The morning after our arrival in Badrallach, waves of rain were washing over us. We set off for interesting-sounding community of Scoraig towards the end of the peninsula: someone we had met at the campsite on a previous occasion had told us about it, as he had grown up there, and we had made a mental note to visit some day on a non-hill day. The crofting community of Scoraig cannot be reached by vehicle, only by walking in by the path or by boat from Badluarach across Little Loch Broom.
We started off along the shore of the loch, carefully stepping over slippy licheny rocks and scrabbling up bits of steep grassy banks in places. At one point we ended up following a small group of cows through tall bracken, but as the going had been getting quite slow, we cut across further away from the shore to climb higher to join the proper path. Fine rain fell on us for much of the day. Eventually we reached the buildings of Ruidh’riabhach/Rireavach, and kept going further along through Carnach to Scoraig, stopping at the relocated lighthouse ‘information centre’ along the way, sheltering from the rain and reading about the history and culture of the community. The community does not have mains electricity, and most homes have their own wind turbine to power their appliances. Once in Scoraig, we met an artist returning home with her child from the local school, and was shown her and her husband’s work in her studio by her home. Afterwards, we walked on to the jetty, and further still, exploring some of the rocks by the shore, then turning back to return to the campsite.
An American girl, E, who had recently arrived in Scotland stopped by to chat with us. Later we went into the ‘bothy’, and talked through the evening with E, the two guys we had met the previous day, R and P; we also met a French couple who were camping for one night. Hearing that we were planning to go up An Teallach two days later, for which when the forecast seemed to be the best, P and R said that they would do the walk with us.
Next morning, the weather did not look too bad when I got up – a bit of brightness? We drove north to Ullapool, got groceries at Tesco, then got fish & chips at the Seaforth chippy and had them by harbour surrounded by seagulls. Then we went a bit south over to Gruinard Bay, but it was really raining by then, so we turned around and headed back. B thought to get some kindling for the stove in the ‘bothy’, but we could get none at Dundonnell (the tiny filling station and shop had closed down), nor any at the shop in Badcaul. We went a bit further along the Badcaul road to Badluarach just to have a look, as we had heard about how people who live in Scoraig leave their cars by the jetty at Badcaul on the other side of the water. At the bottom of the steep road, we did see quite a few cars.
That evening, back at the campsite, we had planned to prepare for the next day by eating well and going to bed early, but we ended up having quite a late night socialising in the ‘bothy’ (single malt whiskies were involved). I went to bed without any specific expectations for the next day, just in case things were not to happen according to our original plan.
