A week in Kylesku – Day 4: Achiltibuie and Loch Glencoul

The boat tour our to see Britain’s tallest waterfall named – Eas a’ Chual Aluinn (Gaelic I’m guessing) – left from Kylesku at 3pm, so we had to find something to do fairly close to make sure we didn’t miss it. We got ourselves ready early and set out for Achiltibuie, about an hour’s drive south west of Kylesku, via some crazy single-track roads.

Achiltibuie is on the west coast and looks out over the Summer Isles. It’s also known for its Hydroponicum. We got there around 11am. Unfortunately, the Hydroponicum was closed for redevelopment, so we headed up the road a little bit along the coast.

When we were in Pittenweem at the Arts Festival a few weeks ago, there was an installation piece by an artist from Japan which consisted of 1000 pebbles he’d found on a beach from the north west of Scotland on which he’d painted their number, from 1 to 1000 in Japanese. Viewers were encouraged to pick up the stones, to take home or do whatever. We got to Pittenweem on the last day of the arts festival so there were only a handful of pebbles left, but we took one and decided we’d return it to the beach from which it had originally been taken from. Well, we couldn’t really remember exactly which beach that was, but we had it in the car with us and passed by a pebbly beach – so it seemed like a good opportunity to get it fairly close back to home. We wonder what will happen to it next, if someone else might stumble upon it and pick it up?

Further up the road we stopped at a smokehouse, which had a little shop selling mostly smoked fish and cheese. We bought a huge piece of oak smoked salmon, which was reduced in price, some nice looking smoked mozzarella and a box of oat cakes. We stopped at the pub next door for lunch. The food was great. I had some delicious home made whole tail scampi and Laura had some smoked mackerel, smoked from the place next door.

Time was getting on so we started heading back to Kylesku for the boat trip. The weather was holding up pretty well and when we got to Kylesku there was a small group of people waiting to go on the trip. We were greeted by the friendly skipper and boarded the boat. It was an intimate little vessel, with an area outside with benches and standing room and a small covered area inside. I had Seren in the backpack so we stayed outside. The skipper was great – top value. Great jokes and stories with an enthusiastic and, more than likely, well rehearsed patter about the boat, the surrounding geology, and the history of the area. Some of the rocks we passed by were 2700 million years old. That’s’ pretty old by my reckoning.


The boat trip had two main ‘attractions’. The waterfall itself coupled with hopeful sightings of baby seals on route. We saw about 5 seals and one baby. Not bad. We continued on to see the Britain’s tallest waterfall. The skipper had joked at the beginning that, although the waterfall was tall – 650 feet – it was also very thin – not like Niagara. Just after the seals the wind began to pick up and the further we got the wetter and choppier it seemed to get. By the time we got to the end of the loch it was so bad that everyone was huddled inside the small covered bit of the boat and we couldn’t’ manoeuvre close enough to the shore to get a good look. So that was a bit of a disappointment – but it was still good fun and Seren seemed to enjoy it, so not to worry.

Some real life seals in the wild!

Turn the boat around Gilligan, it's starting to get a little rough out here!

When we got back I cooked some chorizo stew and we watched A Scanner Darkly. Interesting movie – I liked it. Laura fell asleep towards the end and I had to try and fill her in on what she missed – tricky.