Great Pies, Challenging Campsites

We agree Lochinver Larder makes great pies. I had the chicken, mushroom and leek. Randy had the steak and ale. We have a strawberry rhubarb to split later. They were awesome and large enough that we ate part as a second breakfast and part for lunch. We started our drive today on two lane roads driving way too fast again. Actually, we don't often get up to 60, which is the speed limit, but since we usually have been driving 35 to 40 on the single track roads, 55 or 60 is wild. The scenery is changing again. There are individual mountains that seem to rise right out of the moors. It's very strange and very beautiful. A small island on Loch Assynt has the ruins of Castle Ardveck which dates back to the 15th century. When we pulled off the road to take pictures we found a beautiful waterfall and an old mill stone. Just south of Ullapool we stopped at the Corrieshalloch Gorge and Falls of Measach. It was a beautiful walk and the rain held off until we made it back to the camper. Great timing for a stop since we were able to finish our pies. We kept driving and stopping at spots that caught our interest before once again heading off the beaten track to find our wild camping spot. I had found a place called Red Beach that had 3 recommended parking spots and it sounded perfect. I used the campers nav system to make sure the roads would accommodate us and off we went. It was 8 miles off the main road which doesn't sound far but it's a long way on these crazy one track roads. Well, I think the campervans' nav system was offline because this road was worse than the road to Tarbet. We finally reached the first parking space but it wasn't the best so we decided to try the second one. The road got so narrow that we couldn't make it. Randy found someone's laneway to turnaround in, and we headed back to spot number one. It did offer a little protection from the wind, so we tucked ourselves into it and went for a walk. We measured the width of the road just above where we parked, and it was 8 feet. Our campervan is 9 feet wide no wonder we turned around. We were back at the camper sitting in the front seats looking over the fields to the sea when a tour bus pulled up and used our little parking spot to turn around in. The driver gave us a little wave, then almost ran over us to execute a perfect 3-point turn. Take a look at the pictures, and you will see how small this spot was. There is only room for one or two more small campers. That was it we were out of there. The only problem was we had no other place picked out for the night, and we had no service. So back to the main road, and we headed south. We checked out a couple spots off the road, one wasn't far enough off and one had a no overnight parking sign. So we carried on. We passed by another and caught a glimpse of a van, so we turned around and found a very secluded little spot. There was one van already parked but lots of room for us. In fact, as I write this two more joined us. Once tucked comfortably into bed we could hear the wind but we were so protected the camper didn't move all night.Read more