Edinburgh: Part 5 - Day 4 Second Half: Kilt Rock, Brother's Point, Old Man of Storr

Day 4 second half

Here is a summary of what is spent on Day 4 Second half of the day. . 

26/9 Day 4 second half: Trotternish Loop - Kilt Rock and Mealt Falls, Rubha nam Brathairean (Brother's Point), Old Man of Storr

Costs

(A) Food

(1) Dinner at Tomita Sushi restaurant - Teriyaki roast duck £10.50, Chicken karaage £7.50, Beef teriyaki with steamed rice £19.50, Chicken katsu curry with steamed rice £18.50, Cola £2.95, Kirin beer £5.50, and service charge 10% of £6.45. Total £70.90

(2) Birthday muffins from Co-op - £3

(B) Parking fee

(1) Kilt Rock and Mealt Falls - £2 for 4 hours

(2) Old Man of Storr - £5 for 6 hours

The Story

26092023: Next stop - Kilt Rock and Mealt Falls. It is a 15 minutes drive here from Quiraing. There was a large parking space and my boyfriend decided to pay the parking fees although I thought that was unnecessary. The parking place was located right next to the view point. This is a waterfall that plunges 55m over Kilt Rock into the ocean. Kilt Rock is named so because the cliff face looks like the pleats of a kilt. There was a crowd here taking photos and videos of the waterfall. We were here for 15 minutes although we paid for 4 hours parking. 

Next - Rubha nam Brathairean (Brother's Point). 10 minutes drive. There is no paid parking space but a small lay-off by the main road where one can park. It is free and can fit about 6 vehicles. It was easy to miss the lay-off as I did not really understand that it was a small parking spot. We spent about 30 minutes here where we walked until we reached the beach. 

According to the notice board, in 2016, a group of paleontology students found about 50 dinosaur footprints dating back 170 million years. Some of the footprints were as big as car tyres. At the time, Isle of Skye was a warm tropical place (I find the word 'warm' hard to believe now... maybe when it is summer?) and dinosaurs made the prints as they walked across the shallow lagoon. 

For a short moment, the rain stopped and the sun appeared. 

Next - the gem of Isle of Skye - Old Man of Storr. No visit to the island is complete without it and I cannot agree more to that when I arrived and hiked the place. I was amazed by the rock structures. It took us about 30 minutes to drive here. There was ample of parking in this place. We paid the least parking fees of £5 for 6 hours. I cannot believe we paid SEK69 for parking fees! For a maximum of 12 hours, the parking fee is £7. We spent slightly more than 2 hours here. One hour to hike to the top and one hour to hike back. 2 hours includes many stops to take photos. Of course, one can hike more than 2 hours here as there were many trails. 

Behind me is the Trotternish landslip, a massive landslide that runs almost the full length of the peninsula, some 30 kilometres. The landslip contains two of Skye's most famous landmarks: the Old Man of Storr, an isolated rocky pinnacle, and the Quiraing, an area of dramatic and unusual rock formations. Source from Wikipedia.

In this photo, you can see a small island in a lake on a bigger lake in an island (Isle of Skye). 

Me with the star of Old Man of Storr - The Old Man himself. The Old Man is a piece of hard basalt rock that broke away from the cliff face. The cliff forms part of the Trotternish Ridge.  

It was a gradual uphill climb. 

I was surprised at how dramatic the photo that is taken from my boyfriend's phone without any editing. We were lucky that the rain has stopped and we could see the blue skies. What a beautiful landscape!

When we reached the carpark, it started to rain again. We were lucky that we have finished the hike. 

Time for dinner! As we have not booked any restaurants and my boyfriend was adamant that we eat in a nice place because it is my birthday, we ate in a Japanese restaurant that thankfully did not require bookings. I was already satisfied with all my hikings that I did not mind where we were having dinner. Unfortunately, the place did not accept cards and luckily, we had cash with us. We paid with Euro as we did not have enough pounds. When we went there again the next day, the owner had acquired a card reader but we had withdrew cash already. The food was yummy, by the way.