Scotland- Day 10: Northern Coast, Ullapool,Isle of Skye- June 23, 2019

Another really early morning today, but this time it is because we have so far to travel. We were up at 6 and had our bags out at 6:45. Breakfast was at 7. The porridge seemed particularly important today, because lunch was so far away.
My husband K and I boarded the bus at 7:57. Five minutes later, we were on the road and just eight minutes after that it was raining. I do appreciate that it seems to try to avoid raining, when we are getting on or off the bus. Dealing with an umbrella in that situation would not be fun.
Today's trip would take us along the northern coast of Scotland, right along the Atlantic. Brian from Nova Scotia told me that he had planned their seats so that they would be on the Atlantic-side of the bus today. This means, of course, that we, too, got to enjoy that view today. I'd really been looking forward to this part of the trip and hoped the rain would not mess up the view too much. Since we live in Florida, I really enjoy seeing what other parts of the Atlantic look like.
The rain didn't last long, but the sky remained cloudy. We had good views of the ocean and the barren land along it. There were no trees, no doubt due to the harsh conditions and winter winds. Rarely, we saw sheep. There were few, if any houses.There were inlets and bays and the road generally went around them all.

 At 9:10, we pulled into the large parking lot of Weavers Café for a rest stop, snacks, etc. There was a charming shop with postcards, funny punny cards about sheep ( I bought a Christmas one), gifts including needlework kits, one of which I bought. I picked up a Diet Coke for Ł1.20 and K got a coffee for Ł 1.90.  There were small restrooms in the back and lovely views of the Atlantic and Coldbackie Beach. We were a little north of the Kyle of Tongue at this point on the journey. It was a good spot for photographs and a selfie to post on Facebook for the folks back home.

We were due back on the bus at 10, and, once again, we were all early enough that that is when we departed. Our guide Roseanne sadly reported that the owners had told her they planned to close the coffee shop and open an B & B. That made us wonder where tours would stop in this barren area, where we'd seen nowhere else to stop.

 Just five minutes down the road, we were crossing the Kyle of Tongue Causeway. A kyle is a narrow strait or channel, by the way.

A bit further along the A838, we had this beautiful view of the Loch Hope inlet.

The view inland was just as barren as the oceanside.

At 10:21, we stopped for a photo op above Loch Eriboll, which is very deep. Loch Eriboll is a sea loch, which is a tidal inlet of the sea. The near-island that is barely connected to the land by the strip with the beaches is called Ard Neakie. The area was cleared for sheep in the Clearances, but there are some crofts there now. The loch looked just so beautiful. Inland, there were what passes for mountains here, much like those in the distance beyond the loch.

We were back on the road again at 10:34. What a great stop that was!

We continued on the A838 all the way around the bottom of the loch. This photo was taken almost directly opposite where we were on our photo stop.

These beach photos were taken along a small bay west of Rispond. The water reminded me of the beautiful waters of the Caribbean, but you know the Atlantic here is pretty darn cold. It is Sunday and there is no one on that beach.

Sometimes, there was no deceptively inviting beach, but rather cliffs. But, the water was still gorgeous. It must be really vicious here in winter, but now there is a green ground cover.

West of Leirinmore, we saw signs of civilization with houses that didn't seem too old. But, even better, there were sheep! I doubt that any other agriculture is really viable here.

There's a couple on the path in this photo, but note how bundled up they are. They are not going to go in that water. It reminds me of the couple walking along the cliff in the France movie at Epcot. They, too, are fighting the elements.

Folks here must be able to stand isolation. I guess, it is much like the people in Wyoming on those ranches that are so far away from each other and from the tiny towns out there.

We were no longer hugging the coast. The map tells me that there are a lot of smaller lochs in that area and the A838 doesn't even try to get around them.  This photo was taken around Rhiconich, one of the last photos I took before the A838 took a weird sharp turn to head south and east. Look how great the sky looked now!

Instead of making that turn on the A838, we went onto the A894 to proceed west and south. At 11:58, we made a pit stop in the area of Scourie. A North German bus ahead of us slowed us down. But, we managed to get back on the road at 12:17.
The mountains were interesting at times. This one is west of Loch Glencoul. Don't bother to look up the loch on Google. My iPhone recognized it, but Google only knows Loch Gleann Dubh.

Another photo op was at 12:45 beside Loch Assynt. There, we stopped to photograph the loch and the ruins of Ardvreck castle below us. It was another of those spots that you just knew the Romantics would have liked.

It was only a five minute stop, which is impressive, when you consider we had to get off the bus and back on. There was excitement just down the road near Inchnadampf, where we saw a herd of deer grazing. Wildlife!

We finally pulled into Ullapool for lunch at 1:26. It was the first town of any size that we'd seen. This was the only lunch that was included in the cost of the tour and it was to be fish and chips. I'd dreaded that since I'd seen it in the tour description months ago. I'd gone to Roseanne earlier in the day to see if there was any chance that there would be anything else to order. She was less than happy that she hadn't known this sooner and, after asking on the bus, found there were others who didn't eat fish or hated it like me. So, she'd called the Seaforth, our restaurant, and arranged for hamburgers, to which I'd readily agreed. I really don't think that it is reasonable to assume everyone in a group eats fish.
Anyway, the restaurant was two floors and and we were sent upstairs to tables that were awaiting us. K and I had our own table and I thought that the condiments holder was rather cool. Drinks weren't included, so we paid Ł 2 each for Diet Coke. K's fish, which was haddock, was golden and rather large. He liked it. The burger was big and juicy. The fries were a lot more golden than I was used to, but they were pretty good.

At 2:17, we left the restaurant to shop and stroll the waterfront. Ullapool has a decent-sized ferry terminal, but we weren't taking the ferry here. The shops all face the harbor and the architecture is not exciting. The harbor itself is a bit weird, because there is a beach, but, as you can see in the photo, it is not long before the water is deep enough for boats. We found a couple of local souvenirs, including a pin for my collection.

We boarded the bus at 3:10 and were on the road at 3:11. We now headed south on A835 and then southwest on A832. I dozed until we made a pit stop at 4:08 at a small train station past Achnasheen, since it had the only available restrooms in the area. We didn't see a train, but deer were in the immediate area and did not seem bothered by us. There was a little pond with a picnic table or two nearby. I guess, you might have to wait a while for a train. The restrooms were small and we did not get on the road again until 4:25.

 

We now drove down the A890 and stopped at the Loch Carron Viewpoint at 5:09. It was another lovely loch, and where we stood had tall trees and wildflowers. We could see Stromeferry, where people used to catch a ferry to cross the loch. The road we were traveling made that unnecessary.

Back on the road at 5:18, it was less than a half hour, when we were on the bridge to cross to the Isle of Skye. Such an atmospheric sky over the island!

At 5:52, the bus parked in the lot next to the Dunollie Hotel in the small town of Broadford. Roseanne had requested that K and I have a room on the first floor and we were given room 133. The hotel has seen better days. I had to fix the running toilet, but we could not get the shower to stop dripping. That just kills me. I hate to see such waste. The room itself was large, but the armchairs were dusty. We would be staying here two nights and so we settled in.

Looking out the window, we were happy to see that we had a view of the water. We could tell that the tide was out and we were startled to see a couple of boats tied up and sitting on the sea floor. I was interested to see if they would indeed be floating, when the tide came back in.

We picked up our wine at the bar and headed for dinner at 7. Unfortunately, the dining room was downstairs and my knees really objected to that. We found ourselves at a table with the mother and daughter team of Cari and Megan from Michigan. Megan was a librarian, but I didn't catch what her mom did. Actually, I was surprised to hear Megan had been working for a couple of years, because she looked like a college student.

For an appetizer, I had the mixed vegetable soup, which was okay. K had the fish cake. We both chose the beef casserole, which was more of a stew, as our main course and it was pretty good. For dessert, I chose the profiteroles, which are cream puffs that were covered in chocolate. Yum!  K's rhubarb crumble was good.

When we finished dinner, K and I decided to go for a walk to explore a bit. The first thing that we noticed was that the tide was coming back in and some of the small boats we'd seen tied up were now floating. Cool!

The first thing we came upon up the street was a little collection of funky buildings with shops in them. They were all closed, of course. But, one had ice cream, another local crafts and yet another a flower shop. I did not tell K how suspicious it looked for him to be checking out the flower shop, considering my birthday is in two days. Besides, they would no doubt be closed tomorrow, when we returned from our excursions.
In the next block, there was a co-op grocery store that was open. We have a real fascination with grocery stores. We love to roam around and see what they have that we recognize, as well as foods we are less familiar with. This one was pretty cool, because the overhead signs were in English and Gaelic. All of the produce had signs with what EU country they came from. There were some American brands, including in the shampoo aisle. We ran into some others from our group, who were shopping. We didn't see individual still water bottles, but there were plenty of large mineral water ones. I should have taken photos of the food, but I thought the store would find it odd. We did buy some toffee for Ł 1.40 before we left.

On the way back to the hotel, we walked on the opposite side of the street to get a better look at the houses. There were precious few people walking around at that hour.

As we got back to the hotel, we noticed that there was a public bar or pub at the far end, that was not really connected inside to the hotel. The bar that we'd gotten our drinks from was totally separate.
We got back to the room at 9:20. It may not have been an "exciting" day, but I'm really glad that we took the tour that took us around the top of the country. It was really interesting and pretty. My phone app had recorded 1.6 miles of walking in 4,834 steps and a dubious 4 floors climbed.