Outnumbered & Abroad; Eilean Donan Castle & Lord of the Rings (Part 23)

Eilean Donan Castle (Tuesday, October 2nd, 2018 - Day #8) - A beautiful artistry of stonework, out in a small bay with a beautiful walking up to it. The waves lapping along the shoreline were stunning, picturesque, and perfect.

Touring the castle, I was shocked at how beautiful the stone could be! When I think palace, Buckingham was everything and more that I picture a palace to be. I have always pictured castles as colder, damp and straight up creepy. While Eilean Donan Castle was cold in parts, other than the main room with the fireplace, and slightly damp from the breeze picking up the salty sea water, the castle didn’t even seem that creepy EVEN with the fact that someone had felt a little poltergeist-ish and had hid a variety of masks in the different small cupboards and doors.

I couldn’t help but think, as we explored our way around, with all the other tourists, what it must have been like to live there. For some reason, especially walking through the quite impressive kitchen, I had this flashback of sorts of a young and wild Katie running around. I’m not sure why, but it felt so vivid - the elderly female chef cleaning a chicken/grouse and half heartedly pretending to be aggravated with hyper child-me. It’s not a flashback to another life, I am sure, because there is no way children were in that castle - it was of military needs. I think it is a flashback to my overactive imagination as a child.

One of the other things that I found amazing was how well they had kept track of their family lineage. They knew (or at least could have food me) exactly where everyone had gone, with special attention to detail on those who had served in different wars. It’s so crazy that, with how much older their country is, how many more wars they have been a part of.

Us Americans also had to laugh because they had a family dress on display that they will still dress up in on occasion that was older than our country! The family privately owns the castle and still actively uses it for events. They were using it later this month for the great-grandmothers birthday celebration! All I could think of was the delicious food coming up the dumb weighted - how fun?!

In the gift shop and cafeteria back on the mainland fo the castelgrounds, I found the same book as Randi had purchased at the last stop with the Bonnie Prince Charlie - full of local fairy tales. This time, however, the price was 3.99 pounds instead of the 12.99 pounds of the other place - so fo course I got it! I’m truly falling in love with everything Scottish here!

I am so thankful for the Johnson’s on this trip! If it weren’t for (mainly Randi) them, I’m not sure I would get ANY of these clue cards right and, especially, this next one. It was completely pertaining to the Lord of the Rings, which I have never read nor watched the movies. It had something to do with the filming locations, I don’t know! What I do know is how severely the Johnson’s judged me … but hey! I’m just happy to be here!

Warren Clayton & Randi both had the audacity to attack me on my lack of Lord of the Rings awareness. “Why would read Harry Potter <scathing voice> instead?” It led to an interesting discussion that I was pretty indifferent too but I did have the poor taste to make an offhand comment that Harry Potter was now a part of school curriculum’s in Oregon.

“Well, I read Lord of the Rings in school,” Randi shouted defensively. Neither myself, nor Nicole, had the interest to keep the conversation going. Sometimes, for the sanity of the car, you just have to let some stuff go.

Looking at the list of filming sites the fair pools seemed pretty cool but other than that, it looked cold. Cold withouts no seems so pointless to me at times. Looking at the list, I saw Eilean Donan Castle on it and noted that that must have been why Nicole pull over.

We went to this giant glacial cliff first, if you don’t count the castle, and I couldn’t get over how HIGH UP it was. When we had gotten out of the car, these college aged boys seems to laugh at us. They were definitely dressed for some crazy hiking. We were definitely not. I was a little worried about my skinny jeans, dress cowboy boots and light weight jacket.

Nicole absolutely crapped out on the “hike.” She was over it just at the sight of the giant cliffs of “The Old Man of Storr.” Warren Clayton was bound and determined to go to the top and Randi was hellbent to go with them. I had to sit back and watch them go, knowing that I had to stay back so that Nicole wasn’t left alone. My tennis shoes hadn’t dried all the way from Ghyll Scrambling so all I had were my boots. I didn’t have my inhaler with me and could already feel the extreme elevation change. Without health insurance and no one speaking the regions gaelic, I figured it would be better fo rme to stay behind with Nicole - or at least this list the plethora of excuses I told myself so that I didn't feel too sorry for myself for not getting to see the views from the top. I haven’t even watched the movies after all, so why should I get to go?

Did Warren Clayton run down this hill? Yes. Yes, he did. 

Nicole wanted to just sit back and wait or the Johnson’s to come back but I was thankful to convince her to just keep climbing at a leisurely pace so we could see what was happening at the tip and see the steep drop to the ocean and valley floor below. When we got to the bottom, nearing the end of the day, I saw a sign that said there was a 1000 pound prize for the best picture taken from the top. The boy back home gave me a hard time that night saying I should have left Nicole and done it to get the photo - per chance I won and it could pay off my trip.

We stopped on our way back to the hostel at the bay for dinner. Nicole ordered a tomato soup, but the acidity got her, reminding her of vomiting the whole way over the ocean to get here. The other three of us finished it off, which was so dumb in hindsight because I’m pretty sure that everyone is sick of at this point. I ordered a steak pot pie, remembering how delicious they were in Bath at The Raven. I am honestly not sure WHAT we got, but it was definitely no pot pie. I decided to get dessert for the first time and I’ll tell you what - that saved my stomach from grumbling. It was this big delicious homemade whit chocolate, raspberry cheesecake. I devoured that WHOLE thing by myself.

It took us quite a while to find our hostel for the night. The GPS took us to a little hole in the wall which turned out to not be the hostel and was actually a hospital. The Johnson’s were taking a while and, feeling a little spoked, Nicole and I went to the reception. The hostel was the next road down and things continued to get creepier and creepier. The road was extremely narrow, hedgerows on both sides blocking the view and, worst of all, was the awful misty fog that was pouring in from the ocean over the hedges on our right. The road pulled up to a few homes, all but one that were under construction. The one house that wasn’t was the street address we were looking for.

“Umm… hopefully this is it?” Nicole said uncertainly.

“I’m not opposed to sleeping in the car…” I offered, hoping someone would agree to do the same. I am completely ruined from Edgar Allen Poe’s The Mis and my spider senses were going off.

“How about not?” Warren Clayton said flatly.

“We could go door knocking,” Randi said.

“NO!” Nicole and I both exclaimed at once.

“Ugh,” Randi said with an eye roll, “not for a place to stay, but to find where we are going.”

Either way, I felt like that was a HORRIBLE idea. Not only was the neighborhood absolutely ghetto but the area predominantly spoke gaelic. It was also 9:30 pm at night.

Thankfully, I think, I saw the hostel sign outside the on house. Heading in, it was pretty sketchy.l Warren Clayton wanted a showed and Randi wanted to dry the rest of their clothes that hadn’t dried out completely from their clothesline. The hallway was hella creepy walking to our bunkbed room. As Nicole went open the door, the door next to ours opened and I felt all the breath leave my lungs.

A little old lady with curly gray hair, a night dress and spectacles stood there peering at us. She set a bag of trash into the hallway before shutting the door. Now anyone who has followed along with any of my previous stories may recognize this. She looked just like my recollection of the little old lady (who didn’t exist) from the Claremont hotel when I was playing college basketball. You can bet your bottom dollar that I was too scared to sleep - a damn ghost had followed me to another country years later in the ultimate haunting long game!

I was so scared that my very hidden rational part had to have a very intense argument with my scared senseless self to make me take my contacts out and not sleep in them. I didn’t even go down to the restroom, I took them out in our room, calculating that death by ghost over brushed teeth wasn’t something I was willing to chance. We have been absolutely spoiled when it comes to hostels but, as i had to remind myself, this was what I had imagined them all to be so I needed to suck it up.

Laying in my bunk, praying to God he would see us all through the night, while simultaneously waiting for the Johnson’s to get back so I could sleep, I found myself missing music. I have definitely noticed the absence of music on this trip, but right now, with fear so prevalent, I wanted nothing more than some music to make me feel better. Al the music here is outdated and nothing is currently. They play the same three more modern songs repeat with about 5-6 random throwbacks tossed in.