TRAVERSE Issue 15 - December 2019 | Page 70

the temperature reached 20 degrees. The day ended beautifully as the sun slipped into the sea … what a day! Along the rugged Scottish west coast, we continued to the Achmel- vich Bay. The white beach and the blue sea reminded us more of the Caribbean than of Scotland. Since the campsite was fully booked, we decided to continue driving. Our destination was the small-town of Applecross. While planning our ride around Scotland we heard of the famous pass road "Bealach na ba”, which was the only connection to Applecross for many years. From the vantage point, on clear days, you have an excellent view along the coast. The weather was bad, yet we still ventured across the Skye Bridge to the famous Isle of Skye. We needed to get used to the tourist crowds as the closer we came to the end of our ride we encoun-tered more buses and rental cars. We were compensated with sunshine and impressive views along the A855 as we headed towards Uig, past the Kilt Rock Fall and the Skye Museum. An absolute highlight was the visit to the Old Inn at Car-bost along the A863 and the A8009. We were given a tip about the Old Inn, that was close to our camping pod, and to make sure we were there at 8:00pm to enjoy TRAVERSE 70 the live music and a larger. It couldn’t be a late night, we were catching the ferry the next morning. Approaching the ferry terminal in Armadale we were waved away by the employee at the parking lot, while we were amazed, we rode back to the Skye Bridge and on to Fort William. It gave us a chance to visit the most famous castle in Scotland, the Eilean Donan. As what seemed to be the norm in Scotland, the heavy rain end- ed after two hours, and the castle was bathed in a very special light that cast across the landscape even as we made our way to the Commando Me-morial on the A82 … the views across to Ben Nevis were spectacular.