Day Nine (Part Two): A Rather Adventurous Drive Home

Rather than retrace the same route home we turned off at Kinlochewe taking the A896 through the Beinn Eighe Reserve and Glen Torridon.  We passed Upper Loch Torridon and Loch Shieldaig then wove through Glenshieldaig Forest (which seemed to have taken a leaf out of the New Forest’s book being light on trees!). 

 Views around Bienn Eighe and Upper Loch Torridon

 Having not found the highland roads challenging enough, Nathan pointed out that we would be passing one of Scotland's most notoriously treacherous roads, the Bealach na Ba (‘Pass of the Cattle’), which crosses the peninsula and reaches a maximum height of 2053 ft (626 m), below the 774 m high Sgùrr a' Chaorachain.  Always ready for action, we decided to drive to the top simply because we could.

Bealach na Bà is a historic pass through the mountains of the Applecross peninsula and the name of this famous twisting, single-track mountain road through the pass and mountains.  The road is one of few in the Scottish Highlands that is engineered similarly to roads through the great mountain passes in the Alps, with very tight hairpin bends that switch back and forth up the hillside and gradients that approach 20%.  It boasts the greatest ascent of any road climb in the UK, rising from sea level at Applecross to 626 metres (2,054 ft), and is the third highest road in Scotland.  The name is from the Scottish Gaelic: Bealach nam Bò for Pass of the Cattle, as it was historically used as a drovers' road.

Despite feeling like we were clinging to the cliff side, we made our ascent slowly but surely and simply tried not to look down.

 The views back towards Loch Kishorn

 Thankfully there was little traffic as the passing places were at times little wider than the road itself.  Eventually we made it to the summit and the views were well worth it.

 Our descent was equally butt clenching but at least this time Nathan could take in the views a little more easily.

 Grazing deer on the mountainside

 Earlier in the year we had watched a show which featured this road and spoke of the growing trend for people to bike ride to Applecross – sort of a coming of age achievement.  Sure enough, we pulled over to cheer on two very tired looking cyclists who still had a long way to go.

 You can’t say they don’t warn you!

Having survived our little detour we continued on towards the town of Locharron where, given it was going on 1800 we decided to stop for dinner.  ‘Geoff and Kate’s Waterside Café’ was a real find with Kate taking our orders and Geoff whipping us up a hearty home cooked meal of local haggis, neeps and tatties for Nathan and local venison sausages for me.  We all relaxed, taking our time over our meals.  Whilst paying I noticed some leaflets concerning road closures and a warning light went off.  On enquiring of Geoff, he confirmed my growing suspicion that the road we needed to pass, the very road we could now see across the Loch, at the very road works we had passed through this morning, would be closing promptly at 1900.

On advice from Kate that we needn’t worry about the police being about, some sound advice from another customer to just floor it and with Geoff looking on at the action across the loch through binoculars we piled the kids into the car at 1845 and took off like a bat out of hell.  The reason for such haste, if we missed getting through we would be faced with a whopping 140-mile (225 km) detour via Inverness!!!

We all must have done something good in our past lives as we made it to the convoy truck with literally minutes to spare being informed that we would indeed be in the last group allowed through!

 At least the scenery was good as we finally made it to the road works.

As we followed the convoy truck along, and our pulses slowly returned to normal, we started to consider what could have been and it was indeed a sickening thought.  I felt even sicker as I saw another family stopped on route by a huge ‘Road Closed’ sign heading the way we had come.  The look of complete horror on their faces was completely understandable.  Whilst there had been signs that we had passed ourselves this morning, they were so cluttered and full of information that the pertinent information of “You will have to drive a further 140 miles if you miss this” was simply lost in translation.

Having survived this near disaster, we treated ourselves to a slightly shorter detour in order to take in Eilean Donan, which was simply resplendent in the setting sun.  We actually only just made this as well with the light dying away as we watched on.

 We made a quick stop in Kyle of Lochalsh for supplies and an ice cream treat for two very patient children and were finally back at our cottage by 2000 still contemplating what might have been.