Eilean Donan Castle

Thursday 17^th May 2012

Rain all last night and the best way to describe today is a “full wet weather gear day”. The Temperature started off at 5° dropped down to 4° about 11:00AM before going back up to a very brisk 5° for the rest of the day.

Left the Ardvasar Hotel about 9:30AM and drove to Kyleakin to try and take photos of Skye Bridge which was very difficult given the persistent heavy rain. Next stop was Dornie to see Eilean Donan Castle. The Castle has been used in a number of movies including ‘Highlander’ starring Sean Connery & ‘Master of Ballantrae’ starring Errol Flynn. We walked through the Castle and took some external photos, which the persistent rain made difficult. The island of Eilean Donan has been a fortified site for at least 800 years. The Castle was ruined in 1719, and remained abandoned until 1912 when Lt Colonel John MacRae-Gilstrap rebuilt the present castle, which was completed in 1932 using much of the remaining original foundations and structure.

On the road to Invermoriston

After a quick lunch at the Castle Café we continued on our journey to Inverness, stopping at the Loch Ness Exhibition Centre. This was very interesting – presenting an audiovisual display on the history of how the Loch was formed and all the attempts to verify if the Loch Ness Monster really exists.

On the road between Eilean Donan Castle & Invermoriston the mountains were covered with snow and the snow line was almost down the road in some places.

As it was still raining we decided not to stop at Urquhart Castle, we will go there later in the week when hopefully the weather will be better.

Arrived in Inverness at about 4:00PM and checked into The Beaufort Hotel which will be our base for the next 3 nights.