Ardvreck Castle

Day 4 began a little dull, but even as we made the couple of hundred yard trip from the youth hostel to the cave of Smoo the sun began to shine. Of course, we spent more time here than we intended and so were running a little late (again) by the time we left Durness, but that was ok as we had loooooooads of time to get to Skye where our next beds awaited. The trip to Ullapool was a little over an hour on the sat nav. We did it in around four and a half! Hahahahaha, omg but this morning was some more of what we should have seen coming from Scrabster to Durness the night before. Upon reflection, it was quite a good thing that the weather was a little dreich. I doubt we'd have made the 10pm deadline for the reception otherwise!

Glorious vista after glorious vista met us as we turned each bend. I've lost count of the number of times we both said "wow"! It was absolutely breathtaking and in most cases something you'd never really appreciate from a photo. Heh, this didn't stop Christine though who was opening and closing the window to shoot from the moving care. Obviously, we stopped off a few times along the way for a more sedate shoot but when we turned the headland and saw Ardvreck on the horizon, time stopped. Well it did for us. We easily spent a couple of hours shooting first from across Loch Assynt and then from the promontory on which it is built itself.

The castle was built in the latter half of the 15th century by Angus Mor III as a simple rectangular block, three or four storeys high. As with so many other castles in Scotland it was extended with the addition of a tower and vaulted cellars and vault over a great hall by Donald Ban IX almost a century later. Ramparts were added to augment the castles natural defensive position on the loch side.

The history of the castle is filled with violence, being the location of many a murder, execution and siege. The 14 day siege in 1672 by the MacKenzies of Wester Ross marked the end of the MacLeod ownership of Assynt but it was nature herself that saved the final act of violence when the castle was almost completed destroyed by a lightning strike in 1795.

Even arriving in Ullapool a wee bit later than intended, we still had time to grab lunch and then head down to the Falls of Measach at the Corrieshalloch Gorge. This wonderful 41m drop in the 61m box canyon is a wonderful sight and in spite of my uneasy head with heights, both the suspension bridge and viewing platform were handled with ease.

Pushing on down south (stopping off every now and again) we detoured to Eilean Donan castle and shot it in the setting sun. There wasn't much colour in the sun at the time but the lowering light made for a lovely sight indeed. More colour was seen as we made our way towards Skye and we stopped off one last time to shoot the bridge and the island in the now slightly coloured sky.

We made registering at the hostel with minutes to spare. No worries!

Ok, time to hit the road again. Hope everyone has a great week. The tree Abbeys, Hadrian's Wall and York await.