The Bone Caves

It's not raining, so that's a plus!

We had a relatively long lie and wandered over to the conservatory of the main hotel at 9am. We had a wonderful breakfast with homemade granola and yoghurt, followed by free range eggs of your choice.


Apart from a visit to the Bone Caves, we didn't have too much planned so decided to wing it.

On the way to the caves, we passed Ardvreck Castle; it is famous as it is where the royalist James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose was handed over in 1650 to the Covenanter forces by MacLeod, Laird of Assynt after the Battle of Carbisdale. The true history of this event is unclear. One account is that MacLeod, loyal to the Covenanters, arrested the weary, fleeing, Montrose and held him. Another is that he provided comfortable shelter, but betrayed Montrose for a £25,000 reward.

We did think about stopping to walk over to the ruin castle, but the campervans were taking up the parking areas so we thought better of it.

After 25 minutes, we reached the car park for the caves. The Bone Caves circuit, near Inchnadamph is a 4.5km/2.75mile walk which leads up a limestone valley to caves. These cave openings on a steep slope at the foot of a cliff have been excavated and were found to contain the remains of species such as lynx, reindeer and polar bear which once roamed the area.















We didn't find any bones, but it was a nice walk apart from the peaty bogs (thank goodness for Gore-Tex walking shoes!) and midges (thank goodness for Smidge!).

Inchnadamph actually means "meadow of the stags" and while we didn't see any stags, we did see four female deer as we neared the car park at the end of the walk.


We got in the car again and decided to drive the Drumbeg loop; Drumbeg Road is a single track road and one of the most scenic drives in Scotland. There are loads of passing places so we managed to stop to take in the magnificent views. It was only 24 miles, but it took an hour to drive. We considered stopping at one of the beaches on the loop, but again the carmpervans were out in force.









Once we navigated back to Lochinver, we decided to dump the car back at our accommodation and walk back into the village. It was a 30 minute walk to the harbour, and there just so happened to be a pub at the end of the road! The Wayfarer's Bar is a strange place, but it definitely had that local vibe. We stayed for a drink before returning to The Albannach to get ready for dinner.



Dinner is at Peets restaurant tonight which was recommended to us; its a local seafood place and I would love langoustines again, but I don't think my fingers can take the pain of shelling them.

Instead I had Thai crab cakes and moules marinière, which were in a lovely white wine sauce. We didn't have dessert and instead headed back to the byre to pack for an early start tomorrow.

It seems impossible, but we are going even further north tomorrow! 





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anniversary Holiday

Image
Every year, around December 8th, I look to see what we can do or where we can go to celebrate "surviving" another year of marriage.   Over the last few years, we've been back to our wedding venue for an overnight stay, had an all-inclusive holiday in Ras al Khaimah in the UAE, visited New Orleans and had a Michelin tasting menu at The Kitchin in Leith. This year, we decided to stick with Europe and head to Riga, the capital of Latvia. Back in April 2020, we were supposed to visit Riga, but the trip was cancelled due to Covid. I'm not sure why its taken us so long for us to rebook, but the prospect of a traditional Christmas market and some Glühwein convinced us. We flew Ryanair from Edinburgh to Riga on Sunday 3rd December; the flight was 2 hours late, but thankfully we had paid for a lounge so we weren't too bothered. I had pre-booked a taxi on arrival and was delighted given the delay; the journey was only 15 minutes, but it was midnight and -10 when we arrived ...
Read more

Bucharest & Dracula

Image
This is another one of these holidays that we had booked in 2020, for my birthday to be precise. It's only now, April 2024, that we managed to rebook and make our way to the Capital, Bucharest and the mountains and countryside of Transylvania. It was the usual deal, British Airways via London using a companion voucher and Avios to upgrade to business class; I'm pretty sure the flights cost us £2. The flight to London was early, and it was absolutely beautiful coming into London; we had fabulous views of the city.  We arrived in Romania late afternoon, and had a taxi waiting to take us to the hotel. I had booked The Mansion Boutique Hotel, a 4 star hotel in the centre of the pedestrian district; we had to be let off by the side of the cobbled streets but thankfully it was only a 2 minute walk. Check-in was great, we got a glass of fizz each and taken to our room which was called "Zen". We actually didn't have too long, so unpacked quickly and made our way out of th...
Read more

366 Steps with a Hangover!

Image
Surprisingly, we weren’t feeling quite so fresh this morning. We decided to delay breakfast and go straight to the Belfry of Bruges, a medieval bell tower. There are 366 steps which lead you to the top of the 83 metre high building. Normally, this would be fine but with the cold and a hangover, I was not feeling the best. The spiral staircase is very steep at the top so they only allow 50 people up at a time; we had to wait at the bottom for a few minutes which was a bit of an inconvenience, but now I understand why they have these restrictions. We made it to the top and only had a 10 minute wait until 11am which would signal a lot of bells chiming. I’m sure you can imagine how my head was feeling at the end of it! After descending the tower, we headed to the Church of our Lady Bruges as there is a Michelangelo sculpture located there. Unfortunately, you had to buy a museum ticket in order to see it so we decided it wasn’t worth it. Instead, we went for lunch at a very quaint tea room....
Read more