A Kylesku surprise

Well, this is a bit of a long one. What can I tell you? There's a lot to say!

The Kylesku Hotel is a place we know well. I've talked about it before and it has the happy distinction of being the only eaterie I can think of that gets just that little bit more awesome every time we visit. We've developed a fairly comfortable relationship with the place - after visiting a couple of times a year for the past decade and a half we recognise some of the staff (they don't recognise us - but that's hardly surprising, they see hundreds of different customers a week and besides, we're not that remarkable...) and even have a favourite table.

Well, we had a favourite table.

As indicated at the end of last week's edition, after discovering that Lochinver was mostly closed we headed north in the sure and certain knowledge that there would be no surprises at the The Kylesku Hotel. We were wrong.

As I've mentioned before the hotel sits just off the main road north, next to what used to be the slipway for the Kylesku Ferry before that service was replaced by the elegant arc of concrete which now carries the road across the narrows and onward to the north coast. Turning down what is now the dead end spur that leads to the hotel we were met with a building site. Essentially the whole building looked like it was being rebuilt.

This gave us a moment's pause - after all, it was lunch o'clock and for us that's the most important time of the day. We'd already discovered that all the places we'd been looking forward to eating at in Lochinver were closed - was Kylesku going to let us down too? With some trepidation we made our way quickly (it was chucking it down) along the front of the building to the steps that lead up to the bar praying silently that we weren't going to have to make an empty stomached trip back to Grummore.

We should have known better. The Kylesku Hotel has never let us down - why would it start now?

It was still a surprise though.

The carpet had gone, replaced by sleek hardwood floors. The rustic stripped pine tables which always looked as though they'd been salvaged from a farmhouse kitchen where they'd been loved by generations were gone too, replaced by crisper, paler, slightly more Terrance Conran style furniture, although some of the chairs were still the old green upholstered dark wood. I suspect they'll all be white in due course. The colour scheme lived in my memory as sort of cream and green. Now it's various shades of pebble grey with the odd brightly coloured "accent" wall.

Visually it's one hell of a change, but I rather liked it. It's perhaps a little less cosy, but it's lighter, brighter and very pleasant indeed. Well, take a look:

They also kept the old ship's wheel on the bar...

Oh, and we have a new favourite table:

Look at that view. Just LOOK at it!

The windows are now much bigger, which also goes a long way to making the place seem brighter, and I should be clear that the picture to the left doesn't even begin to do justice to the view down Loch Dubh.

We could have sat there for hours. In fact, we did. Twice, because we went back later in the holiday. To avoid confusion and repetition I'll talk about both visits at once.

On both occasions we were greeted by the very genial Mark, who I think in a previous blog I believe I described as looking as though he "could have stepped straight off Bondai Beach". He still does, and his cheerful friendliness always makes the room light up a little bit.

He brought the menus and explained which of the dishes listed on the specials menu were no longer available. We both elected to start with the potted lamb. I was expecting a sort of cold pate affair, along the lines of the potted beef we're so fond of in Yorkshire, but what we got was this:

It was delicious.

The lamb was served warm, and had clearly been cooked down over a very long time indeed. It was served with griddled bread and, on the first occasion, a celeriac and grain mustard coleslaw. On the second occasion, pictured above (because you're damn right we had it the second time we went too) a celeriac and caper coleslaw.

Personally I preferred the mustardy coleslaw, but since both were excellent, that's by the by.

It was warm, rich, perfectly seasoned and had a flavour so deep there was practically an echo. On a cold, wet, slate grey day it was the perfect comfort food - sort of distilled stew. We loved it so much on our second visit we asked our server if she'd ask the chef for the recipe. She told us with a smile and a twinkle that the chef "never reveals her secrets". I can't say I blame her. If I knew how to make something that perfect I wouldn't tell anybody either.

We'd arrived fairly early on that first visit and had been the first customers. We were in the middle of this unbelievable festival of flavour when the next customer arrived. It didn't occur to me to ask his permission to write about him, so I won't mention the name of this excellent old gentleman, although any regular of the Kylesku Hotel will doubtless know who I'm talking about, because he's something of a fixture.

We'd met him once before, on a previous visit when he'd regaled us with tales of his childhood around Loch Dubh during the war when his father had almost shot one of the top secret midget submarines that trained there after mistaking it for a seal. He sat down to his lunch of Loch Dubh spineys (think small languostines) just as our main courses were arriving, after dispatching Mark to collect a terracotta bust (actually he said "I've got a head in the boot of my car - could you go and get it for me?") which I believe is now displayed in a position of honour in the hotel.

Convivial as he was, when his spineys arrived he directed his full attention to his meal - as is only right. We did too. On that first visit I'd opted for the "Burger of the Day" (yes, I know, no shocks there) and Mrs Snail had gone for an old favourite, the Beetroot and Goat's Cheese Salad.

I won.

On our first visit of the trip the "Burger of the day" was a "Moroccan Lamb Burger" and it was utterly magnificent. I'm wishing I'd taken a picture because it was unutterably beautiful to look at. It was even better to eat. The Lamb patty was juicy, moist and wonderfully seasoned with spices that frankly I didn't recognise but really wanted to get to know better. The chips were, as in the past, about as close to perfect at it is possible for a chip to be - fat, golden and crispy on the outside, white, fluffy and steaming on the inside. There may have been salad. We don't speak of such things here.

Mrs Snail's Beetroot and goat's cheese salad looked amazing - there was more than one colour of beetroot on display which made the plate look exuberant rather than a charnel house - but it was also clear that the cheese did very much belong to the goat, and the goat was less than keen on sharing. There was not a lot of goat's cheese, is what we're saying. Indeed, the shortage was so severe that I didn't get to taste any, which means I only have Mrs Snail's word for the fact that in combination with the beets the effect of the breaded deep fried (we're still in Scotland, food lovers...)* nuggets of goat's cheese was exploseively good.

She wouldn't lie to me though - and if your only criticism of a meal is that you didn't get enough of it, that speaks pretty well of the food...

Our second foray to Kylesku was about a week later. As you already know, we both went for the insanely wonderful potted lamb as our starter, but we like to experiment, so our main choices were different.

Well, alright, I toyed with going for the burger of the day again, but the jovial and omnipresent Mark begged to make a recommendation. "Try the haunch of Venison," he suggested, "they serve it just pink, which is the only way to have it!" Well, you can't move in thois part of the Highlands for red deer, and they look not only magnificent, but also tasty, so how could I resist? Mrs Snail, who lacks my appetite for dead things, opted to try the cheese platter - normally a dessert - as her main. We ordered and settled back to watch the oyster catchers mince their way up and down the slipway, while a pair of herring gulls harrased the prawns that were swimming near the shore.

After a surprisingly short while our server - whose name I never quite got, I think it may have been "Elle" or "Ellie", whatever she was called, she was wonderful - brought our meals out to us. Just take a second and look at this:

I mean, where do I start?!

Haunch of Venison, some kind of braised greens (the menu told me what they were but all I can remember is that they were nice), mashed neeps, straw chips and dots of different vegetable purees, with a potato an haggis dauphinouse.

It really shouldn't have worked. Cheesy potatoes with haggis in them? With Venison? Really?

YES!

I guess many readers have not eaten venison. Let me explain. Imagine the finest beef fillet you have ever eaten.  Times that experience by three. That's bog standard venison. This though. Take your bog standard venison, multiply it by pi, add on your birthday than stick on a few more noughts. It was astounding. The bitterness of the braised greens and the sweetness of the neeps counterpointed each other, and the haggis dauphinouse was, well, interesting.

I know what's in haggis. Essentially, it's all the bits of a sheep you really wouldn't eat, minced up with oatmeal and shoved into a sheeps guts. In spite of that, I rather like it - so long as it's made to be crispy, something that the traditional steaming cannot do, and something that is never going to happen if you put it in a dauphinouse. Essentially, on paper, it's a bloody stupid idea.

And yet it worked.

Brilliantly.

The whole plate just came together to become the best meal I have had in some time. It was thge kind of meal you hated to finish. The kind of meal you wanted to be hungry enough to eat again. The kind of meal that makes you wish you were an Michelin inspector so that you could give the place a couple of stars. That good. I'm just going to go on record and suggest that any chef that can put those elements on a plate and make it work is a flat out genius.

By way of contrast Mrs Snail was somewhat less overwhelmed by her Cheese and Biscuits which seemed a little peremptory - three slabs of cheese with a couple of oatcakes, three grapes and a sort of onion marmalade sort of thing which jst didn't pack the pickly punch that a chutney would have provided. This is not a complaint (yes I know, it sounds a lot like one, but honestly it's just when everything is so good the little things that aren't quite perfect really stand out) as such, and although this was a bit of a low point in the culinary experience, the platter had an unexpected saving grace that made even the low point pretty darn high.

Did I mention that their chef was a genius and their waiting staff are awesome?

Well, I'm going to say it again.

Sitting quietly in the centre of the Cheese and Biscuit platter were three little balls of sesame seeds. Mrs Snail nibbled tentatively and then very quckly ate the whole thing - her expression melting into something approaching delighted content. She passed one of them to me and insisted that I try it.

It was amazing. We've christened these nectareous** nuggets of noshableness "sesame brittle", but in fact they were not quite crunchy and not quite chewey, but somewhere rather fascinatingly in-between. They were also sweet but not too sweet, with that nutty toasted sesame flavour that is almost but not quite bitter. They were so good that when our server came over to see if we wanted anything else, we asked for a bowlful, which she very generously provided. Told you the waiting staff were awesome!

On that second visit we skipped dessert - we were in a bit more of a hurry and settled for the sesame brittle balls. On our first visit the weather was so uninviting we did stick around for a third course. I went for their tablet ice-cream, while Mrs Snail went for a Pear tarte tatin with poppy seed syrup.

People who haven't spent much time in Scotland may be unfamiliar with Tablet. Mrs Snail, who doesn't really have a sweet tooth, once described it as "gritty fudge", but to me it is the finest of confections. It is sort of fudge like, but drier and crumblier. It is also outrageously sweet. My two scoops of vanilla ice-cream were loaded with huge nuggets of the stuff. It was heavenly, but it was Mrs Snails tarte tatin that was the real star.

I confess I was intrigued by the "poppy seed syrup". So far as I was aware the only syrup you're going to get from a poppy seed is opium - which would be an innovative approach to ensuring repeat custom, but I'm guessing it would also attract entirely the wrong clientele. The tarte was just about the right size, just the right texture and actually tasted of pear rather than suger. The syrup was not in fact opium, but a regular suger syrup with poppy seeds in it. They seemed to be a strange addition but they did add an interesting flavour and another layer of texture to the dish. The tarte is supposed to be accompanied with a scoop of Run and Raisin Ice-Cream. I have no idea whether that would have worked, because both Mrs Snail and myself regard Run and Raisin as an abomination so she asked if they would kindly swap it for pouring cream, which worked brilliantly.

And that's the all new Kylesku Hotel. It still gets better every time we visit.

Ultimately I think that the wonderful old regular said it best when he told us "The only thing you can do at the Kylesku is start at the top of the menu and work your way down."

He wasn't wrong.






Postscript:

I loathe prawns in all their forms. Mrs Snail adores them, but now suffers from the kind of allergy to them that makes your lips turn blue and inflates your tongue like a balloon. This is why neither of us ordered what I maintain is the hotel's most spectacular dish - a platoon of langoustines skewered on what is basically a sword which hangs, Damocles like, above a dish of garlic butter. I'm please to report that on our second visit I observed a fellow diner being served with this insanely cool seafood sensation. I'm pleased to see that it's still on the menu and that the presentation has not changed. I'd love to show you a picture of it, but I balked at invading a person's privacy to ask if I could photograph their lunch. If anyone from the hotel is reading this and wants to post a picture in the comments I'd be most grateful...


*Sorry. I do love a good stereotype. And I have visited the chippie in Stonehaven that claims to have invented the deep fried Mars Bar, so it's not like I haven't seen evidence for the idea that the Scots will deep fry anything.

**Sorry again. I wantedto use alliteration so I asked my Facebook friends for a synonym for "delicious" beginning with "N". They have a wide vocabulary, my Facebook friends...

What to do when the whole town is closed!

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...

A Highland Spring.

Hello! Long time no see! I'm thinking of this a "Road Snail season three", and hopefully we'll be weekly from now on...

At Snail Towers we have a mantra. "Never go to Scotland for the weather." Which is why, as I write this, I am not in the least bit perturbed that my view looks like this:

Spring in the Highlands...

It's April 1st and here on our lochside pitch at the Caravan Club's Altnaharra/Grummore site we're experiencing rather a lot of weather. In fact I rather suspect we're getting pretty much all the weather...

Anyway. The point is that Bonnie Scotland is not always the warmest or driest of holiday destinations, especially if  you head, as we generally do, for the northern highlands. What never ever fails to be however, is spectacular! I mean, just look at this for a second:

Stunning, isn't it?

So, I imagine that we'll be doing a lot of getting about and about over the next two weeks - we spent some time yesterday on a snowy west coast, which I'll tell you about in a future posting, and we have plans to hit the east coast tomorrow.

Right now though, the horizontal snow and hail against the 'van sounds like a perpetual fall of ball bearings (not even small ball bearings, mind you) while we are being rocked by what I know from my experience filling the water barrel earlier is a bitingly cold gale force wind. Frankly venturing out is a less than attractive proposition, which is why I'm spending my afternoon at the keyboard pondering the questions that always arise when I think about caravan life.

For instance, why do some people travel with their caravan blinds down? Myself and Mrs Snail have made a bit of a study of this, and roughly half the caravans we see on the road have their blinds drawn, the other half (to which we belong) travel with them open. Now. travelling with them open was never a concious choice - it simply never occured to us to close them before setting off. Presumably, unless they set off in the middle of the night, those who travel with blinds down must have deliberately decided to do so.

Are they carrying top secret cargo they don't want anyone else to see? Is their upholstery particularly susceptable to fading? It may sound as though I'm taking the micky, but I'm really not. If there's a reason to do it I'd love to know what it is!

Then there's the perplexing question of why everyone elses' caravans are so clean. I wash my caravan with reasonable regularity but let's be honest, it's a bit of a chore and frankly life is too short to worry about it too much. as a result some of the hard to get to areas, like the TV ariel, have gathered a bit of muck. In addition, even when we set out with a spotlessly clean unit, by the time we reach our destination we've picked up the usual detritus of the road - splashes of oil, dust, road salt and so on.

And yet, when we arrived at the Caravan Club's site at Bunree - our usual staging post on the way up here to the northern highlands - all the other caravans seemed to be spotless. How? They must have driven up some of the same roads we did. Why were we covered in a thin layer of grime while some of them shone so brightly they were literally hurting my eyes. There is clearly a secret here, and if any of you out there are privy to it I'd be most grateful if you'd share!

Oh, and while I'm on the subject - why are bits constantly dropping off? The Road Snail herself is a Lunar Quasar 462. She's relatively new - bought in 2007, and well maintained. And yet things keep breaking loose. Now, obviously, the nature of a touring caravan is to be dragged up hill and down dale, and in our case, along narrow twisty roads that are not particularly always well maintained. Our caravan's travelling life is one of shake, rattle and roll. This is bound to cause screws to loosen, which is why one of the first things we do on arrival anywhere is to tighten a few things up.

However. Caravan manufacturers surely understand that this will be the case - they put wheels on the damn things after all, they must be accepting that their products will be doing some rolling about! Why then does the front of our fire keep dropping off? Is it really beyond the wit of man to design a caravan heater that stays where it's put when the caravan itself moves from A to B? We can put men on The Moon and robotic explorers on Mars but we can't do that?

Really?

Why have the lenses fallen off both my front running lights? Again, I'll accept the 'van might've been shaken about a bit on the way up here, but bits don't fall off the car in the same way. Are caravans inherently weak? Is this a clever conspiracy to flog us more spare parts? I have no idea, but it's bloody irritating!

Still, the 'van is shaking rather less than it was twenty minutes ago, and the ball bearings have abated somewhat, so I think I'll put the laptop away and see if I can spot an eagle - or at least a buzzard. Have a good week - I hope to see you here again next friday!

Stonehaven

 I think it's fair to say that I've fallen more than a little bit in love with Stonehaven.

Perhaps it's because it's the first destination we've visited with the Road Snail for quite some time, but actually I think it's also that this self-styled "happening little place" really is something a little bit special. Indeed, I can't remember when I've taken to a place more quickly.

We arrived up the A90 after what I can only describe as a freakishly easy journey north. I mean, we drove up past Glasgow on the last Saturday of the 2014 Commonwealth Games and there was still no traffic to speak of. Seriously, we were beginning to wonder if everyone else knew something we didn't...

The Caravan Club site is situated in Queen Elizabeth Park (about which more later) at the northern end of the town, about five yards from the beach. Not even exaggerating, it's literally on the other side of the road. Indeed, as we staggered out of the car (it had been an easy drive, but it had still taken the better part of nine hours and our legs were not all that keen to straighten - one of the hazards of getting to your forties, I'm afraid) one of the first things we noticed was the wonderfully evocative smell of salt and seaweed. And the sound of gulls - but more about them later too.

The Caravan Club site is pretty much brand spanking new. I understand from some of the reviews that there has been a caravan site there for some years, but that the Club has only recently taken it on and refurbished the place. Certainly the toilet/shower block, utilities points and warden's hut are all brand new - and they're all excellent, as indeed are the wardens, who could not have been more welcoming.

From the gates of the site to the beach is a walk of about eight feet - to your left a mix of sand and rocky outcrops dotted with rockpools at low tide. To the right a swathe of sand and shingle stretching all the way to the harbour at the southern end of the town, about a mile and a bit away.

Should you choose to venture to the right, the walk immediately takes you past a 1930's salt water Lido, a magnificent ice cream emporium, an award winning chippy (or "chipper", as they seem to be known up in those parts) and a nice little restaraunt. More about all of those in a later post - and you haven't even walked two hundred yards yet...

The walk south along the front takes you along a pleasant board walk, past a couple of cafes and B&Bs, as well as a range of residential property. At some point, not too long ago  a great deal of effort must have been invested in this footpath.

There are a number of wire framed sculptures, like this dolphin, and swathes of wild flowers were planted.

The sculptures are brilliant, but I think it's fair to say that the wildflowers have suffered somewhat from the ravages of time, tide and winter storms. We were there in the middle of August, and some of the displays of poppies were truly spectacular, but there were also some expanses of gravelly scrub where wildflowers might once have been.

This in no way detracted from the overall impression though, because you're still walking within a few feet of the sea, along a magnificent bay, towards a beautiful harbour.

The first part of the harbour you come across by this route is not only blessed with ice cream shops and the very highly regarded Ship Inn (which I regret I cannot provide a review for because we didn't get a chance to visit, but it was recommended by everyone we spoke to and has four and a half stars on Trip Advisor, so it must be doing soemthing right) but also a beautiful little stretch of golden sandy beach. Further on the harbour is basically mud, but I don't think I went down to the harbour once when there weren't at least a few families with young children buidling sandcastles. It felt like the seaside used to be - not a burger van or amusement arcade in sight, just a lot of people having a really great time.

The "Mudflat" half of the harbour has its own attractions. The water is very clear, and at low tide very shallow. This means that you might get lucky and see a fish or two swimming around. I must've spent nearly an hour watching the flatfish in the photo to the right wandering about on the floor of the harbour. I have no idea what type of fish it was (if you do, please let me know in the comments...) but it was truly fascinating. It didn't swim so much as walk around on its fins.

The harbour is also the home of the Tolbooth Museum, a volunteer run repository of the town's history. There are some fascinating displays of local ephemera and the display cases are (almost) literally full to bursting, which is perhaps slightly to the detriment of the establishment, in that it has clearly made it difficult for the curators (who are volunteers remember, so also time limited) to organise the eclectic collection coherently, which means that it does give the slight impression of being a big bunch of interesting stuff, rather than a carefully assembled assortment of artefacts presented to explain how things used to be. This is, however, not much of a criticism. The staff are incredibly friendly and more than happy to engage the interested visitor in conversation about times past. It's only open in the afternoons,and it's well worth a hour of your time. Even better, entry is free.

Occupying the first floor of the Tolbooth - which incidentally is regarded as the oldest building in Stonehaven, having been originally constructed to house stores for nearby Dunnottar Castle (about which, more in a future post) - is the Tolbooth Restaurant. This is somewhere else we kept meaning to try - but it was always busy and given that I don't like seafood all that much and Mrs Snail is allergic to most of it we never did try all that hard. Again, the reviews would seem to suggest that this is our loss...

If you continue your walk south from Stonehaven Harbour, the path takes you up a steep hill to the Stonehaven War Memorial which stands like a crown on the hill above the town.

Beyond there, the path takes you further along the rather impressive cliffs towards the equally Dunottar Castle. For now, we'll pause on our journey and look at the view. Next time though, we'll go and take a look at the castle which dominates the cliffs to the south.

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.

Meanwhile, back in Strathnaver...

I've told you about the Caravan Club's excellent site at Grummore/Altnaharra before. I've even taken you for a bit of a stroll around the place in a posting when we took the the Road Snail up there early last summer. Last week's post was mostly written while I sat by the bonnie banks of Loch Naver enjoying the endless changes of light and looking for the Eagle which everyone else claimed to see "almost daily". Regrettably as I write this I'm back at home, the Snail is on the drive and what I have to consider "real life" has resumed.

I hate it when it does that.

Still, our eight night stay was a spectacularly good one - the theme of the week would appear to have been "rainbows", as the heady mix of sunshine and showers meant we saw several of them. Indeed, as we travelled north from Bunree along the Great Glen a rainbow actually chased us the full ten mile length of Loch Lochy.

It's a four hour drive from Bunree to Grummore, but an early start meant we got there before lunch and were sitting lochside with a glass of wine by early afternoon. In the rain. And high winds. Seriously, Loch Naver was so rough there were actually breaking waves - you could have surfed it! But do you know what? We really didn't care. We were greeted by the perennially cheerful warden and another rainbow before settling down to enjoy the view.

This was a different raimbow later in the week. This is the view though...

That really was the pattern of the week. We went on the odd excursion - more of which in a later post - but the majority of our time was spent on and around the site watching birds, ogling the view and pottering about on our little inflatable kayak. 

Enoch (so named because it perpetually leans to the right) is a new addition to our equipment list, bought with the express intention of spending some time afloat on Loch Naver. In truth we'd have vastly preferred a more solid boat but the inflatable was sturdy enough and was much, much easier to fit into the car! 

If I'm honest my cunning plan was to use the kayak to paddle over to the broch located on a small island on the other side of Loch Naver. By all accounts it's in a much better state of preservation than the example to be found on the site itself, which if we're honest is essentially a pile of rubble. This turned out to be a little ambitious however. A quarter of a century ago as a younger, fitter Venture Scout I did a lot of kayaking and got to be reasonably good at it. While I soon found that the skills hadn't left me, after twenty five years of relative inactivity it seems that my upper body strength really had. The broch was clearly a little over-ambitious so we restricted ourselves to the aforementioned pottering about. 

It was still wonderful - as proof I submit this waterbourne video of absolutely nothing happening.

 

Lolling about on the water was terribly relaxing though, and we'll get to the broch next time...

Life on the site is the epitome of relaxation really - although if you have an interest in birds of 'planes, a relaxation which is punctuated by moments of intense excitement. Strath Naver is often used by the Royal Airforce, and indeed airforces of other nations, for training purposes and the sight of fast jets skimming down the loch is not unusual. They are often eye-wateringly low, which from my perspective as a 'plane nut is all to the good.

Obviously the R.A.F. operates a minimum altitude policy, and even here, which must surely qualify as one of the least built up areas in the country fixed wing aircraft are forbidden to fly below 100 feet and I would hate to suggest that any pilots would ever breach that. All I'm saying is that after a little saunter up the hill in the middle of the week we were there I had the immense privilage of watching an R.A.F. C-130 Hercules transport 'plane pass below me as it made its way along the strath.

This was actually the third C-130 we'd seen over the week, two more having come over at roughly the same height a day or two earlier. We were also lucky enough to see several Tornado GR-4s doing their thing, also flying deliciously low.

Again, I would never suggest that pilots of Her Majesty's forces would ever fly below the limit. I do however have two things on good authority. The first is that once they drop into the Strath 'planes are off radar and so their bosses can't be sure how high they are. The second is that several reliable witnesses claim to have seen an R.A.F. Typhoon fly down the loch so low that it left a wake. 

We're going to pause for a moment to reflect on how magnificent that is*.

The 'planes aren't the only attraction though. Me and Mrs Snail also love to watch the birds, and Loch Naver is a magnificent place to spot our avian friends. I've mentioned the birdfeeder we carry around with us before, and as ever at this site it was perpetually swarming with Chaffinch, Siskin and Blue Tits. We also had slightly less regular visits from Wheatears, Pied Wagtails and, erm, Sheep:

They like birdseed. Who knew?

I already mentioned the eagle that everybody else saw "almost daily". We're pretty sure we caught a couple of glimpses of a Golden Eagle, but never saw it clearly enough to be absolutely sure. A White Tailed Sea Eagle has also been sighted on the loch, but so far we've never had so much as a glimpse of it.

We have, however, on many occasions seen pairs the rare Red Throated Diver, and the even rarer Black Throated variety - both of which we were privillaged to see again on this trip. The real ornathological highlight of the week however came not at Grummore but on a trip to the East Coast - so I'll save that story for a later post.

The real star of the show though, is always that view. I could happily spend a week sitting looking at it with a glass of wine in one hand and a pair of binoculars in the other...

...I mean seriously - look at that!

One windless frosty morning we even woke up to see "sundogs":

See them? Either side of the sun...

The most astonishing spectacle provided by the view came on our last day, however. We had been scheduled to leave on the saturday, but we were enjoying ourselves so much that we extended for an extra night which meant we left on Easter Sunday 2014.

I have to say, we were initially disappointed. We raised the blinds that morning to be greeted by thick fog - not only could we not see across the loch, we couldn't see the loch itself! 

Feeling more than a little chagrined that we were to be deprived of one last look at the beauty of Loch Naver and Ben Klibreck we began the "packing up routine". As we did so, however, the fog began to burn off. As it thinned glimpses of the opposite shore began to appear, and then, this:

I have no idea what to call it. It's not a rainbow - a "fogbow" I guess? Here's how it fitted into the general view:

Pretty, itsn't it? The phenomenon only lasted a few minutes before the sun climbed a little higher nad the fog thinned a little more.

By the time we were hitched up and ready to go we were once again bathed in brilliant sunshine beneath a gin clear sky. Strathnaver is a hard place to leave when it's like that, but I suppose if you don't leave you can never go back, and going back is something we're already looking forward to.

*And yes, before anybody says it, of course such things totally upset the peace and tranqulity of the area. But they only do it for a few seconds at a time, and a jet at twenty feet isn't noticeably louder than a jet at one hundred feet. They have to train, and frankly  - given that most of the time flying low makes our pilots less likely to attract hostile fire, I'm happy for them to fly as fast and as low as they like.

Getting away again - Eating in Onich.

We would normally have been out and about with our little house on wheels a couple of times at least by this time of year. This year however circumstances have dictated a later start to the Road Snail's season, which is why posts have been so thin on the ground around here lately.

We really can't put off our first foray into the highlands any longer though, so as I write we're pitched up at the Altnaharra (nee Grummore) Caravan Club site on the banks of Loch Naver in the central Highlands. 

As ever, we didn't come here in one bounce, following the long high road to Bunree just south of Fort William for a two night stop over on the way.

Now, I've talked at length about Bunree before, so I won't waste your time repeating myself. The site is still a real gem of a place, nestling against the shores of Loch Linnhe just to the west of the Corran Narrows.  

Once again we were lucky enough to secure a lochside pitch, and were quite content to spend our one full day in Lochaber looking at the view watching the boats sail past. 

We did need to eat though, and we find it impossible to stay so close to the magnificent spectacle of Glencoe without driving through it a couple of times, so after a lazy start we set out into a grey overcast morning to see what we could see.

Glencoe never disappoints - whatever the weather, whatever the season, whatever the time of day there is always something to catch the eye. On this occasion it was the sheer volume of water cascading down the slopes of the Glen. Great white torrents roared and gurgled from the melting snow on the peaks down every stream and channel, swollen still further by the not inconsequential rainfall "enjoyed" by this part of Scotland in recent months.

From there we ventured a little way down the picturesque Glen Etive and spent an entertaining half hour watching a group of canoeists shooting an impressive set of rapids. Well, I say shooting the rapids - they were clearly new to the sport and what they were mostly doing was falling in with a flurry of paddle and a slightly shocked expression. They did it with enthusiasm though...

The time was ticking inexorably on towards lunch o'clock - which regular readers may remember is pretty much the most important time of day aboard the Road Snail, so we left the canoe novice s to their literal baptism into their chosen sport and headed back into the great gouge of Glencoe in search of food.

Regular readers may remember the meal we had at the duck egg blue "Glencoe Gathering", which we enjoyed in spite of the fact that one of the lumps of chicken in her kebab was raw in the middle. That's the kind of kitchen faux pas that would without question normally ensure that we'd never even consider returning, so the fact that we did consider giving the place another go should tell you something about how much we liked it.

On this occasion however we decided to try somewhere new. The site at Bunree sits a fraction north of the little settlement of Onich, which means that over the years we've driven past the Onich Hotel many, many times and every time we've done so we've said "we should try lunch there sometime" but for some reason never had.

This trip we decided to rectify that. We'd heard good reports of the place, and as we pulled into their little lochside carpark our expectations were high. 

The hotel sits demurely on the shoreline of Loch Linnhe, it's neatly kept gardens leading down to a small crescent of beach set in a sheltered bay. We made our way through the main doors into a dimly lit lobby and were directed into the restaurant. "We normally serve lunches in the lounge bar, but we've a wedding in toady" explained the smiling waitress who showed us to our seats.

The restaurant was a long narrow room with one wall taken up almost entirely with windows offering views of the loch which on a fine day must be stunning. Since we were there on a gloomy day of slate grey water, steel grey skies and drizzle filled air our attention was focused more on the interior and our corridor like surroundings.

They were, to be frank, little more inspiring than the weather beyond the window. Everything was clean, but the decor could most generously be described as "tired". The dark floral print curtains were a little faded and nothing quite matched anything else.  

Things started to look up when the menus arrived however. Even before we read them they were impressive documents. Each was a large rectangle of card printed on one side with the bill fayre on one side and a beautifully composed photograph of the small standing stone which occupies a nearby field on the other. Clearly whoever designed the menu has not yet been let loose on the interiors. If they ever are I confidently predict that the results will be spectacular.

Far more important than what a menu looks like of course is what it actually says. We've seen many a flash looking menu in places where the the food has been dull - you always have to beware of places where style is given priority over quality. I wasn't worried though - if this were an establishment which placed style over substance they would have redecorated a decade ago. No, this this is a menu that got even better when you read it. Whoever put that collection of dishes together really cared about food, which of course makes them our kind of people.

Perhaps it was because this was the first real day of our first excursion of the year, but I was feeling extravagant enough to plump for a rib-eye steak. Because she is more sophisticated than me Mrs Snail opted for a Bourgenoin style shin of beef. Because she isn't much more sophisticated than me she did, however, ask if she could have it with chips rather than the fondant potatoes the chef prescribed.

When the food arrived it surpassed every expectation. I'd ordered my steak medium, which seems to be something chefs of all calibres seem to struggle with. Rare and extra rare seem to be the default position, and if you order well done they just assume you have no idea and cook it 'till it's like boot leather.

Medium though, that they all seem to struggle with. Over the years I've been served "medium" steak that has been rare enough for a good vet to get back on its feet, and so overcooked and dried up that it would have served as body armour. 

This though, this was perfectly judged. Just the faintest hint of pink in the middle,  juicy and succulent and bursting with flavour. It was accompanied by crisp golden chips, roasted tomatoes and a pile of garlic mushrooms that were almost as meaty as the steak itself. 

Mrs Snail's shin of beef was even more impressive. Shin is not the easiest cut to cook well, but this was spot on. Slow cooked and literally falling apart at the merest touch of the fork, served on a pool of thick and unctuous sauce. 

Both meals were unbelievably good. We're a demanding audience where food is concerned and we were totally blown away. About the only criticism I can level at the place is the fact that I couldn't wash it all down with my customary glass of Coke.

The hotel has a passable wine list - as she doesn't drive Mrs Snail was able to enjoy a juicy Shiraz with lunch. As I'm always driving wine is never on my lunch menu. I don't really mind this because I have a passion for Coca-Cola which borders on the unhealthy. Sadly the Onich Hotel offers only Pepsi, which I'm afraid just won't do at all, or worse something on draft referred to as "Cola", which generally speaking is an abomination.

As a result I was forced to go for the tea totallers default beverage and have a glass of lemonade. It's a long time since I had lemonade. I can't imagine it's an experience I'll repeat any time soon...

That's a pretty churlish criticism though. The bottom line is that the Onich Hotel was spectacular and we'll definitely be returning.

Then it was off to what I still think of as the real Highlands. More on that next time - hope to see you all then.