Wonderful Scotland 2015 (Day 5)

JUST the name of the Summer Isles inspires excitement - these scattered islands in the NW of Scotland are becoming an mandatory pilgrimage for us each time we visit the area, as the scenery enlivens the senses.

To get there (from Lochinver to Achiltibuie) we took the "wee mad road"; a long, twisting and largely single track road, which skirts around the coast and provides stunning views and scary encounters with speeding locals.

You can see our destination in the distance from the view below, taken from the front door.

Looking out from the front door

After surviving the WMD drive we reached the wide sandy bay - (Achnahaird Bay).  The sheep were grazing a pink "meadow" - it turned out to be a sea of thrift flowers - quite spectacular. It started being quite overcast so we decided to move on a return later.

Our drive around the area took us to a number of  bays and beaches.  There is a resilient community here that finds ways to make a living from tourism, fishing, farming and providing local services.

One far off headland beach, scattered with massive boulders, had a large stone enclosure - it could have been made in the last 100 years or could have been 1000s of years old - it was hard to tell.  The area is good for ringed plovers - these wonderful, diminutive waders are full of character and are very attractive in their own right.  This pair that I found were ringed...ringed ringed plovers!  They let out a short, high pitched peep and I assumed that these were young from the same parent, i.e. siblings, rather than a breeding pair.

 

 

The sun did make an appearance, and this opened up the fantastic and breath taking views.

 

Back to the thrift bay and the pink shone out:

 

The flora of the area is rich, as there has not been any attempt to fertilize the ground - the insect eating butterwort was plentiful and was flowering during our visit:

This is a wonderful area and one highly recommended if you are ever up that way.