Sunday 17th June,
With the second full cooked breakfast, (well actually just
one and a half to be accurate since I was still stuffed from the night before),
we set off on the final leg of our journey, stopping off at Tesco in Inverness
for some supplies along the way. As usual for us we were up and off fairly early
but since entry into the cottage wasn’t until four o’clock we had plenty of
time for the usual Loch Ness and Fort Augustus photos.
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| Loch Ness |
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| Fort Augustus |
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| Caledonian Canal |
Generally the weather remained miserable with the steady
drizzle replaced with proper rain for our run through the Great Glen. We’re on
holiday of course, so the tendency is for everything to seem more romantic, but
somehow the rain and mist doesn’t detract from the scenery or sense of place,
it simply adds another dimension and reminds you that this type of weather is
why Scotland is what it is, and I can’t imagine why we’d ever want to change
that. By the time we pulled into the Commando Memorial at Spean Bridge the rain
had stopped, only to be replaced by a brisk, cold wind coming in from the north
west so, after paying our respects to my childhood heroes, we carried on to
Fort William for coffee and cake.
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| Proper men |
Now I like Fort William. I admit that I haven’t spent a lot of
time there, but from what I’ve seen it seems a pleasant enough place. On a
cold, windy, damp Sunday however its charms were well hidden. We joined the
rest of the tourists wandering the high street looking into the usual souvenir
shops as much to keep warm as to consider buying anything before we walked along the
front and watched some very cold looking tourists disembark from one of the
wildlife spotting cruises down Loch Linnhe. Eventually we made our way back up
to the high street and Cafe 115 for the promised coffee and cake, both of which
were more than adequate!
We felt we were still a little bit ahead of schedule when we
left Fort William heading for the Corran Ferry, but reckoned that if we arrived
at the cottage an hour or so early nobody was likely to tell us we’re not
allowed in until exactly four o’clock! As it turned out the ferry had just left
when we arrived so we had to wait a half hour or so before we could cross. The
views each side made the wait bearable though!
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| Waiting doesn't seem so bad with views like this |
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| Our trusty steed |
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| A quiet Sunday |
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| Heading for the other side |
With our ten minute long seafaring adventure over, we headed
west along the narrow road towards our destination for the week. Loch Sunart is one of the hundreds of sea
lochs that make up the west coast and there are lots of viewpoints and
information boards dotted along the way that explain the geology and origins of
the area. At this point however we were too busy admiring the spectacular views
appearing in front of us only for another, even more spectacular view to appear,
to worry too much about how it all came about.
At this point all I know is that the area on the south side of the loch
is Morvern and the area on the north is Ardnamurchan. As for the volcanic and
glacial activity that brought it all into being, well that will need to wait
until later in the week. We turned off the narrow main road onto an even
narrower road that skirted the south banks of the loch and after a couple of
miles arrived at the cottage. Perfect? Well not quite; it’s north facing so any
sun we get this week will be limited to the evening; it was cold inside and I
couldn’t get the heating to work; and there’s no internet access, so the blogs
will take a bit of catching up next week. No it wasn’t perfect, but jings it
came close!
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| Sunart House |
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| View from the garden - looking east |
The cottage itself was great, (well apart from being cold),
and the location was spectacular so everything was looking good for a great
week. While Mo was unpacking I had a look through the visitor’s book and all of
the previous guests had raved about the amount of wildlife they’d been able to
spot from the comfort of the lounge so I set up the camera, but nothing much
happened, just:
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| Eider duck - juvenile males I think |
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| Mallard ducks - Mr & Mrs |
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| Chaffinch |
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| The goose family - Greylags perhaps? |
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| Red (?) deer |
So as you can see, not much happened but I guess it was only
a couple of hours since we’d arrived! Can’t wait until tomorrow!
J
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