Wednesday 27 April
A proper lie in at last followed by refreshing showers and then a trip to the washing machines to de-crust some of our clothes. Dave's clothes are mainly clean but my trousers are very crusty with all the dried peat bog that I managed to fall into.
Leaving the washing to go we went back up to the Ceildh Place for breakfast and another stormingly sunny day.
More chores: drying the clothes either in the dryer or in the stiff breeze flowing over the campsite and the town (a breeze that left us wearing jumpers and sunhats) and then off to the post office. Apart from the usual maps we also sent back food that was spare because of our speedier than expected pace and because we hadn't been eating all that we had expected to eat. And, most controversially of all, Dave had persuaded me that we should send back our fleecy clothes - it simply wasn't cold enough though it had been nice to have clean trousers and a different jumper when we'd hit civilisation in Kinlochewe and in Ullapool.
Then we did a bit of shopping, including proper food for the evening, and walking about before we packed up the tent and went back to the docks to wait for the ferry and the bus that would take us, hopefully, towards our rest place for the night. It was a lazy day but I'd obviously spent far too much time in the sun and had a little bit of a dizzy and headachy sensation.
The bus left late (it was due at 4.40) but the driver did agree to drop us off at the bunkhouse rather than make us walk back along the horrible main road.
So, we made it to the Forest Way bunkhouse www.forestway.co.uk and what a great bunkhouse it is - clean, modern, well-equiped, sympathetically done and in a nice setting away from the road. The host, Iain, was happy to help and advise (he'd already spent time on the phone talking us through bus options and volunteering to pick us up if the bus didn't work out) and he also agreed to drop us back off at Inverael the next morning - saving us again from the horrible road. He also sold us eggs and bread so we could have a fried breakfast in the morning.
After a bit of chatting, with Iain and with a guest (who had stayed in the bunkhouse the night before and who was trying to go home but couldn't because the road was blocked by a forest fire) who was staying in the b&b but eating in the bunkhouse, Dave cooked an awesome stilton, leek, onion and mushroom pasta and we spent a pleasant evening reading walking magazines and relaxing on the sofa.
It felt a bit odd having such a break. Ullapool is the sensible location to break the trail if you are doing it in two stages and it had occurred to me that things were going so well that maybe we should quit when we were ahead. But it was never a real option. Just an idle thought.
The skies finally clouded over in the late afternoon and, after drinking lots and lots of water, I began to feel better after the too much sun part of the day.
Time on the go: None
Distance covered: None
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