Leon Turnbull Photography

On Good Friday, in the evening, I drove back down from Uig to see some more waterfalls, making my way up the east side of Skye. I found that all of the waterfalls that I saw in Scotland (and Ireland) had very below average flows. This is disappointing. For mid April, they all should have had high flow. A couple were completely dry. A few were just trickling. Most of them (thankfully) had decent flow  (but nonetheless, still below average). Why is this? Unlike California, I believe Scotland is in the midst of a drought. It seems they had another below average winter there this year (and I know 2018 was below average as well). It is unfortunate that I had to go there during a drought when I should be exploring California which has an above average winter (but no worries, I will be doing much more CA exploring this year).

My final destination for the evening was the waterfall I was most looking forward to seeing on this trip: Mealt Falls, 180 ft. high. This is the most dramatic and magnificent waterfall in all of Scotland, dropping off a cliff directly into the ocean. It did not really live up to my high expectations.

Here is the thing about Mealt Falls: There is literally one and only one spot to view and photograph the waterfall. It is also a very popular destination. What does this mean? WAIT YOUR TURN! I waited a long time for all the people coming here to disperse and be done with taking photos. One particular group of people just would not leave, taking far too many selfie photos and being rather annoying and inconsiderate to everyone else. Eventually I got fed up waiting for this group and it was getting late, so I barged in beside them, into the melting pot, snagging the one and only viewing spot and set up my tripod. If you do not have a very tall tripod, you cannot take photos of this waterfall properly. I did not have a tall tripod. You cannot stick your camera through the fence bars. I was at a loss how to photograph this waterfall. The only option I had: make the tripod as small as possible, and stick it on top of the fence, holding it as steady and securely as possible with my one hand, while clicking the shutter with the other hand. The problem is that it was extremely windy, so holding the tripod steady was impossible. I just hoped I got in one decent photo of this waterfall. I did manage to get one decent photo (and only one decent photo – but one is enough).

I was initially going to come back here on Easter Sunday morning for sunrise, but I decided against it for a few reasons: one, it was supposed to rain Sunday morning, so I would not get a good sunrise shot anyway; two, the road up to Mealt Falls is one of those crazy narrow ones, and I did not feel like driving it a second time; and three, I just did not feel like this waterfall was worth coming back to. I was not that impressed because the flow was a bit low and there is only the one small spot to view it. In the rain, it would have been pretty much impossible to photograph it. I decided to go to other places on Easter Sunday. Even so, I had a lovely time on Friday evening at Mealt Falls.