Scotland Week 4

Scotland, you’ve teased us this week; after a glimpse of what a sunny, dry spring weekend can be at Morvich you unleashed torrents of the wet stuff, hail, sleet and gales upon us this week. Thanks for that, it’s been emotional.

In a week where we drove twice to Inverness, once from Morvich and then again from Camping Skye at Broadford (where we passed 2 wet and windy days at the start of the week at this excellent community NFP site) to get a great service from the Fiat garage there to hopefully cure the ominous warning light flashing at me dispassionately, we ended week 4 in the stunning location of Dunvegan where we stayed for 3 nights overlooking the Loch at Kinloch Campsite.

On one rainy day from Morvich we joined the tourist trail visiting the iconic Eilean Donan castle, where your country continued its dislike for dogs by not allowing us inside the castle with Daisy, but kindly permitting us to walk across a bridge and around the small peninsula in gale force winds and pissing rain; thanks for that. Next we took a ride out to Plockton which was just lovely, pretty village and views across the Loch. One to remember & return one day.

In contrast to our abandoned 10 mile plus circular planned from Camping Skye site in Broadford on Wednesday following the old Marble Line railway and taking in the Clearance Villages, the 13 mile walk to Coral Beach from Dunvegan was excellent on the sunny, but chilly Saturday. The former was conceded after a valiant effort where Mrs H did try to put a brave face on despite a wardrobe malfunction resulting in a critical lack of weather protection in a sensitive area..we spent the rest of the day surrounded by drying washing hanging from every possible hanging place in our 12 sq m home.

Coral Beach is the archetypal white sand Caribbean beach everyone visiting the area posts instagram photos of, and to be fair it, and the long walk to it, was brilliant with scenery so Scottish I’m inclined to look for some family tartan for our clan, learn the bagpipes and eat some Haggis.

The end of weekend 4 was a repeat of the previous weekend as it turned out, waiting for the washing machine and sitting around in the sun finally, after the dodgy week it was much needed. Didn’t take long for you to have another go at pissing us off again though, by lunchtime grey skies and “light rain” again. 3 feckin times the washing was put out, fetched in and strung like fairy lights round the van.

With the complication of getting the van issue sorted & resulting trips right across the country west to east and vice versa, and with the weather taking the piss out of us we were inclined to surrender and head south or change direction to anti-clockwise to spend time in the drier east. Scotland, you play with our emotions; you’re beautiful but feckin wet and windy for a lot of the time. But, when the skies clear and the sun shows itself you’re on another level. We’ll stick with you for the time being, but we very nearly fell out with you..

Week 5 we set sail for the Western Isles…the weather had better behave.