What could have been a very boring tour today turned out to be the best yet and it was all down to our tour guide. Our young guide, or not so young as we later found out as she had a 15yo daughter, kept us entertained for the whole journey with her somewhat bawdy stories and her gorgeous angelic voice. She "took the piss" out of the Scottish and their drinking habits, and us Aussies could certainly relate to that! She had the whole bus, except the ones who will never find humour, clapping along to her songs and laughing our heads off at her ribald stories. It was a great tour.
Anyway, getting back to the tour. Our route followed Loch Broom. Loch does not mean lake as we thought, but simply means a body of water in this case seawater. It is a panoramic drive even though the day is somewhat cloudy.
Around fifteen minutes into our journey we arrived at Corrieshalloch Gorge National Park. Our guide lead the way to the entrance pathway that we would follow for around a kilometre. The path is gravel and a little slippery in parts but quite easy to negotiate. There are beautiful waterfalls on both sides of the path that I imagine never stop flowing in this part of the world - the Scottish Highlands.
Eventually we come to a Victorian suspension bridge that crossed over the gorge. The gorge is around 60 metres in depth, 10 metres wide and around 1.5kms in length although standing on that bridge and looking down it seemed a lot further than 60 metres to the bottom!
We spent around an hour and half at the gorge, and some of that time was spent enjoying coffee and cinnamon roll in the well equipped cafe. Back on the bus and still continuing our journey along Loch Broom our driver took us to Gruinard Bay that is a lovely sandy beach set in a protected cove. Our guide assured us that on a sunny day it is crowded with people and the ocean is a gorgeous turquoise colour. It's hard to imagine on a day like today.
This is the buses turnaround point and we travelled back along the same route albeit a different view from the other side of the bus. It takes us around an hour to arrive back to Ullapool. Ullapool is an unspoiled coastal town. The town was founded in 1788 by the British Fisheries Society to support the herring industry and was designed by Thomas Telford. It sits in a picturesque harbour and with its historic architecture it is a town begging to be explored. However we have to be content to see it from the comfort of our bus. The harbour is full of sea life and we watch dolphins, many dolphins, frolicking around and where the tender docked there is a resident seal to greet everybody along with the bagpiper. What an idyllic place.
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