Summer Isles, Anthrax and The Wee Mad Road

A fantastic drive on the A832 from Gairloch to Ullapool and 4 seasons in an hour. Justice cannot be done to the scenery in words and my blurry through windscreen pictures also fail - is this really part of the UK?  See pictures of Fannich Forest (" In it lie no public roads, hardly any dirt tracks, and you could easily fit Greater London and Manchester in there together.") and, strangely, Islamic prayer times  and in pre-generated cached PDF format (Why? The permanent population is "nil" - Is this a training area I wonder?)

This is the NATO nuclear submarine base in Loch Ewe - during the second world war the loch would have been packed with shipping preparing for the run up to Murmansk

 Gruinard Island which was bombed with weaponised anthrax during the second world war - Northern Scotland was selected for this using similar reasoning for the siting of the fast breeder nuclear reactor at Dounreay -  which I visited later in my tour.  The island was finally cleaned up in 1990.

"400 million years ago Scotland collides with England" - if it had been the other way around we would never have heard the last of it and they still would not have forgiven us.

The warning sign is vital - much of the main highway is single lane with passing places.  I caught myself a couple of times: "I am in alien country and on holiday therefore we are driving on the right..." oops!

At the entrance to the North West Highlands Geopark there is a small 24 hour visitor centre - a path leads to a place where you can span a billion years of geological history with the palm of your hand and read about vicious infighting between Edwardian geologists - yes the older rocks really are on top of the younger

Above and below - the Summer Isles (pop. 5) - the country round here is stunning - and apart from the local ladies crew hauling their rowing boat out of the sea loch - I had it to myself.

Looking the other way towards the mountains of Assynt including Suilven

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I have a new favourite - The Wee Mad Road - drive it if you dare but certainly don't drive it in high season.  At the end I filled up with diesel in a tiny village - I had been warned that prices would be horribly high (£1.60+) but no; "you're taking from November's delivery, next week we get a tanker in and then there will be a BIG shock for everyone"