Loch Lochy Viewpoint, Letter Finlay, near Spean Bridge

Around seven yesterday evening a small van with signage for Highland council pulled into the parking area. The lady driver turned out to be a local ranger and came over to speak with us as we had our rear door open. We spoke for well over an hour, telling her of problems we thought needed addressing with regard to the many vans in the area, and she spoke about plans in place to address some of them. She was quite taken with our Boxio toilet, which fortunately we'd emptied earlier. Her accent was a little unclear at first, but then we realized she was French. Obviously we were curious as to why she would want to swap her home town near Bordeaux with cold, wet, windy Scotland. She'd been up here now for many years and loved it. Oh well, each to their own. After another cold, wet windy night we awoke to see the seals on the nearby sand flats. There are definitely less than we've seen on our previous visits, perhaps they're fed up with the cold as well and have moved to warmer climes.

The cold is starting to become an issue, and Angela thought we should give up on going to the north and west of Scotland. Heavy rain and winds are due to roll in off the Atlantic for a few days and it just seemed to miserable to stay. We will return to the area sometime next year with our higher tog duvet and when the weather is more settled as we can see no point in driving busy narrow potholed single tracked roads in appalling weather when the clouds would be low obscuring the mountains? 

So today we've driven back towards Fort William. It seemed a little warmer around Loch Ness, very busy with visitors all in search of the illusive monster. Once again we could drive straight through the area having seen the sights and attractions before. Trees, glens, mountains, lochs, waterfalls and crumbling stone walls topped with fresh green ferns like native Indian headdresses are our interest.

Tonight's stop at the viewpoint car park for Loch Lochy is not the sort we would normally choose to stay at as it's next to the A82 to Fort William. But it being Sunday tomorrow we hope the early traffic will be light. There are quite a few other vans here with us as free overnight stops in the area are limited. We managed a very short walk out, stopping to look at the waterfall. If course it keeps raining, but the forecast for tomorrow shows the weather settling after lunch. We are going to head back to Ardurmuchan and then onto Mull. No doubt the weather won't play ball, but we can only hope it will settle and warm up a little. The ranger yesterday told us there was snow on the nearby mountains which is totally unseasonable, as is the cold. We've been away four weeks now and really hope the weather improves dramatically. Good luck to everyone driving the NC500, we hope you get to take in the amazing views on offer, but for us we are lucky to have the choice and time to return at our leisure.

Impressive Dryads Saddles.