Kylesku

Low tide at Kylesku

Tuesday I visited Chatsworth House with friends, and yesterday spent the day shopping and taking in a production of Nutcracker in the evening, which is why there was no blog post yesterday. Obviously I'm having far too much fun - but it was long overdue!

More of Chatsworth later - first I want to finish my Scottish trip. Pity about missing the Bone Caves, but we just pressed on  into Kylesku where the Hotel is set in an enchanting spot right by the lochside.  The Atlantic roars inland from Eddrachillis Bay and forms the  Loch a Chairn Bhain, passes beneath the new bridge, built at the narrowest point, hence the name. Seton Gordon writes that Kylesku is a bad translation from the Gaelic Caolas Cumhang meaning the narrow strait. (He also claims that Quinag in Gaelic is Cuinneag and means milk stoup.) Once under the bridge, the loch divides into two - Loch Glencoul runs south east and Loch Glendhu runs east.

Looking across the water to the ferry landing at Kylesku

The bridge  was built in 1984. Before that, the cattle had to swim across to get to market and the drovers and travellers used a rowing boat. If you check the link -
 http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/kylesku/kylesku/index.html. you will see pics of the bridge in far brighter weather than we had. I can remember using the old ferry, the Maid of Glencoul way back in the seventies. Her predecessor, the small, forlorn Maid of Kylesku is slowly rusting away where she was beached on the northern shore, not far from the picture above.

On the A835

Strathcanaird

The A835 is a splendid road as it winds and curves through the mountains of Coigach towards Assynt. Strathcanaird is the last habitation for a while, and this is not a road for those who like Little Chefs, craft shops and cafes dotted along the way. It's a road that is a feast for the eyes, and pity the driver who dare not look at the scenery for fear of driving off it!

Stac Pollaidh

Mountains have a character all their own, and I often get the feeling that its not me that's moving, but them. They're not high, as mountains go; few of them are Munroes, over 3,000 feet. But they stand isolated and humped and jagged in the landscape and look as mountains ought to look. Take Stac Pollaidh for instance. Not quite 2,000 feet, if memory serves, but it stands above Loch Lugainn like a cone with a ruffled top. From the summit you can look out, as I once did, over a vista of lochs and bays and out to the sea shining silver in the sun which isn't that far away in this picture. Imagine it, out beyond Stac Pollaidh.
If we'd driven just a hundred yards further, the road would have climbed that little bit more and the picture would have included the loch. 

Cul beg and Cul Mor

It is a road full of surprises. There are footpaths, in the sense of hill tracks, in case I give the wrong impression, that lead to the mountains. Many of the small laybys have a parked car or two and no occupant enjoying the view or sipping thoughtfully from a thermos flask of coffee; they're often to be spotted plodding their way up some impossible seeming hill a couple of miles away. There are deer to look out for, and on this occasion, we found a herd of perhaps thirty, with a magnificent stag  in charge. We watched them with binoculars for a while, but they were too far away for photographs. On my little camera, they'd have been no more than shades of brown among the brown heather.

An aside: as I learned my units of measurement in the good old English way of inches, feet, yards and miles I cannot cope with the metric system. I know a metre equals 39 inches, so if I have to, I grab a calculator, tap in the number of metres, multiply it by 39 to get inches and then divide it by twelve to get feet. Then I can understand, because feet mean something to me.