UK Day 8 – Balmacara to Applecross Peninsula to Aultbea

Today we did the road around the Applecross Peninsula, and then started on the other peninsulas along route A832 heading to Ullapool eventually, but only made it as far as Aultbea by 7pm, so started looking for somewhere to stay the night. The road is worse than the road to Hana, if you know what that’s like. It’s single lane most of the way, with little overtaking bays every now and then (sometimes for often than others), and you constantly have to pull over to let others pass, both ways. There were sheep making themselves at home on the road too, so you had to compete with them as well. But the views were just amazing! Fantastic! Stupendous and other superlatives:
  
 
 
 
We stopped for lunch at Applecross, at The Walled Garden (a.k.a. The Potting Shed Cafe). They had home-made cakes and other yummy foods, and the walled garden itself was very pretty:
 
A stroll around Applecross and Milltown:

 
More fantastic views in the afternoon, and we realised there was no way we would make it to Ullapool today:

   
  
We stopped for a coffee in Shieldaig and the fellow behind the bar was an Aussie. The poor bloke was working on his own and had so much business, being a Sunday afternoon and gorgeous weather. I managed to have a little chat with him at one stage and he told me he’s been here a couple of months and is ‘going home when he misses it’. It was a cute town:

More prettiness:




Our B&B – at 70 GBP for the double room (they don’t have twin), which is the poshest we’ve stayed in, though the bathroom is downstairs. They were so nice, when we arrived. They helped carry the suitcases upstairs and gave us coffee and checked to see what time the kitchen at the pub in town shut so we could get our dinner, and did our washing which was getting quite urgent! So nice!