G & J away from home

Monday, 4 July 2016

Although it was a five hour drive (according to the GPS) to our motel near Glasgow we set out at a reasonable time with the intention of driving the road to Applecross - with an option to make a final decision against it if the weather was terrible when we reached Kinlochewe.  In fact although we had light showers and some low cloud the weather never deteriorated as much as it threatened to.

Map from the Beinn Eighe visitor centre (Photo: Gary)

The map shows our route, back over some of the same territory as two days ago - from Kinlochewe to Shieldaig, then onto the coast road to Applecross and over the pass and onto the main road back to Lochcarron.

We took more photos of Loch Torridon, both before and after the turn-off, but with the overcast weather today there was no chance of capturing the turquoise colour in the sea at the moment (which is absolutely delightful colour but only temporary as it is caused by an algae).

Loch Torridon

It's raining on Skye

This is the second time we've been past Skye without visiting so it remains on our 'things we might do' list.  (And I claim a TICK for Mabel Esther Allan's  At School on Skye.)

All along the road there were beautiful little waterfalls coming over the cliffs (not the magnificent ones in Austria, but tiny ones, often only a couple of feet high) but finally we managed to coordinate having a passing place we could pull over into and the occurrence of the largest of these:

Roadside waterfall

After a very picturesque drive around the coast we finally approached Applecross, being able to see the start of the village across the sands.

Applecross on the far side

The sands

The place was teeming (possibly because it's now school holidays in the UK) so we wedged ourselves into the nearest car park and I trotted up to the fish & chips van (as it turned out) to grab some lunch.  (Gary, having been unable to finish his egg and tuna sandwich from the day before was already provided for.)

All along the road and in amongst the rocks bracken and heather were growing:

Bracken and heather on the roadside

After we squeezed out of the car park we headed off toward the road over the hills.  As I mentioned the lighthouse website recommended the drive with these words:

"... the drive of your life, as you negotiate the steep zig-zag bends of the Bealach Na Ba, one of the highest roads in Britain. Not for the faint hearted, but the views from the top over the Isle of Skye are worth it!"

The road wasn't too bad - just more of the same 'single lane with passing places' that we had become used to, though that's a little more tricky on hills and when the passing space is on the the side of the shear drop.  The views over Skye were necessarily worse than even the indifferent ones we'd had along the coast road since by the time we got to the top of the road we were pretty much encased in the low cloud, but the view down the other side to Loch Kishorn was awe-inspiring.

Looking down the valley

The photo doesn't do justice to the scale of the view and the steepness of the road can't be seen.  The rocky hill on the right-hand side of the photo absolutely dominated the scene, towering over us during the whole drive down.

While we were stopped at the top a couple of cyclists (of whom there were many) stopped to chat - first the daughter and then her father who was taking on the challenge of riding up the 2054 foot pass from sea level.

Across to Adarroch

Despite the trickiness of finding places for us to stop which wouldn't block off the passing spaces for people still using the road we did stop a couple of times down the road, once discovering the lovely view back up the valley with the waterfalls (or sharply dropping streams) coming down:

Gary in front of the waterfalls

Islands in the loch below

I'll say here that, in my opinion, there is only one right way to do this drive, and that's to come from Applecross over the pass - driving the other way wouldn't have the same effect from suddenly seeing the vista down the deep valley to the loch below.


We did pass the much-photographed Eilean Donan Castle but the weather was all grey and we decided against stopping. But then we just drove and drove and drove until we reached the motel and a nice meal of ham hocks next door at the Red Deer pub.


Reading: Frederica by Georgette Heyer

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