The red Cottage
Applecross Peninsula Road
Looking back
Bealach na Ba
Viewpoint
Just before the first turn
River next to the road
Hairpin bend
The road in detail
Passing place
Another passing place
Our car looking at the road
Wee bridge
Reggie Falls
Views of the second bridge
North Coast 500, last day: From Shieldaig to... Inverness /
discovering Scotland
Well, well, this was the last day, sad day :( but some really nice things to see! First we went all the way along the coast of the Applecross Peninsula, we were stopping beside the road a few times or maybe lots of times, to be honest :P There was a cute red cottage next to Loch Torridon, so I obviously needed to take some pictures! The weather was good for me, so misty and eerie, the sun was hiding somewhere, that added more mysticism to our scenic route, so pretty cool with us. It was just an hour from Shieldaig to Applecross but it was really cool, then just after this little village you'll find... the most amazing road that I've ever seen: Bealach na Ba.
Also known as The Pass of the Cattle this single track road (of course what were you expecting?) with very tight hairpin bends and gradients up to 20% so it is a very challenging road, actually, there are some warning advises saying that neither learner drivers nor large vehicles are suitable to drive on it. There were a few other drivers like me stopping every other turn, but it's normal, it's so amazing and incredible that you have to stop to take photos, or just to enjoy yourself with the views. This was the main stop of the day, I wanted to park the car and take some more pictures but it started raining quite heavy so, I had to take them quickly :D Really worth it.
After this, we just had another more stop, Rogie Falls about an hour an a half from the Bealach na Ba viewpoint. We arrived there and it was still raining but not as heavy as before, so we could visit the place no problem. It was a very short walk to reach the waterfalls, and you could keep walking next to them for a while more, in our case we saw the first bridge and we went back to the car park. We wanted to get home as soon as possible because the day that we were coming back it was the day that the Hurricane Ophelia was meant to be hitting Scotland that afternoon, so we were a bit scared, we saw the red sun (couldn't take a picture because I was driving on the motorway) and the skies turned black, never seen something like that ever. At the end when we arrived home the storm was already there, but it was not that strong were we live, lucky us :)
Some tips:
- Drive carefully!! Roads are very narrow
- Take some food to eat, this time for lunch we had some sandwiches :P