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.