Day 675: Manic midges

31/05/2023

We all had a great night’s sleep, Lachlan had well and truly embraced the #podlyf.

Eloise and Lachlan started packing up our bags. After a minor false start, Elosie “helped” Dad take the bags up to the car which was an adventure in its own right.

Eloise had just celebrated that she had made all of her jumpers dirty and now Super Mum will let her wear her cardigan that Emma gave her. This was followed up by the wheelbarrow rides, Eloise was having a good morning.

Lachlan waved goodbye to his beloved pod and we had a good rally sesh sensible drive down the coastline. There was a short break at a Geopod because Eloise and Nali were both feeling car sick. We then descended into Ullapool for a well deserved brunch.

Nali then made the quick dash up to the Captain’s Cabin for more sweet merch.

Eloise was sent up to keep an eye on Nali before she bought the shop but was quickly converted by Nali into a wee shopper.

We did actually pick up our very own wee puffin after successfully completing The Quest for the Elusive Holy Golden Puffin yesterday.

After making sure no souvenir shops or art galleries were left unturned, Darryl was let free.

It was then a short trip inland where the first thing we had to do was clean up the boy.

Once Lachlan had been de-Oreoed we made our way down the National Trust Corrieshalloch Gorge National Nature Reserve. Grandpa DAVE was glad his Australian National Trust membership had reciprocal rights in Scotland.

The Victorian suspension footbridge had a six person limit. Feeling a lot safer than that Northern Irish suspension bridge we dare not speak about, Super Mum and Eloise were first to step out. As Liam went to follow, Eloise was quick to shout at him, “No Dad, only six persons, stop, not yet”. He had foolishly forgotten to factor in Percy (also from Emma) and was forced to wait his turn.

Corrieshalloch Gorge is a gorge situated about 20 km south of Ullapool, close to the junction of the A832 and A835 roads near Braemore in the Scottish Highlands. The gorge is approximately 1.5 km long, 60 m deep, and 10 m wide at its lip. The Abhainn Droma flows through Corrieshalloch, below which the landscape opens out into a broad, flat-bottomed glacial trough at the head of Loch Broom. The 46 metre-high Falls of Measach can be viewed from a viewing platform and a Victorian suspension footbridge. The gorge has been owned since 1945 by the National Trust for Scotland who manage it and the surrounding area jointly with NatureScot.

There was not too much on the other side, so we headed back across the bridge and found a bench for lunch, hoping that Lachlan would fall asleep on the way.

A 25 m long footbridge spans the gorge below the falls. The bridge was constructed by Sir John Fowler, who was also one of the designers of the Forth Bridge. Access to the footbridge is via a 300-metre-long path from the car park on the South side of the gorge. There is a charge of £2 payable for parking using an honesty box at the start of the path. A viewing platform has been installed which projects out into the gorge.

We found a peaceful spot for lunch. However, it was short lived as a gazillion midges flying in cloud formation viciously attacked Liam and we bolted back to the car. We found out we need to stay in spots with wind as “with only 2mm of wing to flap they go nowhere fast when the wind speed is above 7mph”. The gorge had been a trap all along.

After a nice stretch of the legs, we headed back towards the coast. Now we knew the parents could enter National Trust sites it was a game changer. After a few corners, both of the kids were asleep and got a good hour nap before we turned into the National Trust Inverewe Gardens.

The entrance had an interesting internal wind vane, I forgot to look on the outside. Eloise was excited to pick up her National Trust passport with activities around the gardens. Lachlan had successfully been transferred into the pram still asleep.

The first country that Eloise visited was Australia, but she already knew all about koalas. Funnily enough, Tasmania was its own country in Eloise’s passport.

Nali and Grandpa DAVE were having a grand ol’ time wandering around the beautiful gardens arguing about whether plants were Rhododendrons or Azaleas. Meanwhile, Eloise was nailing all of the colours.

Nali then stumbled upon the Sinclair bench, Sinclair and (Alison) Reid bench to be exact.

It was a warm, bordering hot day, the touring Aussies were down to a single layer. Lachlan had woken up and was ready to leg it.

The wind then dropped and the manic midges returned. Luckily her Glaswegian grandparents had given her a book about how to deal with midges and we bolted.

Inverewe Garden is a botanical garden in Wester Ross in the Scottish Highlands. It is located just to the north of Poolewe in Wester Ross, and is noted for the breadth of its collection. The garden was created from barren land in 1862 by Osgood Mackenzie on the 850-hectare (2,100-acre) estate bought for him by his mother. Initially the challenges were to provide a wind break and soil. To solve the problems, he planted a mixture of large trees and shrubs e.g. Corsican Pine, Douglas Fir, Rhododendrons etc. Having done so his vision was to grow as many exotic plants as possible; this he achieved until his death in 1922. The original Inverewe Lodge was destroyed by fire in 1914 and replaced in 1937 by the current Inverewe House. The Garden covers some 20 hectares (50 acres) and has over 2,500 exotic plants and flowers. There is a further 800 hectares (2,000 acres) of land managed for recreation and conservation. The garden and estate has been the property of the National Trust for Scotland since it was given to the Trust along with a generous endowment for its future upkeep by Osgood’s daughter Mairi Sawyer in 1952.

Eloise was in charge of watching over Nali again in the merch store but is consistently proving to be an ineffective measure and loves to shop with Nali.

Our first NC500 hotel was just around the corner and for the first time we arrived at a sensible hour. As we pulled in Eloise was thrilled to see her beloved “x marks the spot flag”.

In our hotel room, Eloise was fascinated by the alarm clock, as if we really need one of those. Lachlan entertained himself for an hour playing with the tea set before it was downstairs for dinner.

For dinner, we were miraculously given a private dining area for no imaginable reason.

We had not even been aware that “one of the largest wildfires seen in the UK has been detected from space in Nasa satellite images. A 12-mile (20km) plume of smoke was captured drifting towards Loch Ness from the blaze near Cannich”. We were probably fairly close to it last week as “the wildfire has been burning through a large area of scrubland and forestry that has been affected by fires since last week”.