Swimming, museum and boggy walk

So today we all managed to lie in - hurray!!!!  Just as well as it was raining.  We had a slow morning and noticed the weather was getting better - seems to be that the mornings are misty and cloudy and over the day it all burns off to beautiful sunshine.

River Runie

We didn't really have a plan for today, so we decided to head to the swimming pool at Ullapool for a swim whilst the weather sorted itself out.  Wow, they have a 25 metre long swimming pool here, and the water was deliciously warm, AND it was pretty much empty.  Wow!  We spent a good 1.5 hours enjoying the place - playing lots of silly games and getting lots of water in our ears, up our noses etc as we all attempted handstands, took part in underwater swimming competitions etc etc.  It was a good time, and we noticed the sun had started to shine.  Our tummies were beginning to rumble so we got out and went into town in search of lunch.

We did pop our heads round to the Seafood Shack - they had scallops on today, however it was bad timing, it had just opened and there was a huge queue, so we decided we should really try somewhere else, so went to the No.1 ranked place, The West Coast Deli - cheese and ham toasties for the boys (apparently they were really good) whilst I had a huge salad with a slice of goats cheese and beetroot quiche.  It was good, but scallops at the seafood shack would have been better.

Loch Broom from Camas Beag

We then decided to visit the museum, it was only small, but perfectly formed and gave us lots of interesting info about the local area - the clearances, the starvation, the emigrants to America (lots of whom came back), how the community do work together (quite recently the residents of the Coigach region managed to get the land signed over to them meaning nothing / no-one can have any power over them (apart from planners I guess).  Ullapool community have also bought Isle Martin - just off shore from the town for the community and recently repaired and extended their jetty.

Tom managed to squeeze into a kilt (and I think looked quite good in it).

We then headed home for a bit of down time and to give the clouds longer to dissipate before heading out again.  We decided to do a walk - one quite local to our house, called the Posties Path.  Back in the day, someone was paid ⅔d to take the post from Ullapool to a stone half way to Achilitiebuie.  Now Achilitiebuie is an 11 mile walk away.  We did the first 1.5 miles of the walk and it was hard, very hard.  The ground was very boggy, and rocky, so you were constantly swapping between rock and bog - it meant that you couldn't cover ground quickly and all 3 of us fell in the bog at some point (Matt fell in at one point, Tom went to rescue him and ended up falling in on top of him!!!  Comedy moment for me, and with retrospect Matt sees the funny side too - shame I didn't take a photo!)

Loch Broom and MV Loch Seaforth heading to Stornoway

Anyway, it took us an hour to cover the 1.5 miles to an ancient fort, Dùn Canna.  Just a pile of rubble now, but it was on a promontory into the sea, so we enjoyed the view (saw the ferry heading back to Stornaway).   We then went down on to Camus Beag beach to skim some pebbles before heading back along the path.  By now it had turned very muggy, so it was a bit of a sweaty way home and all our clothes had to go straight into the washing machine on our return, but it was a good walk.  Oh, forgot to say we saw deer as well - there was a deer estate adjacent to the walk - so it wasn't quite seeing them in the wild - but nice all the same.

Woody Woodpecker

We got home, had showers, then curry for tea, then we watched Global T20 cricket (a cricket competition in Canada with some well known international players - think they are trying to popularise cricket in Canada - the crowd is a bit thin on the ground and all of South Asian descent!)  Anyway it has become a thing now and I'm forced to watch it until Tom goes to bed at 9pm (holiday bedtime!).  Oh and we had cheese and biscuits a bit later on, eating some of Matt's birthday cheese - the 'gruyere' was particularly good.

Whilst watching the cricket we noticed that there were loads of birds in the garden, including a woodpecker.  There were loads of them - why have we not noticed them before (maybe it has been too hot and sunny?)  Anyway, Matt was snapping away for a while.

Another good day.  I wonder what tomorrow will bring...