Long time readers of this Blog will know the special place that Lochinver, the little fishing town at the heart of Assynt in the north West Highlands, holds a very special place in the hearts of myself and Mrs Snail. This was the place that first introduced us to the wonders of the far north of Scotland, indeed this was the place that caused us to buy the Road Snail in the first place, when we decided that we just couldn't afford to keep renting self catering accomodation if we were going to visit as often a we wanted to.
So, on Tuesday 31st March 2015 - the day before I sat in a hail straffed caravan and wrote last weeks post - we set out under gloomy skies and headed west, out of Strathnaver and towards Assynt. By the time we were halfway to Lairg, the snow was plastering itself against the windscreen and sitting an inch thick on the apparantly untreated roads. By the time we'd dropped down towards Loch Shin and begun the approach to Lairg the snow had largely turned to sleet and rain though, so we plodded on regardless.
I'll not bore you with a long winded description of the journey. It was windy, cold, and when it wasn't snowing it was either hail, sleet or rain. Had we been walking or cycling it would have been utterly, utterly miserable. fortunately we were safely ensconsced in the warmth and comfort of our trustworthy Renault Koleos, so we were perfectly fine - it's just that the view was nothing to write home about, so I won't.
Before too long we were skirting the shores if Loch Assynt and then dropping down into the familiar surroundings of Lochinver itself.
I've talked about Lochinver before and to be honest, it hasn't changed much since the last time I posted about it. It is, without question, one of our very favourite places, but on this particular day I must confess only its mother could have loved it. Under a sullen, slate grey sky we drove down the main (and pretty much only) street, and out to the end of the harbour. We were pleased to see that there were a couple of fishing boats in, but no sign of the massive European boats that we used to see so aften in the mind nineties.
It's tragic really. I remember on my first visit to this little fishing town about twenty years ago, I walked down to the huge hanger like building on the dockside late one evening with my father in law and watched as hundreds, maybe thousands of white plastic crates laden to the brim with ice and all manner of fresh fish were unloaded from the boats, auctioned by a man in white wellies, and then loaed into a fleet of refrigerated lorries and whisked away to restaurants, supermarkets and high end fishmongers.
In those days you would see maybe a dozen massive fishing vessels, and any number of smaller local boats a week. These days? Not so much. The massive beige and brown hanger sized unloading shed is still there, but it doesn't seem to get much action these days. It seems that tourism is the town's major industry these days, but even that seemed to be hibernating.
As we'd driven down the main street we'd already noticed that the Assynt Visitor Centre was closed, which came as a disappointment because we'd been hoping to talk to the always knowledgable staff about Eagle sightings and the status of Lochinver's famous Heronry. Culag Woods, on the southern shores of Lochinver are home to one of the largest Heronries in Europe, and the sight of the incongruously majestic birds returning to their treetop nests in the breeding season is noting short of gobsmacking. As it was, we were just going to have to muddle along ourselves, and as the rain came down hard again, we agreed that descretion was the better part of valour and decided against sloshing our way through a woodland walk to go and look for them.
Besides, "lunch o'clock" was rapidly approaching and we had our sights set on a couple of new eateries that had sprung up since our last visit to the heart of Assynt.
Given that we were at the Culag end of the harbour, we furst turned our attention to Peet's. This restaurant opened in 2014, and having given it the once over online, we thought it looked pretty good. However, it also looked pretty closed. On further investigation we discovered that it had been operating as an evening take away only, and that lunch and dinner service would recommence on...
...1st April 2015.
We were a day early. Dammit. Because if the website is even half way accurate, Peet's looks pretty good!
Still, "Nil Desperandum" and all that. To be honest, I wasn't all that disappointed. I'd been keen to investigate Peet's, but there was another "new kid on the block" that I was even keener to try.
You see, the best meal I have ever eaten was in Lochinver, at the very, very fine Albannach Hotel. At the time, I remember commenting that the place deserved a Michelin Star. Well, now it has one and the proprioters have branched out and taken over The Caberfeidh pub, which stands at the western end of the main street, turning it into a "dining pub". We've been keen to try the place since we first heard about it, so we turned the car around and headed back into town.
We were to be disappointed.
Peering through the windows we found The Caberfeidh to be a warm and inviting looking place. But it was also shut. Open for lunch only on thursday, friday, saturday and sunday lunchtimes. We were either a day late of a few days too early. However good it looked (and it did) we weren't getting fed.
Regular readers will know that lunch is pretty damned important, and so we were left with limited options. Our timing was terrible and our next most favoured option - buying some stuff for a picnic and finding a pretty spot (of which the area is more than well endowed) to eat it in - was ruled out by the ever worsening weather.
So. What to do?
Well, one of the things we really love about Assynt is the magnificent sense of isolation. The other is that dotted through the gloriously empty mountains and moorland is a disproportionately large number of spectacularly good places to eat. All we had to do was move on to another one.
Thus it was that we carried on, back out of Lochinver, back along the shores of Loch Assynt to the main road north, where we turned off and headed towards the Kylesku hotel - another of our favourite haunts. There we knew there would be a warm welcome, a crackling wood fire and some absolutely top notch food. Oh yes, we knew there'd be no surprises there.
Turns out we were wrong about that too...
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