Tuesday 25th - Thursday 27th - Revisiting the north - home

What a mussel!

Tuesday was actually pleasant with some sunshine, the first in a few days which made Ullapool looked as pretty as it ought to.  We packed up and Andy and I took a walk along the loch where we saw the biggest mussel I've ever seen; a huge pink shell attached to rock and seaweed, the creature itself nearly the size of my hand.

Cruiser at Inverness 

Passengers being piped ashore

The loch itself looked inviting - I think it would be lovely to swim here, in warmer weather.  There are tours from here around the Summer Isles too as well as the ferry that runs to Lewis.  Tempting. We went to the ferry port where there was a boat ferrying passengers in from a larger ship, and the passengers were piped ashore by a piper in full regalia.  It added something to our holiday too, to hear that.

 The bus took us along a now fairly familiar road, back through the mountains to Lochinver and then on up to Durness, passing through many of the places we'd walked through.  Back at Durness we pitched up and then went for a walk to the puffin colony which Andy and I hadn't visited before.  By waiting a good while for the birds at sea to decide to come in, we were rewarded by seeing them fly into their burrows.  Other gulls were also there, some feeding chicks that were as large as domestic hens, grey, leggy and demanding.  Back at the tent we again had our usual visitors of various gulls begging for scraps and coming down in a screaming heap on anything that was thrown in their direction.  Alfie never finished his dog food, but they were more than happy to clear it up for him.

Black headed gull

John has visitors

 (An update on Alfie; he had his foot bandaged for a day or so and absolutely thrived on all the sympathy from every passer-by, but a couple of days rest quite restored him and he has been promised a set of little dog-boots for his next trip).

The campsite on the cliff

Guillemots at Durness

On Wednesday we made our final farewell to the lovely Durness beach and took the first post bus (also the school bus) to Lairg for Inverness, calling in for the final time at Kinlochbervie on the way.

The connection was again straightforward and at Inverness, Team Alfie was again broken up as John was able to get a train home on the same day but we had to wait.

Statue of Faith, Hope and Charity, Inverness.

War memorial (WW1), Inverness

Graceful bridge, Inverness

There is a campsite at Inverness - well a camping park - about which less said the better, for they allow dogs for campervans and caravans but not for hikers with tents.  (Bah!!!) We filled up with water and found a nice spot to wild camp out of town on the islands, between the river and the canal, leaving us very well placed to get the first train back home in the morning.



This was also the first time out for the new tent, the Coleman Kraz having come to the end of its life.  Having gone to an outdoors shop and browsing in a general way, I found a good tent at a reasonable price.

New tent - 'Zephyros' by Wild Country/Terra Nova

I was glad that I'd managed to find a couple of chunks of rock at Durness.  The rocks in this part of Scotland are said to be the oldest in the world; thousands of millions of years old, with the oldest piled on top of the more recent, due to seismic activity. It's hard not to develop an interest in geology when you pass by great cliffs of black and white striped rock, the two different rocks heated to the consistency of plasticine and pressed together under great pressure; the black gneiss, the white quartzes and the pink adamantine granites, and then the 'erratics' left on top by passing glaciers.  It's very bleak here, for the soil barely covers the mountains and it's hard to see how anything can grow, and yet it does.  And it's only by spending a bit of time there that you can appreciate it - midges and all. 

Sunday 23 June and Monday 24 June

Sunday was a wet day, thoroughly wet,  a day of constant and heavy rain.  Our thoughts were with John up on the hill, wishing him success on the road.  For us, it was a day of enforced relaxation and being very tired, this was not unwelcome.

I went to church at Loch Broom Lutheran free church where I was made most welcome, and that was the main outing of my day.  Later on, we went out to the outdoors shop and for an Indian takeaway.

Ullapool in the rain 

On Monday, the weather cleared a little but we waited around until mid-morning when John came in.  You'll have to go to his blog for an account of his adventure (http://johnparsons55.wordpress.com), but in short, his path had been inundated and he had to backtrack and re-route.

The gentlemen enjoying their tea 

Indeed. 

Mark and Alfie

We met another long-distance walker, which seems to be a rare if not dying breed of people.  Mark was walking the coastline of Britain in one go, taking about a year to do it.  We got chatting and in the evening went to the only dog-friendly pub in Ullapool, the Argyll Hotel, and it being Monday we had the good luck to find it was ceilidh night, or if you like a session; varied instruments, guitar, violins, a drum and a visitor from Germany who played the mandolin and sang Irish songs like a Dubliner.  A night to remember.  

Saturday 22 June - Lochinver - Ullapool

Didn't sleep well; combination of high winds gusting at the tent and heavy rain saw to that; and it was cold.  John, also concerned about the wind, got packed quickly and was away to meet us in Lochinver.  We followed very slowly, raiding the first-aid kit for more bandages, surgical tape and duct tape for Alfie's feet.  Despite the fact that whatever we did fell off or wore through, it saw him to the next town of Lochinver, a fishing port.


We made our way to the shop and met John, and did our necessary shop.  I found a cheap first-aid kit for more bandage and Andy found a chandler's shop for a roll of duct tape.  But this was the end of the road for us.  Alfie's feet were so sore we couldn't ask him to go any further.  We had breakfast at the Mission (outside in the rain - no dogs allowed anywhere indoors) and taped up Alfie's foot so securely that even he couldn't get rid of the dressing.  John continued en route to Ullapool, having a coastal walk to see off, and we were left for the first time in ages with time on our hands.

The end of the road for now...

 A visit to the Information Centre gave us bus times to Ullapool earlier than that of the post bus which didn't leave until late afternoon.  The Centre also had a live feed of a golden eagle nest, which was something to see!  (Info here). We caught the bus, going through very heavy rain, arriving in Ullapool in the early afternoon to a good campsite not far from the ferry/bus terminal.

Crocodile bench, Lochinver

 We may not have seen any seals, but at least we saw a crocodile...

Friday - nr Nedd to nr Lochinver

It rained in the night and we woke to a misty day; not exactly wet but certainly not dry.  The midge situation was just as bad and John, being the first to pack, escaped the attack with a promise to meet us at Drumbeg.  We were looking forward to Drumbeg as there was a shop there, and we needed to restock, especially dog-food.


 

 I was the next to go and waited on the road, walking Alfie about (midges attack when you stand still) until Andy was ready and we could head up the mountain road into the mist.  There was no view as such as to distance, but the low cloud lent an air of brooding atmosphere over the lochans and the moors and sometimes broke to give a longer view beyond.  After a mile or so we came to Nedd, a little crofting village with a warning sign about lambs and piglets on the road.  There was also a decorated gypsy caravan.  There are many artists resident here, I think.


We were early into Drumbeg which has two shops, and John met us with the bad news that the one we particularly wanted -and needed - was shut.  Of all the days to take a day off, they'd chosen this one. The other shop sold candles and soap and though it had a tea-room, we didn't bother waiting an hour for it to open but made some coffee near the public loos.  Scotland does some things really very well; cycle lanes deserve a mention but especially their public loos.  For a start, they're open, they are well supplied and they they work and having hot water and hot air hand dryers was a blessing on a cold wet day such as this ... especially for a certain small wet dog...



Shaking the proverbial dust of Drumbeg off our feet we carried on.  What else could we do?  We had a spare meal each and some snacks.  Alfie would have to make do with whatever meat and cheese we had.  But there was a bonus; some smallholdings sold eggs from honesty boxes on the road, and we bought a dozen between us to do for lunch.



Passing the time in good conversation we came into Clashnessie where the road seems to have been cut through the rock before coming out to the beach - another unspoilt sandy beach with nearly no-one on it but us.  We walked over the sand letting Alfie go mad off the lead before settling down to a lunch of boiled eggs and the rest of our bread.




 Looking at the picture on the left you wouldn't think Alfie ever wanted to move again - the one on the right was just ten minutes later.

After lunch we went out of the village and instantly noticed a change.  The morning's landscape had been bleak, desolate, almost deserted but there was a sudden change in the afternoon as we went around the very pretty Stour Point area.  This is Assynt crofting country and we entered a fairly well populated area. There was a nice-looking campsite by a beach with a sign to a memorial for Norman McCloud, which I wondered at as a link to the founder of the Iona Community.  Something to go back and visit.

Stour

Interesting sculpture in the garden ...

Some of the crofts - Stour

I had to change my socks.  Even waterproof socks have their limits and mine had met theirs.  With more comfortable feet we proceeded along a footpath to the ruins of an old mill and over the hill to the campsite by the beach at Achmelvie.

The Mill 

Achmelvie Beach and campsite

 But here our hopes were ruined again; the campsite would not allow dogs.  They did have an on-site chippy though, so we had tea just outside their boundary fence before continuing up the road to the higher country away from the crofting areas.  Although Scottish law allows free access and so camping pretty much anywhere is permitted, it seems the rules are different here. We needed to get away and out of sight.

Alfie gets a lift (he's in red)

Poor Alfie was struggling and needed to be carried over the rougher paths, but soon we found our way to a high point - again, finding somewhere flat was a challenge - and set up with a very good view to some great mountains, possibly Munroes.  The midges didn't make us inclined to hang around again, but unfortunately this was just what Andy and I had to do as I broke a tent pole again (the second time this trip) and that required a bit of Andy's ingenuity to fix it as it was on a bend.

When it was dark (it must have been after midnight) I heard a brown owl, very close.  Looking out of my tent door, I saw the owl perched on a cairn of rocks, very close to our tents, looking over the valley.  It called again - and then was gone.

Thursday 20 June - Scourie - nr Nedd

Left Scourie and took the main road uphill out of town.  It was a grey day but not actually raining.  We saw some more Highland cattle with calves, which look like little teddy bears and are most endearing.  The cows too seem quite small - underneath that great mass of orange hair.





Most of the traffic we met seemed to be foreign tourists, with Dutch, French, German and Belgian numberplates on the campervans and motorbikes that passed us (there were a lot of motorcyclists, usually in small groups and usually German).

We had some good rests stops but I was most disconcerted to find at one that all my water had run out; where to, I had no idea.  I can only assume I had pressed the valve of my platypus, as there was no leak in my rucksack. But it made it lighter to carry.  Always look on the bright side.  My rucksack was further lightened by Andy filching my cooking gear when I wasn't looking!

Rest stop ... 

... with a view

There were some really fantastic mountain ranges now and the names a curious mixture of Norse and Gallic (Viking and Celt) - Kylestrome, Kylesku, Unapool.

This cairn was erected to commemorate the XIIth Submarine Flotilla, comprising the experimental X-craft or human torpedoes which trained here; the cairn commemorates the 39 men who died and also the local people "who knew so much and talked so little".

(See a BBC site for the history here and other pictures and a list of names here.)

Kylesku Bridge

We crossed the award-winning Kylesku bridge about which John rhapsodised enough to generate a genuine interest in shuttered concrete, and a great appreciation of the sheer difficulty of such an achievement and of its graceful curves before we came to the place itself.  (For some great pictures of the bridge including one in snow click here).

You have to turn off the road to come to the collection of houses that probably isn't enough to be classed as a village.  The hotel is at the end and well worth a mention, because they welcomed Alfie with open arms and really looked after us.  It was expensive to be sure, but go there if you can.  I had mussels - moules marinieres - a great bucket of the things, everyone of which had to be opened and scraped out and got with a bit of the liquid garlicy sauce.  I'd never had it before but everything is so local it seems rude not to - and it was so worth it.   We had some cake to go and staggered out of the place, encouraging Alfie whose feet bothered him after a rest stop.

The scenery just got better, if that was at all possible; majestic, awesome, grand.  We went from an A to a B road and it was a good road over the moor.  But when we stepped aside to let a large truck pass, we felt the whole surface sink under its weight, which may be why they don't allow coaches up here.

Water refill

The only downside was that the midges were busy; the humidity and the boggy ground obviously suiting them very well here.  Keeping moving we were fine, but at every rest stop we were attacked and the midge nets came out into nearly constant use.  I had been bitten so badly about the face it couldn't make much difference but was sore enough not to wish to add to the collection.  It was coming on to rain, but not enough to keep the insects away.







We went several more miles and seemed to be miles away from anywhere before finding a place to camp.  This was tricky.  The ground was steep, lumpy, rocky, undulating.  Finding a flat patch that was not absolute bog and which could accommodate three tents was more of a tall order than you might think.  We found a field of rough pasture which we very quickly dubbed Midgehaven, got the tents up and got in as fast as possible.  Dinner was a cold snack with water as none of us wished to open a tent door to light a stove but after such a grand lunch as I'd had, that wasn't an issue.