Eigg and Rhum from our camp site

This is kind of similar to a blip 2 days ago but I liked it better than my reserve which was Eilean Donan Castle - that’s photographed so often but I’ve never blipped it.

We drove a zigzag route of almost 200 miles to near Arisaig where we are staying yet by the crow flies it’s no distance. We could have gone via Inverness and the Great Glen but we chose to visit some old haunts by coming the long way round. We came by the Loch Ewe and Altbea station used as a staging point for the Arctic Convoys in WW2. We didn’t stop at Poolewe gardens but did remember our 32 mile day biking in then walking and climbing to reach our penultimate Munros, the western 2 of the Fisherfield group. We continued on to Loch Maree (to see Slioch, a Munro climbed early on in our bagging days), Kinlochewe, Achnasheen, single track slow roads to Loch Carron, Eilean Donan Castle and down Glen Shiel. We viewed the 5 Sisters where we’d had a great day with temperature inversion, the clouds below us only revealing the high peaks. On the right was the South Glen Shiel Ridge where we had a massive day, completing our first 7 Munros - a great start in amazing weather in 1992.

After that the route was Glen Garry and down the Great Glen to Fort William where the clouds broke in time to give a view of Ben Nevis, climbed one year in June - a hot sunny day at the bottom and a blizzard 2/3 of the way up. We were properly equipped but spoke firmly to a few youths coming up in T shirts and trainers.

We passed the steam Jacobean (Harry Potter train) heading out to Mallaig. It was full. At Glenfinnan we wanted to stop to view the monument to commemorate the place Bonnie Prince Charlie landed in 1745 in his unsuccessful quest to regain the throne from the Hanoverians. Just like the last time we came, there was no place to park. The car park was full and every spot by the roadside taken - people were waiting to watch the train cross the viaduct.

So it was around 4pm when we arrived. We are now getting squally showers but managed a quick walk between them. It’s a stunning site and we have a great pitch with views from the side window across a little bay to Ladhar Bheinn in the ‘rough bounds of Knoydart’. (It sounds so romantic - we got a boat from Mallaig with our bikes.) From our back window we look at a beach with Eigg (the flat island in the blip) and Rhum on the right, in cloud. We can also see the Cuillin on Skye. They were a challenge!