A week in Kylesku – Day 2: Lochinver

Today was our first full day up here. The north west highlands is pretty remote but it's a beautiful place and an ideal spot for a bit of R&R. There are plenty of places to visit outside of Kylesku and its relatively well placed so that they can be reached within an hour or two's drive. They're not actually that far in terms of miles but it takes a while to navigate the windy single track roads.

The lodge we're staying in is great. Not too fancy on the outside (it’s your basic A-frame timber cabin) but it’s nicely furnished and there’s an amazing view from the living room / dining room / kitchen out across the loch, with the mountains behind. It’s quite stunning. We were told by the owner, Andre, that we might be able to spot all sorts of wildlife; including otters, porpoises and deer – though our only sighting so far, of a deer in the distance, turned out to be some lichen on a rock … so we’ll see.

Our lodge - No. 6

The view from our lodge

In the morning we took a walk down to the centre of Kylesku. There's actually not a lot to the place, not even a shop, just a few houses along a main road that leads to a small hotel and a boat jetty, where you can take a couple of mini boat cruises.

We found a cute cat that lived in the hotel. After showing it some affection (Laura loves cats) it followed us along a path – bounding giddily along the way. The end of the path took us to the foot of the ‘new’ road bridge, actually built in 1984. It’s a great little bridge though. Lovely and curved – rather than just straight and boring. It replaced the ferry service that used to leave from Kylesku across to the other side of the loch.

Kylesku Hotel

Me and Seren at the jetty

Don't look now but I think we're being followed

Kylesku Bridge

By coincidence, some friends of ours, Barbara and Dave, were also up in the area on holiday, staying a bit further south than us. We’d arranged to meet up in Lochinver, a small village about 30 mins drive south of Kylesku, at its well know pie shop – the Lochinver Larder. We got there a little late, though we would have been on time had we not walked in the wrong direction from the car park. The pies were indeed impressive. Apparently you can order them over the internet and they’ll send them by post – testament to their popularity perhaps.

After lunch we took a walk through along the water front to the harbour. Barbara and I used to work together in the same architect’s office some years ago and there happened to be a building – a sports centre – which Barbara had worked on just in behind the harbour. (I’d done some initial work on the designs while I was in the office but it had had to change substantially since then to add in new rooms etc.) Looked pretty good.

We had a stroll back to our respective cars and said our cheerios. This was the end of their week-long break so they were heading back down to Edinburgh the following day. We weren’t in any hurry to get back so we decided to take the alternative scenic road back to Kylesku, around the coast and past a pretty beach, which took about an hour. In the evening we cooked, watched a little telly and had an early night.