North Coast 500 (day 2: Saturday 14th July)

Up bright and breezy, bags packed and off we set towards the far West coast.

Just a few miles up the road from our accommodation was Ardvreck Castle and Calda House ruins. We stopped to explore.

Continuing along the road we soon left Loch Assynt behind and arrived at Lochinver. We had a quick run in to Spar for supplies followed by a wee wander around this small village.

We headed along a narrow single track road with many passing places and plenty corners to soon arrive at Achmelvich Beach.

Words can’t describe how beautiful and peaceful this place is…

 

I could have stayed there all day but we had so much more to see…

Next stop: Old Man of Stoer.

We parked up at Stoer Head Lighthouse and walked round the coast to see the free standing stack that is ‘The Old Man of Stoer’. Impressive.

The ridge on the left of the photo above was very scary to walk along in the strong gusts of wind but it had to be done (as my mum stayed back and took in the scenery)!

We returned to the car along the same path as our outward journey, enjoying the view of the lighthouse. The cows greeted us as we arrived back at the car.

We had a quick bite to eat in the car and headed back to the main road and North to the Wailing Widow Waterfalls.

We parked at the bottom of the gorge and walked in to the bottom of the spectacular falls.

The falls drop from Loch Gainmhich above. Despite the past couple of months having had hardly any rain the waterfalls were super.

After our wander in and back from the falls, just a little further down the road is Kylesku Bridge.

It was looking brilliant with the stormy clouds above.

We drove on passing through Scourie, eventually reaching Durness, our home for the night.

Sango Bay campsite has the best view of all the campsites I’ve ever been to.

We pitched our tents as the rain started to fall so we headed to the local bar/restaurant for a good feed and a pint!

After dinner we headed to Smoo Caves. The caves were bone dry, again due to the severe lack of rainfall. The water is so blue, the sand very white and the cliffs and caves very menacing looking.

The views from above, after climbing back up lots of steps, were out of this world.

We headed back along to the campsite and called it a night. The rain had restarted and the wind was fierce but that didn’t stop me having a sound sleep!