Rocky Road to Ullapool

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30/11/2024

Moving swiftly on after our walk to the Bone Caves I scoured google maps to see whether there was anywhere else we should stop as we made our way to Ullapool. Of course there were loads of places we could have visited but we needed to keep moving south so couldn’t afford a long stopover.

The Moine Thrust

Not a dance move! The Moine Thrust is a geological feature that stretches from Faraid Head, where we had been a few days earlier, down to Ullapool. The ‘thrust’ comes from the way in which older rocks have been pushed over the top of younger rocks by the movement of the Earth’s continental plates.

On our route was Knockan Crag, a spot where the evidence of these counter intuitive layers of rocks can most easily be seen. It’s also home to a visitor centre which explains the role this area played in our understanding of geology. Plate tectonics, the movement of our continents over millions of years of geological time, is something we take for granted today, but in the 19th century it was such an alien concept that it was labelled ‘The Highland Controversy’. In the visitor centre Benjamin Peach and John Horne are remembered. They did much of the exploration, mapping and documentation that finally convinced the majority of their compatriots that the layers of rock had been moved by geological forces.

We drove up the steep driveway to the car park at Knockan Crag (where there are public toilets and you can stay overnight in motorhomes) and followed the trail that took us to the visitor centre and beyond to the top of the crag. It was a short, steep, and interesting circular route over the rocky outcrop with sculptures and information boards along the way,

View from the visitor centre

Ullapool

We continued our drive south to Ullapool where we parked up in the main car park by Tesco. There are a lot of large parking spots here, mostly used by HGVs but many also designated for overnight parking. We had been to Ullapool before our motorhoming days, so we spent some time looking for the B&B we had stayed in before our (very rainy) trip to the Outer Hebrides 15 years earlier. The B&B was now a self catering cottage, which seems to be the way things are moving.

That evening we had our final fish and chips of the trip. Ullapool were preparing themselves for Christmas and it was great to see the creel tree lighted up on the waterfront. We ventured back to take a look in the day time too.

Corrishalloch Gorge

We were up early the following morning. The noise from refrigerated lorries had made it quite a noisy night and we were very happy to move along.

As we drove south we could see the distinctive ridge of An Teallach, 15 years ago we had a long and tiring walk around the ridge. Despite it being May there had still been a lot of snow on the route. It had taken it’s toll on our soft southern legs that had last climbed Scottish mountains a year before. I can still remember the way our legs ached as we tried to descend the stairs from our B&B the next morning. Ouch.

On this trip we had one target before we made our way back east. The main carpark for Corrieshalloch Gorge wasn’t even open by the time we got there, so we parked in a layby on the A832 and went in the back gate. This was a lovely little walk with a bridge across a spectacular gorge where the the Measach falls descend into a narrow deep chasm. In the bottom of the gorge the mist of the waterfall looked like steam in a tropical jungle, the ferns and other plants on the walls of the gorge gave it a primeval atmosphere, you could imagine a pterodactyl flying out of the depths.

We could have stayed on the bridge for ages looking into the chasm, but it had a max capacity of six people and we finally had some company. We made our way back to the van while they coaxed their dog over the bridge. Time to head back to Inverness.

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