A salmon omelette, toast & tea got me on the road, passing several deer munching by the roadside on the way out of Lochinver. The forecast was for high winds, gradually increasing over the next 2 days, just when I'd be taking ferries north
.
Short stop at Kylerhea -
Parked the VFR again just along the road to walk up a hill for a good pic of Kylerhea's lovely modern bridge, but the wind was howling up its gorge and I was getting the yips watching the VFR shift about on its side-stand
, so chickened out and just kept riding.
Turned north -
The next stretch was reasonably busy with huge-scale valleys and hills which made me feel inconsequential.
Then hit the north coast at Durness. Joined a queue of North Coast 500 bikes for fuel and a chat with a couple (there were 2 Romanian bikes too), filled up and when I went in to pay, found the crisps I'd been searching all over Britain for since arriving a month before. Got addicted to them on the last trip - thought Walkers had stopped making them - bought 3 packets :eat: -
Just along the road near Rispond. Great beaches up here, just a tad cold -
Don't know what it is but liked the white ring around its eye -
Followed the road south along Loch Eriboll, wind blowing a hoolie. Watched a cyclist get blown off his bike just after this pic. He unclipped but still wound up half sprawled on the road -
An eventful 15mins; just after that I had the only time I had to get off a road when a massive Dutch-reg motorhome blew straight through a passing place we were both heading for, and sailed forth regardless. I pulled off and tipped the bike left so my fat-arsed panniers didn't get taken out. Prick
.
Anyway, the scenery on the east side of the same Loch helped put that encounter out of mind -
Just past Heilam, turned right on an unclassified road which I nearly missed, with a small sign saying Altnaharra. It was fitting that I had to wait a few seconds to turn to allow a stream of bikes to come through, as once on this little road I saw only 3 cars in the next 25 miles. It initially follows Loch Hope -
The first creek crossing of loose stones had me a bit worried as I paddled across in 1st, wondering what it was going to be like further on, but all the remainder in this initial section were army-type steel bridges -
Clearly doesn't get much traffic -
Just past Altnacaillich, which is on the map but is just a single farm, lies Dun Dornaigil Broch -
Built around 0 AD. Ben Hope on the right -
A few miles south the valley started to open out -
Then the road climbed up onto a plateau. Another clearance ? -
The gale force wind added to the lonely, sombre mood up here. Loch Meadie -
Was quite happy to arrive at Altnaharra, not that there's much there, but a roadsign is better then nothing
. Continued NE along the B873 -
About as much at Syre as there was at Altnaharra, but farm houses were becoming regular and the country much greener as the geology passed to eastern Scotland's softer form -
Hit the north coast again at Bettyhill -
Turned east and let the gale blow me along, it was getting a bit wet & cold too
so pressed on to Thurso, then missed the road to Castletown where I was staying, and thus enjoyed an unscheduled short tour of far NE Scotland which has towns and roads not on my map, but it was all good in the end
.
More to come . . .