A tour of the West Coast on the Motorbikes part 4 – better late than never.
Can’t believe that it has been over 2 months since my last blog entry…. That is shocking. I would like to make all sorts of excuses, like an alligator ate my laptop, or my cat ate the power cable…. maybe even I was transported to Mars for two months – in actual fact, the latter excuse is probably more like it.
Anyway, where was I? Yes, the last leg of our trip up the west coast of Scotland…. We were right in the middle of our only ‘summer’ week that we had this year, very lucky. Leaving Ullapool, I did say that I wanted to go via the Summer Isles. For goodness sakes. If I thought that the road via Sheildaig was bad, this one took the biscuit. What was I thinking about? Anyway, the main attractions was the magnificent views, no trees (wonder why that was…) lots of sheep and tons of tourists who were having a tougher job than me concentrating on the narrow less-than-single track roads!!
Blimey, I must have been slightly unhinged suggesting that route – hell mend me though!!
The end of our trip was Lochinver, which we didn’t know was the end of our trip, however, it ended up being the furthest north we went. When we arrived there, and stepped off the bikes, it was like a microwave. To get there we had taken the ‘wee mad road’ the one that has ‘Don’t follow your sat nav, if you are in an HGV – you will get stuck’ (artistic licence here). Not for the feint hearted, honestly, I wouldn’t take a car down there. Not many places to turn/reverse.
To say I was shattered by the time I got there was the understatement of the day. Ed suggested lunch at the local ‘pie shop’, which I thought by what he was saying was going to be a greasy spoon. Nope. It was here. The most lush pie I have ever tasted, all flavours and fillings and by crikey, they’ll post them to you too! (oh dear!)
We found a B&B after lunch…. just on the main road. It doubles up as a tea-room during the day, and a harder working family you will never meet. Tigh Lios is a real family business…. they have a first come first served booking system. Go in the front door and there is a booking sheet. Great, fill it in and that’s you booked! The only drawback I would say was it was not en-suite, pfft, who cares really, we didn’t meet a single soul on the way to the loo or shower (probably just as well!)
On our wander round town, there was an advert for a comedy show at the village hall. What a brilliant idea. Do remember at this point it was still about 28 degrees…. so the attraction of sitting in the local steamy was not very attractive… So, what did we do in the meantime? Jumped on Ed’s bike, and went to the beach. Yup, we did. We plootered up to Auch Melvich Beach. (I think that’s the spelling!) We went in swimming – well, erm, I went in and shot back out again… Ed went in, swam to the rocks and dived back in….. his words from the chilly water was “No sex for a month, dear, my gonads have disappeared!
Ed, whilst he still had gonads...
A wee lie in the sun was needed to warm up. Me, I had a snooze. Read our books then headed back to the village. We had decided to go back to the ‘pie shop’ for dinner, but just had to go to the pub for a much needed pint before hand. Dinner was ace, lovely wine, but I had a wave of tiredness that hit me like a sledgehammer. I didn’t make it to the comedy show. Ed went armed with a bottle of wine, I was asleep by 8.45pm – and that is not a typo…. I was wakened up at goodness knows what time with Ed staggering around the bedroom, totally blootered!!
Anyway, less said about that the better. Ed would murder me if I told the whole story here!
Needless to say, we booked in for another night. I sent Ed packing back to bed after breakfast the next morning. I read my book, and once Ed woke, we took a wander to get a phone signal to call Mum…
Friendly locals near the beach!
One of my childhood friends lives in Lochinver, so we spent a couple of hours searching for her – we asked at Highland Stoneware where she lived, and needless to say we got great instructions. Hilary, and her kids were playing on the beach apparently – we couldn’t find her – she appeared at our B&B at the back of 10 (just back from the beach)…. so, already in bed, we got dressed and went back to the pub. As you do. It was great catching up and we stayed there until closing time… we were glad we had told her hubbie where we were staying.
The next morning, we headed off the ‘direct route’ home. Not by the A9, but by the west coast…. it was lovely. Ed wanted to go by the twisties again, but knew that it would make the run too much for me on the wee Suzuki. A nice run home in plenty time to wash the bikes… yes, I did wash MY bike, amazingly enough.
A cracking, memorable holiday. I would highly recommend it!!