Our first full day in Lochinver, and while the rest of the country basked in warm sunshine, the north west of Scotland was chilly and rainy! But James and I were not downhearted and set off northwards so that James could bag the two most northerly Corbetts, Cranstackie and Beinn Spionnaidh. It was a five hour walk for him on tussocky grass with very rough quartzite boulder fields higher up. Meanwhile I drove onwards to Durness and after some footering about I parked at the old Church and went for a two and a half hour walk along the peninsula to Faraid Head and back. I have to say that it was absolutely beautiful despite the wet weather; gorgeous white sand beaches and huge sand dunes. And I sort of got used to the rain after a while. The northern tip of the peninsula is fenced off; it's used by the Ministry of Defence as a base for shelling Cape Wrath! There was no shelling going on today though, and there seemed to be no one on the peninsula at all except me and a bunch of sheep. I climbed up a small hill to a cairn where I got great views back to the beaches, and also saw three very striking rocks sticking out of the sea to the east. I retraced my steps and peeled off my wet jacket and waterproof over-trousers before reading the Sunday Times (purchased in the nearby Spar) in the car for a while. When I collected James from his walk later he was wet to the skin with a mixture of sweat and rain! Even his waterproofs had not been able fully to protect him from five hours of wind and rain. He soon warmed up in the car though, and we stopped off at our old favourite, the Kylescu Hotel, for a drink on the way back to Lochinver. It has been redecorated and smartened up since our last visit - but I rather missed the old, cosier decor. Later on, a tasty pub tea in the friendly Caberfeidh restaurant rounded off an excellent day.
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