We woke up early and headed out for what was supposed to be mainly a scenic driving day. Sadly, the weather was absolutely miserable, so most of our scenic driving was cancelled.
The main attraction for the day was a hike to the top of Beinn Eighe. We took a wrong route (obviously, we were supposed to go to the Beinn Eighe car park, and NOT the other car park labelled Beinn Eighe car park. Duh!). The wrong car park was closed for a "special event", so we thought that it meant we couldn't do the hike at all. There was no internet, so we had to backtrack to the visitor center to figure things out. Once we figured out the correct car park, it was later than we had planned, plus it was pouring rain and super duper windy.
We were determined to do some hiking here, though, so we simply alternated our plans: instead of doing the whole hike, we would do the half of the hike that was supposed to be slightly easier (aka less scrambling up sheer and rain-slick granite cliffs).
Half of the time, it was a beautiful hike. The sun would shine and the views were outstanding. The other half of the time, it was rainy and windy. It would be nice for 5 minutes and then awful for 5 minutes. Plus, there was no warning between wind/rain and sun. It was very weird.
At some point in the very steep climb, I ran out of steam. I am absolutely terrified of heights and start suffering some vertigo-type symptoms. So I stopped when I was getting dizzy and Paul went on for another 30 minutes before the wind was too strong for him. Then he turned back and we walked down together.
It was a lovely hike, despite the weather. And Paul loved all the info I shared from the pamphlet that I grabbed from the visitor center. Laugh.
After that, we got delicious food (Paul was in love with his Squatties, which are a mini-lobster type shrimp thing and I had delicious tender venison steak) and we then decided, despite the worsening weather conditions, to try the touristy scenic road drive called the Bealach na Ba.
It's a one-lane mountain road, with no railings, that is super steep and curvy and goes to an isolated village called Applecross. We decided that we would do half of the drive and then turn around and go to our next airbnb.
We hoped that no one else would be on the road since it was past 6pm and it was rainy and yucky outside. There were a few cars on the road, but not many. Unfortunately, it got a bit too scary even for us.
We got to a part where super-dark clouds completely covered the road (see picture above), and Paul pulled over in the last good spot for turning around and declared that it wasn't worth the stress. I agreed and so we headed for yet another lame airbnb where we are in a bedroom and sharing a bathroom with other guests (UGH).
Hopefully the "full Scottish breakfast" we are getting in the morning makes it worth it. Stay tuned!
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