Grummore to Kylesku.Enjoy the ride!

If you read the last posting here you'll already know that we spent most of our most recent sojourn to the wonderful Strathnaver area paddling on the Loch, bird watching and ducking whenever the RAF flew over (or occasionally under) us. But you simply cannot go to such an outstanding area of natural beauty and not want to get out into the landscape, so we did venture off on the occasional tour of the countryside.

When you decide to do this you realise two things. The first is that you have to drive rather a long way to actually get to anywhere. The second is that because of this, you might as well go anywhere. Grummore is almost exactly bang slap in the middle of the north of Scotland. The West Coast is an hour and a half or so away. So is the East Coast. The North Coast is a little closer, but on this particular day we decided to head west, with the ultimate aim of hitting the wonderful Kylesku Hotel for lunch.

So, off we set. A sharp left turn out of the campsite and then away we went. It's about eighty miles from Grummore to Kylesku, depending on the route you take, although there are no shortcuts in this part of the world. Whichever way you go though, if you keep your eyes open there's a lot to see. If only there was a way to condense the trip into five minutes or so.

Oh, hang on:

Hang on a little longer...

OK, yes, I have a new app on my phone that does time lapse videos, but for some reason Blogger won't upload it. You can view it on YouTube here though.You might see a few more of these if I can get Blogger to behave, it was rather fun. i should just confirm that no speed limits were broken in the production of the video...

Gimmicks aside though, it's nice to be able to show you some of the splendour of the landscape I keep banging on about. There are several unlabelled pauses on the video which were basically caused by either myself or Mrs Snail spotting something interesting. Usually it was either a buzzard or a group of red deer - it's not clear on the video but at the point where we stop to look at Red Deer a whole flock of them had run across the road in front of us. A truly magnificent sight - most of them were young stags, so it was a bit like watching a bewintered forest running up the hill.

We also stopped at the southern end of Loch More to watch some newly arrived Whooper Swans (and yes, I got the spelling wrong on the video) gliding along in a most stately fashion. I'm rather fond of swans, and these massive migrants - the largest swans in the northern hemisphere - were an unexpected delight. They're not a terribly common breed in this part of the world, but they really are magnificent.

Beyond Loch More you come out onto the  A894 and turn south. The immediate thing you notice is that suddenly you're driving on a road that has two lanes! After so many miles on single track it genuinely tales a minute or two to get used the the idea that you don't need to slow down and work out where the next passing place is when you see somebody coming the other way...

The road takes you south, through the little village of Scourie - which boasts a very fine General Store, a useful thing to know in this land without supermarkets - and then on to the viewpoint above Kylestrome and then the viewing point for the beautiful Kylesku Bridge. I banged on at some length about this sleek masterpiece of concrete engineering and the ferry service it replaced in a previous post so for now I'll just show you what it looks like:

Nice, innit?

We didn't pause here just to look at the bridge though. The car park also accommodates a memorial to the brave men of the Royal Navy who used the cold waters of the Lochs to train in the operation of

midget submarines and manned torpedoes during the Second World War.

The midget subs were crewed by four men and carried was used to place two ton charges beneath enemy ships. Claustrophobe that I am, I can't imagine anything worse.

The "Manned Torpedo" was even more insane, although at least clautrophobia wouldn't have been an issue. Basically two blokes in diving gear sat astride a great big torpedo and rode it up to the target before detaching the warhead.

The memorial carries the names of the submariners involved, and a brief description of the vessels

they used. As was the case with the Commando training around Spaen Bridge the locals kept the aquatic goings on here secret even after the war. This memorial was not erected until 1993, and that was mostly because the activities of the XII Submarine Flotilla was classified for many years after hostilities ceased.

Beyond the bridge, it is a matter of a few hundred yards to the car park by the Kylesku Hotel where we had a fine meal and some unexpected conversation - about which, more next time.