.

Victory. Conquered all 12 Skye munros

We didn't linger long as it was quite unpleasant in the wind and rain and went back down again. Knees were still okay-ish, blessed be Voltarol, haha.

Within such a short time as it took us up and down again the river had swollen quite remarkably so the crossing was a bit trickier now. I merely pondered a few seconds at which foot on which stone I was about to set in order to make it safely to the other side, when hundreds and hundreds of midges came out of nowhere buzzing around my head. Woah! No time for thinking, I just hoped over the stones as quickly as I could with the water raging around them now knee deep.
I knew that I would have about the same amount of time back at the carpark and I just dumped my backpack and rainjacket into the trunk but was surrounded by countless of them little buggers. I fled into the car and took quite a lot with me inside. ARG. Tried to kill as many as I could before I rid myself of the rest of my rain gear and changed into some dry comfy clothes.
Said a quick goodbye to our guide and then headed back to the mainland. At 1.30 I arrived at Eilean Donan Castle and this time I stopped to have a look around. It is truly as iconic and beautiful as all the pictures I had seen so far. Wow. What a setting! Took a few photos and then drove over to Fort William which took ages since I was stuck behind one slow driver after another. ARG.

Eilean Donan Castle

Eventually made it, had some food at Weatherspoon again, wandered along the high street with now open shops, but didn't buy anything and then jumped back into the car again to drive to Glencoe Independent Hostel. Found it easily took only the most necessary things out of the car and will just chill tonight.

Tomorrow awaits a hopefully halfway dry cycle around Loch Leven before I head over to Crieff to meet some friends who stay there and then finally to Morenish House on Loch Tay for my second week of munro bagging. Can't wait to stay in a room with a wardrobe and sort all my stuff properly, haha. I may even find the knee bandage I've been looking for so deperately for the last few days.