If you spend a week in the highlands as October turns inexorably into November you are clearly not a worshipper of the Sun. Even so, you might perhaps hope for a little bit of fine weather.
I think it's fair to say that on our late Autumn expedition to the environs of Loch Alsh we were plumb out of luck. We left home in freezing cold and driving rain and as we headed north it just got worse. The week was spent under leaden skies with the heating cranked up high. It was great.
There is something astonishingly comfortable about the feeling you get when you're snug inside your little tin box listening to the rain pounding powerlessly on the roof. Getting out in weather like this is one of the great advantages that a caravan has over a tent. Had we been under canvas the weather would have been a nusiance, maybe even a problem, in the 'van it was just part of the background.
It's an area we he never really visited before, having merely driven through it on the way to the Isle of Skye a couple of years ago*. It sits somewhat to the south of our more regular highland haunts in Assynt and Strathnaver and as a result we decided we'd gave a go at doing the journey in one go, rather than stopping overnight half way as we do when hitting the far north.
Despite the vileness of the weather we made the journey from North Yorkshire to the shores of Loch Duich in a shade over eight hours, which I think was pretty good going. We were fortunate to be pitching up at the Morvich Caravan Club site during a lull in the rain, but as the sun began to drop behind the mountains and the already grey sky grew even darker we opted to forgo any late afternoon sightseeing and settled in for an evening of hot food, good books and planning for the rest of the week.
Because even when the weather is bad and hill walking isn't all that attractive there is rather a lot to do...
One of the places we were particularly keen to visit was the little seaside town of Applecross. We'd heard it was a beautiful place, and checking it out on the map it seemed that the drive there would be pretty spectacular in itself.
We were right.
The roadled us over hills and through some pretty little villages that we'll probably talk about more in a later post.
Finally you get to the hill.
Oh my.
You need to understand - we're from Yorkshire. We know hills. We've spent a lot of time in Scotland, and the Lake District. Sutton Bank, the Hardknott Pass, The Struggle, which leads you up out of Ambleside to the Kirkstone Inn, these are all legendary hills which we have taken in our stride. We've towed a caravan up onto Rannoch Moor and up to the Commando Memorial above Spean Bridge at the southern end of the Great Glen.
We are not phased by steepness, is what I'm saying.
In that context you need to understand the full import of what I'm saying. This hill is seriously steep. It rises from sea level to a shade over two thousand feet in less than five miles. By the time you are approaching the top there are some hairpin bends where it felt as though the car was nearly vertical. Add to this the fact that it was raining hard, blowing a hoolie** and we were climbing into cloud and I was pretty happy that we were inside the car with the heating pumping away. You'd have to be crazy to be outside in weather like that.
So when, as we crested the hill, we saw an oldish bloke standing next to a Ford Focus waving a set of jump leads at us, we had to stop to help.
It turned out that he was a keen cyclist. He'd just ridden his bike up to the top of the hill - the hill we'd just found moderately challenging in a car, mark you - where his wife had been waiting to meet hime in their car.
Because you wouldn't want to go down the hill on a bike - that would be insane. Or something.
Anyway. It seems that Mrs cyclist had become bored sitting at the top of the hill and had made the mistake of listening to the radio. For quite a while. This had flattened the battery of the car and now they were stranded at the top of the hill in increasingly hostile weather.
Trust me. This picture gives you absolutely no idea of how steep this is.
We squeezed our car into the little layby and I got out to see what - if anything - I could do. The wind - and "wind" is probably the wrong word, I swear it was damn near hurricane force - was what we'd call in Yorkshire a "Lazy Wind", one that is too idle to bother going 'round you and instead just goes straight through. It was icy cold and utterly relentless. With one hand holding the bonnet to make sure the icy blast didn't rip it off and send it hurtling back towards Lochcarron I helped the cyclist to connect up his jump leads and Mrs Snail gave the engine some revs to see if we could spark the Focus back to life.
We couldn't.
After a quarter of an hour's freezing but fruitless effort we gave it up as a bad job and offered the couple a lift down into Applecross so that they could find a phone signal (there was no discernable network coverage of any kind up there) and get some slightly more mechanically competant assistance than me.
While Mr and Mrs cyclist set about phoning various garages and mechanics, myself and Mrs Snail retired to the Applecross Inn for a spot of lunch. The place had been recommended to us by many people, so I'm going to assume we were there on a bad day. Let's just say that following my Grandma's rule about saying nothing if you can't say something nice, I'm not reviewing the food. Mind you, the speciality is seafood, which as regular readers will know neither myself nor Mrs Snail actually eat, so we weren't experiencing them at their best in any case.
By the time the lunch ordeal was over Mr and Mrs Cyclist had arranged for a guy from Lochcarron to meet them at the top of the hill so we gave them a lift back up and waited 'till he arrived. The weather had not in any way improved, so the hoped for views had not materialised. On a clear day though they must be spectacular, and given that we'll almost certainly be back in the area we'll give the Applecross hill another try when the weather is less hideous.
*On that occasion I came home with pneumonia - not the best souvenier, and one that might have put me off Skye a little...
**I'm not sure if this is a generally used expression. If you're new to the expression it basically means that the wind was very, very strong.
