The online presence of Tim Collier. Photographer, course leader, lecturer and blogger.
Keeping local on our last day we took the short walk down to Rhue Lighthouse, just north of Ullapool, before heading back to where it all started; the walk from Fisherman’s Cottage down to the edge of Loch Kanaird. The wind had in no way abated and we were treated to some wonderful and spectacular light and further intense squalls at both locations.
…. and so to the last full day up in the high north. With two days travelling to come and 600 miles to cover to get home to Wales we’d decided on a slower day. We felt we’d got so much done the previous days that we could afford a quieter morning. It was to be anything but!
From Stoer we moved a little south to Balchladich Bay, still on the west coast so taking the full force of the gale. Really difficult working here with stinging rain coming directly at us. The rocks once again were treacherous but seemingly dancing with the rain glossing and polishing them.
Our second day saw us heading towards Ardessie waterfalls on the south side of Little Loch Broom and taking in a couple of stops on the way. The autumn colours were spectacular and with the dull weather and rain, seemed to glow ever more brightly. We simply couldn’t drive past some of the trees along Strath Beag without giving them some time. Just by the turning towards Badrallach a particular rich area gave us a wonderful hours work and it was here that the rain started.
I’ve just returned from a dramatic week on the North West coast of Scotland. It’s been a while since I’ve posted on this blog, in fact eighteen months, so let’s get going again! I’ve been doing a fair bit of birdwatching which has taken me the length and breadth of the country during those months but also had some heart problems, which resulted in open heart surgery earlier this year. This, coupled with lockdowns, has made it a difficult last few years for us all and we are still a long way from getting back to whatever ‘normal’ is now.
On the Saturday we arrived, whilst in the hide at Fishnish we got onto a second winter Iceland Gull whilst scanning the 80 or so gulls around the fish farms a couple of hundred meters or so off shore. It gave fine scope views but was far to distant for any photography.
A day late we headed south and the weather didn’t let us down – it rained! By now we were wanting it to, better to be able to say we had seventeen days with rain, heavy at that, on every single one of them.
We woke to rain, nothing unusual about that, but the van wasn’t shaking and it just felt stiller. Looking out to Handa was just too much, we had planned to move back south today but being opposite the island and now with the possibility that today the boat just might run, we had to give it one last shot. We could move down south a little quicker it was a chance we had to take. It had even stopped raining!
We knew that Handa was a ‘no goer’ today but we still went down to Tarbet where the boat leaves from in more hope than anticipation. Met the boatman coming back in his van, “not a chance today, tomorrow not looking good either”
Leaving Ullapool we travelled up to Scourie and another impressive site, one I’d not stayed on before. You couldn’t really get much closer to the sea here and overlooking Handa, which was to be our last hope of visiting a single off shore island on this journey to Scotland.
After lunching at Reiff we headed south to Achitibuie to look back towards Ardmair and past by the best school bus stop I’ve ever seen. Just imagine standing there waiting for the day to begin!
The ‘mad little road’ was empty and very wet but as we moved out towards Achiltibuie things began to clear and the wind began to get up.
Ardmair was to be our base for the next couple of nights. The last paragraph of my diary entry for our first day sums up what was to be another long but ultimately rewarding day,
…so all in all saw a great sunrise, a magnificent sunset and 16 hours in between which gave very occasional glimpses of the sublime.
We’d had one of those extreme moments within the landscape, when something transcendental occurs.
There’s always a highlight to a trip like this and we were about to experience it here. Very heavy pulsing showers had accompanied us up from Kinlochewe and continued into the late afternoon when we arrived at Firemore.
….and so north again, past Slioch and Loch Maree and up toward Gairloch and Poolewe before heading out along the west side of Loch Ewe.
The afternoon of our first day around Kinlochewe saw us move up to Gairloch and to Red Point overlooking the islands of Raasay and North Rona.
We had three nights at Kinlochewe and this diary extract from our first day there gives some sense of our mounting frustration with the weather.
