We’ve made a bid for freedom, after a ridiculously windy weekend, with a small element of excitement.... one of the slaters scaffolding boards that has been on the roof for months blew up and tried to to go over the top of the roof, Tony saw it vertical over the apex, and rushed into action, up onto the roof, and threw it and the supporting triangles to the floor before any damage was done, to us or next door.
Tuesday we made an early start with a mix and a half of cement to put the last two lower level quoins, associated blocks and granite into position. This should now be going good and hard ready for the steel lintel to go in on our return. The early start allowed Tony to head back to Aviemore, for his second trip in two days, filling the trailer with kitchen units. We didn’t wait for his return, so there will have been a lot of two ing and fro ing for N&T. We did however virtually follow him. This hadn’t been our original plan, but Doris had rerouted us, and that is what we employ her for, if she says the A96 is closed who are we to argue? Missing out Elgin meant we had to stop on the outskirts of Inverness for Aldi, but we were going past the door.
The Old North Inn nr. Inverness. An oldish pub that was being refurbished just before lockdown in March. All work stopped and now it is mainly done although paint cans were still in evidence. The food was good - good enough for us to book in for a cooked breakfast the following morning
Second night on the Brahan Estate, a CL site
Breaking ourselves in gently our first night was in the carpark of the Old North Inn where we had a pleasant meal, and a full cooked breakfast before driving the whole 20 minutes to our next stop on the Brahan Estate. Lovely situation, under some huge old trees. I comforted myself with the fact that if anything was going to come down it would have done so last weekend and that the ground didn’t seem too wet, and they were bound to have something to pull us off on the Estate!
We saw two of these little red squirrels on the Brahan Estate
Lovely forest walks
We had a lovely walk through the woods and along the river, no deer, but lots of pheasants and two red squirrels, can’t be bad. Up the next morning and despite my fears Ted pulled straight off onto the track. We had been warned by the owner of the site near Bonar Bridge we’d booked into for the next night that his ground was a little wet but he was sure it would be fine, just reverse on so I can pull you off if need be! The view was amazing, shame we had to reverse on, so we couldn’t really see it!
She didn't mention the gorgeous view by Struie Hill on the way to Drumbhan campsite near Bonar Bridge. That's the Dornoch Firth down there, Bonar Bridge at the end on the left and, beyond the mountain Ben More Assynt
Drumbhan campsite. Hard to get on, harder to get off!
We headed off up into the hills in glorious sunshine, we were apparently close to the warmest place in the U.K., in November! There were four of us here, two vans and two caravans. We struggled to get onto one of the hard standings, but did with a little bit of wheel spin. Watched one of the cars make a bit of a meal of getting onto their pitch, and that was without the caravan. Oh well, it’s sunny and a light breeze and tomorrow is another day!
Lovely walk up into the hills near Bonar Bridge
Snow chains on for the 20m drive off!
The other, smaller van escaped with relative ease, one caravan, tick, then we tried, no chance. Would his pick-up be man enough for the job, or should we just put on the snow chains? We opted for the chains, they worked, and we could give them a good wash before we left site. Just as well we hadn’t planned a big travel day.
Helmsdale harbour, a free parking spot, but with donations to the RNLI. A lovely position, in theory for 8 vans, though we were all alone apparently there have been 20 or so for much of the summer, but they have raised £3500 so there are pluses and minuses. I got that information from a very nice man I accosted as he was about to jetwash his minibus. “Is that drinking water?” Somehow we had managed to forget to fill our drinking water container with the excitement of all the mud! It was and he very kindly let us have 10 litres or so.
Taking the snow chains back off. It was only 20m from the pitch, over grass, through the gate and up the muddy path behind. There was absolutely no chance of getting any grip, even though we have all season tyres fitted. Everyone else got off OK, but ours wouldn't even start to move, spinning in the mud. It must be our weight of 4.5T that did it. Thank heavens for snow chains! I changed completely into old clothes to do it and back again after cleaning hands, arms and snow chains of thick mud. It took about an hour to move that 20m, good job it wasn't raining!
The view (as above) at the Loch Fleet Nature Reserve
Into the village for a little reminisce, we had visited here on a trip with Helen and Ian and Roddy Dog. I recognised the cafe by the river, the Clearances Memorial and Brian recognised the War Memorial. We also recognised the pub garden, so we thought we’d have a pint! Dinner was going to be easy, the best fish and chips for miles around. Back to Ted for a bit, amble along the harbour wall and have a chat with the crab fisherman and son who have just pulled in. I was dithering, could I be bothered to deal with a crab, in the van, after a pint? He could obviously read all this going across my face, and offered us “4 claws for our tea” how could I refuse that? He than refused to take any money, and we discovered there are 6 in the bag. It’s going to be a good dinner tonight! What lovely people, and a lovely place.
Parked up at Helmsdale Harbour, lovely weather, lovely views and very friendly locals
We watched this little fishing boat chug in with his catch...
Today we moved another half an hour or so to Dunbeath, another free spot on a harbour. Not a working one this time, and the donations go to keeping the toilets nice and the flowers planted for all to enjoy. We stopped en Route to have a little look at a clearance village, there wasn’t a lot to see, and although it was beautiful today, it would have been a different story in different weather.
Had a chat with him and his son while they unloaded their catch of crabs. He told us how only male crabs are of value, about £2.20/kg, against female crabs that only get about £1.40/kg. Normally female crabs are exported to China, who value them highly, but that market is closed at the moment. He had a third bin of 'disabled' crabs with only one claw of missing legs. Those will only get £0.70/kg
And then he gave us these 6 crab claws for our dinner!
We parked up at the harbour and headed towards the visitor centre only to spot the Spar on the way. We bought a couple of pies for lunch, and he asked us where we were going. “The visitor centre”, “it’s shut,” he said handing us a leaflet with information about the Dunbeath Broch. It’s about 2000 years old, and a bit of dry stone wall, though would have been a tall, imposing, circular tower with cells stairs and galleries. It was however an interesting stop off on a lovely river walk. We went as far as the ‘Prisoners leap’ a not particularly narrow gorge, that if the prisoners leapt and survived they were allowed to go free!
We’ve looked at the sea and seen seals, I’ve written a blog that won’t be posted as the WiFi is rubbish, I’ve got crab to cook, and we’ve got Strictly on the TV (we did check we had reception when we first arrived!) life’s hard!
Watching the approaching sunset at Helmsdale Harbour
The lifeboat donation point on the harbour that we donated to. Apparently they have raised £3500.00 since March from motorhome parking, so they are very happy
We dropped in at the Badbea Historic Clearance Village. No much is left of it now, its on a windswept clifftop just outside Helmsdale and was a resettlement village set up after the residents were evicted for nearby fertile glens during the clearances, in order to use their land for sheep grazing. They lived here from early 1800's until finally abandoning it in 1903. One of the last families emigrated to New Zealand and, some years later their son returned here and had a memorial erected in their memory
Another harbour stop, this one a little further up the coast at Dunbeath. Very quiet and pleasant with public toilets and a donation box. Lovely walks nearby, that the shop owner in the Spar told us about when we went to buy lunch. We decided on the 3 mile river walk to a Broch and a gorge...
Very pleasant walk along the river, over a suspension bridge and up to the Broch
This is Dunbbeath Broch, an iron age dwelling that had been much altered over the years. It is estimated that it was about 16m high originally and is 16.2m diameter
Inside the Broch
Onwards towards Prisoners Leap in the distance, but there's another bridge on the left, so we had to go exploring there as well, which led us to yet another bridge over another river
Peering over the edge of the gorge at Prisoners Leap. Apparently the gorge was carved through during the last ice age
Fine view of the river from up here
I wanted to finish with a little Youtube video of a speeded up bit of dashcam images from our journey showing the lovely Scottish scenery we are driving through (it only last just over a minute):
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