Gylen Castle and More Bad Advice

October 21, 2016

Long after we’d had our fill of highland cows and sheep, the trail continued on. We had walked so long we were beginning to think we had imagined there was a castle ahead of us, but we felt compelled to keep going even though our feet were getting tired in our clunky boots. Finally, we saw signs for the tea room (which is closed for the winter) and Gylen castle, and it claimed it was still 2.25 miles away. We had already easily walked 5 miles, but we were told that the entire loop should have only been 5 miles. It was confusing, and we didn’t know what to do. We knew that we still had the walk back to Isla and Loui’s and didn’t want to tire ourselves out even more with a 4.5 mile walk to the castle and back. It seemed fortunate that two different gentlemen came along, and we were able to ask each of them which way we should get back to the cottage (at this point forgoing the walk to the castle). 

My Mom thought it seemed logical to continue on the loop with the sea at our right in order to get back to the cottage, but both of them insisted that the only good way to get back would be to turn around and retrace our steps- another 5 miles! Not knowing what to do, we walked down to the ferry dock right near us to see if there was someone else to ask there. There wasn’t, so we eventually gave up and called Loui (good thing we ended up buying a trac phone). We were so relieved when he told us that we definitely did not need to retrace our steps, but could continue on and it would only be a 20-30 minute walk back to the cottage. Thank goodness we didn’t follow more bad advice from the gentlemen.

Since it was only 3:10 and it would be a short walk back to the cottage, we decided to continue on and make the 4.5 mile walk to the castle and back. It ended up being about a 6 mile roundtrip to the castle, because it’s quite a bit past the tea house.

When we finally caught site of the castle, we were so excited and relieved. It looked especially awesome with sheep near it and the sun fairly close to setting.

We walked around the castle and couldn’t seem to find a path up to it, because part of it was surrounded by a wall, and the other part was blocked off by some massive boulders. 

Before giving up and going back, we tried one last time to get up to the castle. We climbed the hill and walked across and made it to the castle steps. It was incredible. Living in a relatively new country, we were in awe of being able to step into a building that was constructed in the 1580’s. Small amounts of restoration have been done on it to make it structurally safe for visitors. The castle was owned by the MacDougalls and was partially burned in 1647 and was never re-occupied after that.