by So today was… eh. The rain and low clouds – which I loved in England because it made all the glens and vales seem cool and mysterious – were really just a detriment to fully appreciating the day. I got spoiled on the first three days (even with yesterday’s clouds, they weren’t low and ruining the mountain peaks), so it was a bit of a letdown. But I still managed to seek out some cool stuff.
Little House On The Prairie Artificial Island In The Lake
I actually drove through Lairg last year and noticed this odd little house on a tiny island in the middle of the lake, but I was so distracted by the fact that I BADLY needed to pee, that I didn’t stop and take a pic or really investigate further (that was actually when I discovered that most UK towns have public toilets that are surprisingly not terrible and the US could learn from their clean(-ish) example).
Anywho, it’s called The Wee Hoose (not a typo) and they’ve invented a fake backstory for it since it’s really just a leftover from a parade they had 20 years ago and they turned it into a tourist spot. They even tricked the BBC into buying their tall tale.
Rain, Rain, Go Away
The rain and low clouds did make for a few cool sights. I took a few photos, but most sucked because at some point there’s not much I can get a camera to do to make white foggy clouds and reddish-brown hills look as interesting as they did in the moment with the rain falling and the sounds of the wind rushing by. I’ve decided some of the problem with these roadtrips is that conveying them back is missing several of the senses. I can’t help you hear what it was like, how the chill of the wind off the water felt, how you could smell someone’s having a fire in the fireplace in that house down the hill. But here are some cool photos anyways š
Also, this was when I didn’t want to get the camera wet so I tried to take the pic through the windshield, but it was raining so hard I couldn’t get the windshield clear of droplets, which caused the camera’s auto-focus to select the nearest target. And I haven’t figure out how to do manual focus /o\
Jurassic World
In our continuing series Hey Look It’s More Grey Stone, today featured a lake surrounded by mounds of the stuff. I don’t know why, it’s just so cool looking to me. So I took pictures of it. If you’re bored of it, feel free to scroll š
Lakeside Behemoth
At one point there was a massive slab of the grey stone lying next to a lake, and then as you wound around it, the other side was sort of collapsed with rock slides, which made for a cool pattern effect on that back side.
The Porcupine
Off in the distance on the road to Ullapool (no relation), I could see this weird mountain sloping up out of the land far beyond the mountains nearest to me, perfectly framed by them on each side. I grabbed some pics and did some searching to figure out what this thing was. It almost looked like a mesa from the American Southwest that would be right at home in the background of an episode of Westworld. It turns out it is a Graham, a type of Scottish mountain, named Stac Pollaidh. You can’t see it from this angle, but it’s actually pretty spiky and is nicknamed The Porcupine.
Familiar Territory
And once again this route happened to overlap with part of what I drove last year. Except last year was pretty gorgeous out at this point of the drive and so the original memory of this stunning view as I came down from the mountains to meet the shores of Loch Broom is WAY better than the experience today. Though I will say, something about the clouds and the light lets you really see just how stunningly blue the waters are up here.
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