Summer camp on Seana Bhraigh

I bet most of us know this feeling. It's the first day of a holiday in the far northwest, and you've arrived. The weather's glorious, the water is glinting, the hills are winking at you… and all you want to do is sleep. Well, this was us when we pulled up on the waterfront campsite at Ullapool one afternoon in late August 2010. I asked Caroline what how she felt, and she said I'll go up anything in two days' time, but I just need to do nothing for a day'. After tea we summoned up the energy to wander along the seafront, went in to the Ullapool Bookshop, logged on to the internet to see what the prophet MWIS was foretelling, and this is what we read for the Northwest:

Tomorrow

Heaven

Next Day

Purgatory

Planning Outlook

Eternal Damnation

OK, so I've paraphrased. But it really wasn't what we wanted to see. Still, ne jamais regarder un cheval cadeau dans la bouche, as the French almost certainly don't say. Caroline sighed, and we went back to the van to pack up.

And yes, it was pretty heavenly the following morning. We drove out to Inverlael, cycled up the forestry as far as Glensguaib, then slow plodded up the track that leads towards Seana Braigh.

Well, you can see we weren't going fast from that last photo, in which the dog has time to look behind her at the view. On a day like this, there was every incentive to stop for breathers.

The light flattened out as we walked up Coire an Lochain Sgeirich - a pity, as this is a favourite spot of mine. I wanted to camp somewhere at the top of the coire, and this is the spot we found…

Nice, eh? So, tent up, and all we had was an evening walk out to Seana Bhraigh. We hugged the rim of the Cadha Dearg, which gave big and varied views out to the north.

Round onto the Seana Bhraigh plateau…

…and on under a wide sky…

We weren't the only life up on Seana Bhraigh. Derick and Delilah Deer…

…and this character, Gertie the Goat, who seemed happy alone...

Actually that's not entirely true. An RAF plane roared over us as we walked up the slope, and we noticed that Gertie ran across to join the back of the herd of deer. Interesting - well, it was interesting for us, but then we did both graduate from the Johnny Morris School of Anthropomorphism, and enjoy doing silly voices for the animals on these occasions.

Where were we? Ah yes, the summit of Seana Bhraigh. Like A' Mhaidghean, a remote jewel of a viewpoint, both near…

…and far…

So back to camp. You'll have noticed that, although the light was fantastic, there were squalls moving around us all afternoon. We managed to steer clear of these until - you guessed it - the moment we were stood on top of the slipway ready to lower ourselves into the lochan for The Skinny Dip, when a vicious needling shower swept over. So much for MWIS and all such prophets who don't forsee plagues of locusts! Who would have thought that Heaven wasn't quite perfect?

Or, come to that, that the following morning MWIS's forecast of Purgatory would look like this?

And this…

From our camp, we had just packed up and headed over on to Eididh nan Clach Geala. Perfection!

Normally, any view of civilization from a summit counts as a black mark for me, but I'll make an exception where Ullapool is concerned…

It was now mid-morning, and on the way over to Meall nan Ceapraichean the day's unpromised early promise started to have second thoughts.

The view back north, to Creag an Duine and Klibreck.

By the time we were up on Beinn Dearg the curtains were being drawn. Ah yes, Purgatory…

From the summit of Beinn Dearg we headed down Destitution Wall. I thought this would be an interesting way off Beinn Dearg, but I can't really recommend it. The weather closing in didn't help, but the wall itself blocks off the view over the long line of cliffs.

The wall also seemed interminable, but perhaps that was more about us than it. Tired or not, though, we didn't regret our decision to get out when we did, because the Eternal Damnation part of the forecast was pretty accurate. After three days of being battered by storm down in Ullapool, and with no prospect of an improvement, we reluctantly packed up and headed back down south. As we splashed back down the road past Inverlael, the late summer light up on Seana Bhraigh already felt a world away.