My heart's in the Highlands
I spent ten days in Scotland over Easter, staying in a log cabin right on Loch Torridon. It was a blissful time of walks, talking, views, and sheer peacefulness. Photos are on Flickr. It was my second trip to the Highlands, and also the second time that I've joined what has become an annual adventure for a group of my UK friends. Eight of us took the overnight sleeper from London Euston to Inverness, travelling up the UK east coast line and arriving 8.30am sharp at Inverness station.
Picked up our hire cars, and a couple of hours later we were on the coast at Applecross, in the heart of mountains and deep lochs. The drive over the famous pass (named Bealach na Ba - spellings vary, but the meaning is basically "pass of the cattle") is not for the faint-hearted: approx. one car wide, albeit with plenty of passing points, and reaching over 2000ft at its highest point, it feels like European mountain country. For much of the journey, the pass has a chasm on one side, high mountain slope on the other, with stretches of road joined together by a succession of steep hairpin bends.
About half-way across, with a flurry of light snow steadily growing heavier, we met a tandem mountain bike coming UP the mountain, cycled by a middle-aged couple. They didn't look too happy! The entire pass was closed to traffic due to heavy snow shortly after we made the drive over. I hope they made it.