Ft Willy to Ullapool!

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Finally got my run in this morning, I ran down the hill into town, then north to the turnoff for the Ben Nevis trailhead. In case you're uninitiated, Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in the UK (just over 4300 feet - doesn't sound too bad until you realize that you start from sea level!). There, running along a single track road with Ben Nevis off to my left. It was going great until I realized: #1 that I really needed a bathroom, and #2 that the trailhead, my halfway point, didn't have one. So I utilized my survival skills gained from many years in cross-country, and I will spare you the details thereof.

We began our drive north. One realizes when driving in Scotland that you do not get anywhere quickly - this is, of course, part of the appeal. One also realizes that it is easy to miss a turn, or to take one turn too many, without realizing. There are no straight roads, and it's not too long before all the road signs are written in the fiendishly difficult Gaelic. So you can probably guess where this is going...I wasn't all together disappointed when I realized that I'd driven us way out of the way, and hours later still had 60 miles to go before Ullapool (a good 2-3 hour drive using single track roads). The diversion was well worth it.

One (planned) diversion was to Eilean Donan castle. The National Trust of Scotland has done well to preserve a lot of these sites, the downside being that they turn into huge tourist traps during the high season. This would be the high season. By the time we had stopped to use the restroom, looked inside the gift shop, and examined the outside of the castle, the onslaught of RVs, fanny packs, Germans with camcorders (the castle doesn't move - WHY are you filming it???), curious retirees, and lovey-dovey honeymooners had become too much.

I excused myself in an attempt to scrub the slime of blatant tourism from my soul.

All the hostels were booked in Ullapool (there's only 2 that I know of), so we stayed at a B & B. Had dinner at a pub down by the harbour and met an older English couple that had just driven around the outer Hebrides. Finally had some Tennent's - it helped to numb the black stains in my heart from earlier in the day.

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Photos

Eilean Donan
Reference Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Scottish Wilderness
During our "diversion"

Comments

[C.S. Hess]

Whoa there buddy...
Do I detect a hint of elitist scowling in this one? You sound like me at a music store :).