One of the
pleasures of touring in the highlands and staying at
places like the Lazy Crofter is meeting kindred folk.
A woman who was running Inchnadamph Lodge for
the season advised me not to rush south to Ullapool
but to slow down, take an extra day, and enjoy the
coast road through Drumbeg, Classnesie, and Stoer, and
to stay the night in the hostel at Achmelvich Beach.
This was excellent
advice. After a damp morning ride to the
Kylestrome Bridge (replacing the ferry that Peter had
used), the rain stopped while I ate my bread and
cheese on the old ferry dock at Kylesku. My next
destination was the tea garden in Drumbeg; if this had
existed in Peter's time, I'm sure that he would have
sought it out, for Peter was a great connoisseur of
Cyclists' Teashops. Indeed, I have a suspicion
that the teashop in Elsdon was part of the reason for
Peter's annual cycling weeks at Otterburn Hall in the
Cheviots. Drumbeg is only about 10 miles from the main
A894, but those 10 miles are a continual series of
hills as the road climbs out of one bay and drops
almost immediately into the next. The maximum gradient
measured on my cyclometer/altimeter was 31%, even
though the road signs indicated “only” 25%. As
you might imagine, progress was slow.
In the tea
garden I met an English threesome heading to the
campsite at Stoer; they had also come from Durness,
but had taken several days to do so. By the time
that I reached Achmelvich Beach, it was drizzling
heavily once more, and I was glad to be welcomed
inside the hostel, where the warden locked my bike in
his shed. It was still drizzling the next
morning when I left for Lochinver, but after a lazy
morning in the excellent visitor center and some time
spent catching up with my email in the new leisure
center, I once again took the hilly coast road,
continuing through Strathan and Inverkirkaig (another
teashop/café) and Inverpolly before heading back to
the main A835 along the shore of Loch Lurgainn, and
thus to Ullapool.
If, instead of the coast
road, one stays on the main road, the distance from
Durness to Ullapool is only 66 miles, and that seems
to have been Peter's choice. I was pleased to
have taken the extra day, because the cycling on the
narrow coast road was some of the most interesting of
my trip.
Ullapool is one of the
prettiest towns in the Highlands. In addition to
the Stornaway Ferry, many fishing craft use the busy
harbour, and the streets behind are well-supplied with
businesses catering to visitors. The
drizzle of the morning had given way to bright
sunshine by the time that I had arrived in Ullapool,
and I was pleasantly surprised to find Johanna, an
acquaintance from the hostel in Durness, drinking tea
at a harbourside cafe. I joined her for a while, and
we swapped stories of our differing routes from
Durness. Johanna was camping, and carrying a
very heavy load by my standards, but had secured an
idyllic campsite by the shore on the edge of town.
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