Sunday, May 10--A Strange Light appears in the Sky!

Wow, this is the first day of real sunshine we have had since we arrived in Scotland! And with the sun waking us up at 5 AM and not going down until 10, we are enjoying it thoroughly, though we are still getting little sleep because of the longer days.

We decided to go south today into the Wester Ross area. We drove over Loch Droma to the An Teallach mountains where we saw totally black goats with horns! They were lounging alongside the road and munching on grass. We checked out several campsites for future reference and found several nice hotels, too. We went past by Gruinard Bay which was lovely. Then we crossed through Poolewe where a ferry was coming into port.

Then the scenery grew even more dramatic with deep blue lochs and steep craggy mountaintops covered with snow and formidable mountains looming over us. We drove beside Loch Maree, which was beautiful with the Slioch Mountain behind it then made the turn at Kinlochewe onto the A896 to Torridon. Here is where you really get a sense of the wilds of Scotland. So remote and the steep mountains on all sides as the tiny single-track road winds its way through the glen.

First came Beinn Eighe—so steep. It looks like a giant had stepped on the land and a huge slab of it was pressed into the earth while the other side went skyward and was covered with snow. Following Beinn Eighe were Liathach and Beinn Dearg—very impressive and imposing. One of the mountains had exposed granite all over it that looked like it was covered with sand.

We made our way on out to Shieldaig, a gorgeous little town tucked away off the road and on Loch Shieldaig. Here we stopped to have a picnic and to get postcards in the little store. I bought some yummy coconut macaroons, too.

We returned through Glen Torridon, just so we could see it again from another angle, then went on to the A896 to A832 to A835 and back to Ullapool. But before we got there, we took a small detour on this little tiny road to Loggie. Talk about single-track, well it certainly was. We were hoping to get a view of Ullapool from the opposite shore here, but the road ended before we got that far.

Back into Ullapool where we took a very nice walk out to the point—just too nice not to on such a sunny day. Temperatures are nice, breezes slight, birds chirping. What a difference! Scotland is impressive even in the worst of weather, but on a day such as this, it is downright amazingly gorgeous!

Ray is out running for the first time since the marathon. I will post this during dinner at the Seaforth Pub, then we’ll come back here to pack up for our trek northward. Oh, and remember how I wrote about the red-haired characters we ran across on this trip? We didn’t know what RED was until this afternoon! See picture.

***pictures from top: Black goat munching beside road, beautiful scenery out of Poolewe, Beinn Eighe all covered in snow, coming from Loggie, our lastest “red” experience

Saturday, May 9--Wee Mad Road

You know it is cold when Susan Brouillard buys AND WEARS a wool cap. It was freezing here yesterday, and I now wear the cap religiously. And you know your hotel has been here awhile when the key to your room is an actual old skeleton key.

We had breakfast in our hotel this morning, went to the pub to use the internet, mailed off cards at the post office, bought croissants and extras to take with us for a picnic lunch, and went back to the room to watch the news on TV. Here is another great difference between the US and the UK. In the UK, the news reporters start the day by sitting there and picking up today’s newspapers and showing the stories and discussing them, much like you would do if you were sitting in a pub discussing the latest news with your friends over a pint and some tabloids. They actually HOLD UP THE PAPERS and point out the stories! I find this so astounding.

This would NEVER happen in the US. A TV reporter in the States would NEVER dare mention a newspaper—they are competitors, in a way—unless the newspaper was being sued by someone or had gone bankrupt, etc. The TV stations have their own reporters who investigate stories. It seems the newspapers in the UK are the ones doing the investigating and the newscasters just read it. This is so foreign to me. The first time I saw it years ago on my first visit here, I really couldn’t get my head around it.

We headed out this morning going north on A835 towards the Loch Assynt area. This area was hard hit by the Highland Clearances and the Potato Famines. Abandoned townships are frequent. We were immediately met by a huge rainbow over the hills to the west. The landscape in this area is much like that of the Isle of Harris I visited a few years ago—very moon-like, bare & treeless, wild and desolate. The sheep and deer prevent the growth of trees. There were tall, peaked mountains all around us with craggy tops. The Stac Pollaidh (Stac Polly) is about 2000 feet and looked so formidable. The dramatic landscape of mountains and intervening valleys was carved out by glaciers during the last ice age some 10,000 years ago.

I don’t think we were on anything but single-track roads for more than 15 minutes today. Very remote. Ray saw one house all alone and said that if you ever wanted to take up "hermiting," this would be the place to come. At one point we had water on both sides of us—Loch Osgaig & Enard Bay.

Out of Drumrunie, we turned left onto an unnumbered single-track road and followed it over and down to Polbain, where I actually found Castlehill Cottage. This is the cottage that Americans Jack & Barbara Maloney lived in for a year and wrote about their experiences in their book, “The Wee Mad Road.” And Castlehill Cottage is still for let. Oh, how I would love to stay here for a while. There is a gorgeous view of the Summer Isles nearby.

We were amazed at some points that just turning your head from left to right, you could see 10 different kinds of landscapes. After Polbain, we continued on to Altandhu & Achnahaird, then over by Loch Osgaig, then north and onto another unnumbered road—still single-track and narrower than ever—to Inverkirkaig, Strathan, and Lochinver. This part—from Strathan to Lochinver—is what I believe the authors referred to as the Wee Mad Road. The narrow coast road had switchbacks and hairpin twists and edge-of-the-cliff turns that had me gasping. And some climbs where we got to the top on the edge of a high, high hill and could not see over the top of the hill and had to proceed just praying that there really was a road ahead over the top. Lichen-covered rocks were everywhere and several red deer—one a buck—stopped at one point just to have a look at us.

After we made it to Lochinver, we soon took the B869 to Clachtoll Beach and found the campsite where we WOULD have been staying tomorrow night had the weather not been so—well, everything…rainy, windy, cold, hailing. Not a tent to be seen there. The beach was pretty, the geography and geology of the area impressive, but we weren’t too impressed with the campsite. We had our picnic in the car as we watched the waves. There was a FROG warning road sign on the road on the way here. Frogs???

Then we took more unnumbered road out to see the Stoer Head Lighthouse. We saw a road leading up to it and Ray just drove right on up, straight to the gates. No entrance but we got very close and sat there—with a very distinguished seabird friend—to watch yet another rainstorm come ashore as the wind buffeted the car. I swear, over the course of this day we’ve had SIXTEEN separate rainstorms, SO FAR! They come in bands. “Here comes that bouncing rain again,” Ray said, referring to the hail. So there we were, sitting on the end of the world, on a cliff, on a single-track road, with nowhere to really turn around. And the wind is beating against the car and the rain and hail are pounding against the windshield. And the silly bird is just sitting there, looking out to sea.

We DID make it down from the lighthouse road and went on to Drumbeg and followed the B894 to the A837. There was another road sign that said Warning RAMP! Ramp? Is there really going to be one of those top-of-the-hill end-of-the-world turns that shoots us off into space? But no, it was just an iron plate in the road covered what I suppose was a hole.

We stopped at the site of Ardvreck Castle on its peninsula on the shore of Loch Assynt. This castle was the 15th century seat of the MacLeods of Assynt. Throughout its life, Ardvreck was the scene of much violence, with murders, executions, and sieges by both enemies and quarrelsome branches of the MacLeod family. In 1672, a 14-day siege by the MacKenzies of Wester Ross marked the end of MacLeod ownership of Assynt. It was largely destroyed by lightning in 1795 when it was struck by lightning. M

Many ghosts are said to haunt Ardvreck. The weeping daughter of a MacLeod chief, who drowned in Loch Assynt after marrying the Devil in a pact to save her father’s castle, has been seen on the beach but the tall man in grey, often seen in the ruins of the castle, seems to be an altogether happy ghost.

Nearby to the castle is Calda House, the 18th century Laird’s House of the MacKenzies of Assynt. In 1726, Kenneth MacKenzie commissioned the house for his wife, Frances, who did not care for the austerity of Ardvreck Castle. It was a strikingly modern mansion with 14 bedchambers, all with fireplaces. Frances’ extravagances brought them financial ruin, and in 10 years time, the Earl of Sutherland vied with MacKenzie of Seaforth to purchase Assynt and won. But soon after, the house was looted and burned by MacKenzie supporters who vowed that no Sutherland should ever live there. Today, the house stands in ruins.

As we made our way back to Ullapool, we saw a sign—Slow, Concealed Entrance! After what we had already experienced, we were very cautious, as none of the other hair-raising turns we had seen today had any warning signs, but no, this turn was nothing! Roads you can’t see 5 feet in front of you, roads that look like you are about to drive off the end of the world, hairpin-twisting turns—no warnings. Go figure.

And a final word on the sheep. We saw a black baby lamb with his mother today and I got a picture. Sheep are so funny. I remember years ago when we were on a train out to Kyle of Lochalsh and up ahead we saw sheep standing in the fields very near to the tracks. As the train approached, the sheep would rush away all I a flurry as if so afraid and so surprised by the sudden appearance of a train. But as we passed, I saw them slowly meandering their way back down to the tracks once again, probably to be prepared for the approach of the next train so they could be surprised all over again. You know they see at least a dozen trains pass by every single day. Such drama queens.

Had dinner in the Seaforth Pub again and used their wireless internet to email a B&B in Tongue to check for availability for Monday & Tuesday nights. As it turns out, both my daughters have serious doctor’s appointments this week, and I need to be able to talk to them afterwards. And the weather is still rainy, cold, and windy, so it works out fine. Here are the directions of how to find our B&B:

We are situated slightly less than a mile from the village centre. Pass the post office on your left and continue on the single track road past the "No speed limit" sign, round a right hand bend, over the Rhian burn and turn right at our sign. Cross the cattle grid and drive up the track to the cottage. Please take care and watch out for our horses, goats, sheep, ducks, hens and dogs.

Isn’t that just the greatest?!?!

***pictures from top: Ullapool Harbour, 2 scenes from our drive in the Loch Assynt area, Stoer Head Lighthouse and our seabird friend, Ardvreck Castle ruins