DAY 15

Monday June 6^th 2016                                                              

Lochinver to Kyle of Lochalsh                                                          Miles 214

Today has been a long day of some fairly tough (though incredibly beautiful) driving.  I have traveled on roads that really should have quotation marks around the word “road”.  Weather has been perfect once again.  It was 18 degrees at 7.00am and reached 27 degrees by lunchtime. The scenery though has continued to be jaw dropping and at the same time varied, from moorland and mountain to sea and islands. I even found an animal dumber than a sheep!

Though I had a nice room and a nice view and a terrific breakfast, I did not get a good night’s sleep as the B&B was too hot. Actually at breakfast time I found that the radiators were on and the owner, Cathel, had not realised this.  Still on winter setting!  In times past Scottish houses only focused on how to heat them.  Global warming is happening in Loch Inver!

On paying my bill I was asked for a price higher than quoted to me over the phone when I booked it. I spoke up and Cathel immediately gave me the quoted price.  He said that he has begun asking more when only one guest is in a room – but I was in a single anyway.  Interestingly the previous day the same thing happened when I went to pay, but there the lady of the house insisted that she had quoted me the price she was chargins.  Perhaps her Scottish accent had fooled me, or is it just the canny Sccots!   She had very kindly allowed me to put dirty laundry in her washing machine and then she dried it and put it into my room.  She said she would have to charge for this, so no doubt that was that was “the extra” in the bill.

Tonight I have arrived at my AirBnB booked house to find that the husband who will be looking after things has been “delayed” and I have to hang around for 3 hours.  If this had not been past the AirBnB deadline for cancelling and there were other options, I would have driven on.  But, 214 miles on narrow roads is enough for me today!

The coastal road out of Lochinver to Ullapool is a single track with passing places, but I was able to make good time when I left this morning.  I soon passed into the County of Ross and again there was good signage for the coastal route.  Initially the road was in a treed valley, but then it became moorland and high hills, though still with views of the ocean and the islands.  My first photo shot was of the island of Eileen Mor out in Enard Bay.  

I continued on around the coast coming eventually to the final point at Reil.  Here there is the most beautiful view across to the Summer Islands. and being full summer, they did not disappoint. 

The summer islands

I had to backtrack to get back on the road to Ullapool.  After Ullapool I continued on towards Gairloch. The little village of Poolewe at the head of Loch Ewe was delightful.  It seemed to be built along the stream running into the Loch rather than facing the Loch.  It reminded me of a Dartmoor village.  It had an excellent looking camp site.

Gairloch

Gairloch is a small town, but like them all, neat, clean and tidy.  It looked lovely in the sunlight but I have to wonder what these places are like in the winter because they are all quite remote.  It has a smart Tourist Information Office that was hosting a local craft day when I was there.  They also had very clean free toilets and a list of B&Bs in the town.  I wish all towns had these.

My temperature gauge was now reading 25 degrees and there was hardly a cloud in the sky.  I then turned off on the coastal road to Applecross, 25 miles away.  This is a small settlement on the coast facing the Isles of Skye.  It has become famous in recent years because of a BBC television program following Monty Hall, an outdoorsman, as he tried to adapt to a crofting life.  This road was the narrowest that I had yet been on.  It twisted and turned and went up steeply and down equally as steeply, usually with 2 or 3 bends at a time.  It looked as if it had been tarmacked at some time, but it must have been in the days of very small cars because you run with your wheels very close to coming off the road on either side, onto rocks or gravel – or nothing!  Everybody drove very carefully and politely.  

Salmon Pens

Along this road, looking down onto Loch Shieldag you can see a number of acquatic farms.  Some are obviously for salmon, but others look like shell fish farms.  We have these of course in BC, however there is an ill informed outcry against them, with a lot of emotion that says farming is damaging to the natural environment.  Here in Scotland people are much more sensible or is it that they are just more pragmatic.

I had heard that one of the two roads into or out of Applecross was very narrow and difficult as well as very steep.  This must be it, or so I thought.  I was mistaken!  Clearly only brave travelers use this road. Did the motor home drivers know what the road would be like before taking them here?  Once commited you can’t change your mind as there is nowhere to turn around.  Many a time we had to maneuver, as the passing places were not always wide enough.  I wondered how the locals got on with shopping living out here in the wilds as they would have to face this road on a regular basis.  Around a corner the answer became clear.  There was a Tesco home delivery van (parked having a coffee actually).  “Just click and we’ll deliver” it said on the van. Do the Tesco delivery drivers get paid extra for having to drive these hazardous roads.  I’m sure the people in Applecross all say “Thank God for Tesco”.

It was on a flatter section of this road, high up and looking across to Skye, when I came across the animals that are dumber than sheep – Highland cattle!  There were about a dozen of them milling around the road with 2 of them standing in the middle of the road and incredibly 3 of them actually lying down in the road, no doubt soaking up the heat from the road surface.  There were about 3 cars stopped in each direction, all wanting to get past, but in the end most of us got out and took pictures of them.  Revving the engine did no good but one driver, oblivious of his paint work slowly drove up to them and nudged them out of the way, helped by his wife trying to shoo them.  I actually remember years ago when I used to help a friend with his farm that, in bad weather, we would drive the cows home from the field for milking with the Land Rover rather than on foot.  Ah the old ways are still the best!

Applecross Beach

Dropping down into Applecross provides a wonderful view across to Skye.  There is also a fantastic beach on which people were walking.  Noticeable was that this beach had sand blown half way up the cliff and was it was piling up as if dunes were starting to form.  I think this shows the power of the sea here when a storm comes through.  The next beach strangely enough appeared to be all rock, but the one in the village was again sand, this time pink in colour.  The tide was a long way out and the beach seemed huge.  I stopped in Applecross and used their very clean unisex toilets putting a donation in the box.  I then brewed a cup of tea, enjoyed a slice of ginger cake (an earlier Tesco purchase) and sent a selfie to my wife to show her that I was still alive.

Then, oh boy, the drive out of Applecross.  Very nervous drivers should not attempt the road that I took in, but even very bold drivers can be reduced to a quivering wreck by the road out.  It is much more narrow than the other road, has very steep inclines and also steep gradients, with switch back bends and blind corners.  It also has incredible drop-offs which seem to want to “pull you” towards them.  It is signposted as not being passable in the winter, but it is only just passable in the summer!   However I did it, along with perhaps 50 other vehicles who must have been as naïve as me when they set out.  I saw no accidents, or even dead cars in the deep gulleys, so perhaps it is safer after all than it looks. 

The Road out of Applecross

There were lots of motor bikes who enjoy these sorts of roads and all of them were driving sedately.  There was one MG sports car that had boiled on one of the steep hills up.  And of course there were the white van drivers (3 of them) plus 2 Porsche drivers who under no circumstances were willing to pull over at the passing places.  They were all traveling in the same direction, so nothing happened as far as I am aware, but if Porsche diver met white van man coming the other way, I wonder who would have one the stand off.  Apart from these, everyone seemed very jolly as people often do when sharing the same dangerous experience.  I got down the mountain safely and felt very proud of myself.  Just as I got to the wider road at the bottom I met a large tractor with a mechanical excavator attached at the front, plus a larger furniture removal truck.  How they would ever get to Applecross I do not know.  Certainly I don’t think anyone else coming down the mountain would be able to get past them.  I obviously made it just in time.

I then followed the road towards my destination at Kyle of Lochalsh.  Having come from Applecross you are fooled into thinking this is now an easy road, but strangely it has areas where two lanes suddenly go into a single track for about 100 yards and there is little warning off this.  It must catch drivers out.  The worst point is a tunnel that seems wide enough for only one car and you are blind, until right onto it, as to what might be coming through the other way.

Just 5 minutes out from Kyle of Lochalsh (at 5.00pm) I received a text from my B&B host to say that her husband was delayed and would not be at the B&B until 7.15pm.  As I had planned to get there early to write this blog and sort my photos, I was more than a bit miffed.  Instead I saw a sign for Eileen Donan castle, which I had not realised was in this area.  This is the castle that is often shown in “misty shots” sitting on an island surrounded by water – it is considered an icon of Scotland.   Unfortunately the tide was out when I arrived, which would have made for a better photograph.  The ticket office had just closed but it was possible to walk around the walls.

The castle was the seat of the MacCrae clan but was destroyed by British ships in 1719 in putting down a failed Jacobite uprising, which involved also the Spanish.  It remained as a ruin until 1919 (to 1932) when Lt. Col. John MacCrae-Gilstrap began to restore it.  It now contains, on the outside, a shrine to all of the soldiers named MacCrae (from Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) who died in the First World War.  (They are a lot of names).

I went to a pub in the local village to have an early supper while waiting for the B&B to be available.  Scotland beats England hands down on spectacular scenery and neat and tidy towns, however, England definitely has the edge in respect of cosy good food pubs.  Of the four pubs that I have been to so far n Scotland, all are dark and dreary inside and hark back to the days when they were men only places to drink.  The one I went to tonight, like the one in John O Groats, had a pool table in the middle.  Drinking is still a big thing here in Scotland (and sadly is becoming an increasing problem in England, especially binge drinking).  An NHS report issued just last week stated that the average person in Scotland drinks each year the equivalent of 41 bottles of vodka, or 166 bottles of wine or 477 pints of beer.  That’s almost one bottle of vodka a week or 3 bottles of wine or 9 pints of beer per week.  Considering that this is the average across all persons in Scotland, it must mean that some individuals are drinking way more than this!

My B&B host eventually arrived at 7.45pm, just as I was thinking of leaving, along with 2 young Germans who were also waiting.  Frankly the house is old, musty and decaying.  AirBnB always ask for feedback on the property and the host.  I and the Germans have lots of comments to give them.  One being, remarkably, that the house in the photograph is not the one we are staying in!

Anyway I am going to post this and get to bad.  Tomorrow I am set to tour Skye, of which the relatively new bridge across is only about 5 minutes from where I am staying.  I take a ferry across to Mallaig tomorrow afternoon but have yet to find accommodation.  On Wednesday I am going to visit Ardnamurchan Point, which is, as I now know, the most westerly point on the UK mainland.  I have a B&B booked on Mull and will be taking the passenger ferry across to Iona. I am particularly looking forward to Iona and the saints and kings buried there.

If you are enjoying my journey please feel free to make a comment on the blog (though I understand you have to have a Gmail account to do this).  If not send me an email.

I today passed 2300 miles. My journey plan says that I will be traveling 4600 miles in total so I am now exactly half way!