The reason for
choosing the campsite here at Scourie is that there is a bird nature
reserve island just offshore and ferries run from Tarbet just up the
road to the island of Handa. Parking down at Tarbet is limited and
parking will be cumulative, people will park in the morning to go to
the island so spaces will not free up until late afternoon, and so
yet another early start is the best way to make sure of
uncomplicated parking.
The road to Tarbet
is not a road one would normally take without a good purpose, it is
narrow, even for a single track, hilly and windy but amazingly we
don't meet anyone coming in the other direction (thank goodness).
Parking's not a problem but will be in another hour or 2 (we learn
later that during the course of the day 68 people were ferried across
to the island). Remember me mentioning yesterday about the road being
one for sports cars, well a dozen of so of those 68 people were Aston
Martin owners and their spouses.
The ferry is a small
12 man RIB inflatable. Liz doesn't like small boats so this was not
her preferred mode of transport (but wait until the return trip, it
gets worse). I think this is as much to do with the difficulty of
clambering on and off as to the actually bouncy ride close to the
water. Well, we all had life jackets on! A 10 minute ride later and
three Scotland Wildlife volunteers were holding the RIB on the beach
so we could clamber off and fight our way up the sand dunes to a
small briefing hut.
Basically they've
carved out a 4 mile footpath around the island, much of it
duck-boarded. The instructions were to keep to the path, for the
protection of nesting birds. Actually wander too far of the path
towards the nest site of a Great Skua and you'd soon know about it as
you were subject to a vicious aerial attack. No Red Grouse spotted on
the way up to the cliffs and no Puffin to be seen amongst the
thousands of Guillemots and Razorbills, sharing the cliff face with
the Kittiwakes and Fulmars. Then a Puffin, then another, and another,
and one flying. Once we knew where to look spotting them was easy.
Liz was overjoyed – having missed them at Shetland 6 years ago she
at last gets to watch the cute little birds, most of which seemed to
be collecting grass to line their burrows. On around the clifftop
and another puffin village atop cliffs teeming with Guillemot. A
little Wheatear on the grass just a few metres away seems totally
strange and at first hard to identify, normally it the flash of white
rump as they zoom past so seeing one close up face on is definitely
different. Arctic Skua, eider, meadow pipits, crows, rock dove and
some glorious skylarks completed the round-up. Well apart from the
various gulls and a few divers to far away to identify throat
colouredness.
Despite the
excellent work on making a good path and lots of boardwalk it was
still a tiring 4 mile walk. Yesterday's sun was well behind the
clouds and a cold wind was getting up, along with a few spits of
rain. Much colder and feeling colder again for being on an exposed
island. So we'll be off as soon as we get back to the Ranger's hut.
Nope – there's a minor problem. It's spring low tide and despite a
really long pier/slipway at Tarbet the tide is out so far that the
RIB can't reach the dock. Consequently passengers are being
transferred 2 at a time from the RIB to a tiny dinghy and brought to
shore. Colour visibly blanched from Liz's face on this news. She was
all on favour of just sitting around on the island for another 3
hours and catching the last ferry when the tide might have risen
enough to make shore. I should point out, that apart from the last
ferry, the service was completely untimed, it was when it was.
I wasn't keen on
waiting, we were cold, the wind was getting up so the crossing might
not be too pleasant (mindful thatyesterday was the first day this
week the ferry has been operational because of the winds) and it
might rain. I really didn't want to contemplate the prospect of
overnighting on the island in the warden's bothy. So I pressed Liz to
at least try a crossing, if the boat transfer really was too
difficult/scary they could always take us back and we'd return later
on a higher tide. I was right about the wind, the return crossing was
much rougher (but still not bad). When we got to Tarbet we realised
that the RIB could get within about 10m of the shore and was held in
about knee high water. The transfer dinghy wasn't even rowed ashore
but towed by someone in waders. Still Liz found sliding between the
two boats an uncomfortable experience but didn't have and real
problem. Even with the dinghy we had to jump out into a few inches of
water and move quickly to avoid wet feet. An adventure indeed!
Scourie is a tiny
town, a small Spar, a hotel, a couple of B&Bs, a walking
equipment store that doubles as the village's petrol station (just
the one pump). Oh and weirdly an electric car charging point. Orkney
had several, and they seem to be in every tiny town in Scotland,
probably on the previous site of the town's horse hitching post. We
stop at the Spar to pick up a paper. As I'm getting out of the van a
local, who had just overtaken us and put another stone chip in the
windscreen (smaller and out of my main vision line) informed me only
one brake light was working! Rats again. Dilemma time, do I risk
dismantling the rear light assembly here in the middle of nowhere and
risking problems that will be unfixable for 50 miles until Ullapool
or do I drive with one brake light and great danger of a rear end
shunt should the other fail. I elect to change it. It works and the
rear assembly goes back OK, phew! I've not tested the reversing
light and indicator in that cluster. I must do that.
Liz needs to rest
her feet, she is having much trouble with a rheumatic toe joint. So
no going out tonight. Scourie has a chip van – it is only
operational on a Saturday night and seems to be a well used local
amenity. And so it should be, the fish was excellent and the chips
weren't half bad either.
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