Autumn adventure in Scotland, UK. (Part II)My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here, my heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer, chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe, my heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go (My Heart's In The Highlands - Robert Burns).
Drive north along the shores of Loch Lomond you pass through the village of Tyndrum, where you are greeted with a promise of great food and a last chance to fill your petrol tanks before you truly enter the Scottish Highlands. Stretching from Oban on the west coast up through the Isle of Skye, along the coast traversing the Torridon Hills, the Assynt Mountains and on to Durness. Reaching as far as John o’ Groats and hemmed in by Loch Ness. This is the Scottish Highlands, a magical place that has been in my heart for many years.
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I was on Day Five of an autumnal adventure to Scotland, and so far had skirted along the east coast, visiting Rattray Head and Portknockie before turning inland and spending the last few days at Loch Garten in the Cairngorms. Now, my course was set to head northwest via Ullapool deep into the Scottish Highlands and on to Assynt. The Assynt Mountains have appeared on my itinerary during a number of previous trips around Scotland, but for various reasons (usually weather) they have been skipped during some replanning. Well, this time the tables were turned and they were added into an itinerary over a cup of coffee, cheese toasty and a weather forecast. Very excited! Chase the light! Chase the cheese!
Important executive planning session
After a couple of nights in the Abernethy Forest at Loch Garten, a trip into nearby Aviemore was on the cards to “freshen up” and get a proper cooked meal or two. Whilst sat in Costa, I had my maps, weather forecasts and sat nav out. I truly had not decided where to go next. Staring at my map of the Highlands, there was “Assynt” shouting out at me, that place I had skipped so many times when beaten back by the weather. A hop, skip and a jump through Inverness and I would be on the A835 heading to Ullapool before you could say £1.99 a litre. With a trip to New Zealand early next year and most of summer for 2023 already booked, it was going to be at least a year before I could get back this far north for more than a few days. Before I set off, I had to pay a quick visit to the outdoor clothing shop at the end of the car park that had a 25% off everything sale on. Gotta love a bargain. Within an hour I was trundling along more tree lined A-roads bathed in autumnal sunshine. You can feel the climb out of Inverness as you skate around lochs and valleys. A brief “Max-stop” at Silverbridge and Black Water Falls.
Black Water falls
The weather was great when I started off but the closer I got to Ullapool, the more the light deteriorated and the more the wind picked up. This is quite familiar territory in the Scottish Highlands, but it can change in the blink of an eye. Keep going boy, don’t let it put you off! After passing through Ullapool and grabbing a few vital supplies of dog biscuits, beer and cake, I headed out of the port and climbed uphill towards Strathcanaird to find my first view of the Assynt range.
Stopped on the A835 at Strathcanaird
There is one mountain in particular that has fascinated me for some time because of its shape and geology, and that is Stac Pollaidh or “Stac-Polly” as it is affectionately known. Formed from Torridonian sandstone, the peak was left exposed during the last ice age (A nunatak). As the ice sheet flowed to the coast it carved the lower slopes leaving them smooth whilst the top had been left exposed to weathering leaving the rocky crest. Stac Pollaidh has a sister “nunatak” Suilven, that I would be passing later on that day. For now, I wanted to capture a panoramic view of the mountains. The weather and light was rubbish, but I knew I would be back along this way in a few days, so I considered this a practice and would pray for better weather on my return. This smaller part of Assynt beyond the line of these mountains is known as Inverpolly with a narrow single-track road leading to the Coigach peninsula and Summer Isles.
The Assynt Range and Inverpolly beyond
From left to right: Ben Mor Coigach, Beinn an Eoin, Stac Pollaidh standing proud in the distance and Cùl Beag to the right. The only bit of light to appear, managed to catch this fence in front of me. I made a note to move more to the left when I return. According to the information board at this amazing viewpoint:
“Picture the scene here 25,000 years ago… All you would have seen was a great expanse of ice covering even the highest mountains and flowing far out to the west, beyond the Isle of Lewis.”
Bonkers! That is some ice sheet, as you can see from the map below where I have pinned where I was stood with the islands of Lewis and Harris out to the West.
One more shot before I must move on.
Stac Pollaidh
Below Stac Pollaidh you can just make out Loch Lurgainn, and it is here I would be travelling the next day. But in the meantime, I was to continue my journey up the A835 and on to Loch Assynt.
I can’t really mention the A835 without also talking about the North Coast or NC500. Glorified by Jeremy Clarkson and his motley crew from Top Gear, the route around the north coast of Scotland has turned into a slow procession of over-priced sports cars clogging up the single-track roads and filling stations. I can only imagine the impact upon local traffic as processions of vehicles drive too close together for the passing bay system to work at all. After all, they are designed for infrequent single vehicles to be able to pass each other, not a line of 20 odd Ferraris meeting a tractor coming the other way. Controversial, as I’m sure the route also brings tourist money to the area, but how much is actually kept by those who live there must be questionable. Thankfully the majority of users of the NC500 following in Clarkeson’s footsteps bouncing their expensive Lamborghinis through the potholes and ditches only visit in summer when I stay well clear.
Grabbing a snap of Suilven
Why is there a 'Junction outside a bend' hazard sign in the middle of the field?
Not long after passing through Elphin and grabbing a roadside snap of Suilven, the weather really took a turn for the worse and it was just a case of getting to my overnight stop at Loch Assynt before it got dark. The heavens opened and it rained and blew for most of the night meaning a rocky night in the van at my rather exposed parking spot. Was I once again going to be blown off track visiting Assynt?
Day 6
That pre-dawn alarm rattled through the van signally to Max its jump on the bed time. Thankfully the rain had almost stopped with just an annoying drizzle to dampen our spirits as I fished Max’s breakfast out of the boot. I had somehow managed to forget Max’s food bowl when I set off from home, so had been feeding him from a paper bowl during this trip. I had just about managed to get my timing right by day six putting his food box back in the van just in time to grab the paper bowl before it blew away. He eats like it’s his last meal. Today my timing was out, and I ended up running through the mud in my PJ’s and sliders as the bowl disappeared down the bank towards the loch.
A slightly damp view from my bedroom
A quick cup of tea and breakfast muffin for me before jumping out of the van and getting stuck into another day of Photography in the Highlands. Not in my PJ’s I might add. I had come to this spot on Loch Assynt specifically to photograph the small islands, and had been hoping for some mist. Unfortunately, all I had right now was light drizzle and very grey skies. Even at sunrise, the light did not change, so thick was the cloud cover. The forecast was for an improvement, so Max and I spent an hour wandering the shoreline navigating boggy holes, rocky outcrops and boot sucking peat mud. Glad I had my wellies on. Max just got wet and muddy (again). This trip was the first full test of Max’s drying coat in the van. He is a big Labrador and mud just seems to find him and stick. No matter how much you try and dry him off, he will wait until he is back in the van and shake sending thousands of muddy droplets of water spraying on the roof, the seats, the windows… everywhere!! Now I am armed with a drying jacket, which is basically a towel that goes over his head, wraps around his body by Velcro and hooks over his back legs. We call it his “smoking Jacket”. I’m sure the manufacturer ruffandtumblecoats.com won’t mind me using their stock photo as Max will not keep still long enough and hates the camera pointing at him.
Ruffandtumblecoats.com
I can’t recommend these coats enough. First of all, it stops that dreaded “van shake” and within a very short time Max is bone dry. Strangely, so is the coat. I can only assume his body heat pushes the moisture out and it evaporates straight off the jacket. Either way, I don’t find myself needing to dry the coat. It’s magic! Anyways, back to the first photo of the day.
Loch Assynt islands and Canisp shrouded in cloud
With the drab weather and lack of direct light, I decided to go for a long exposure to remove as much distraction as possible and focus on the islands. I dropped in my 6 stop NDF filter, polariser maximising the reflections and set the timer at 240 seconds at f/11. I’d normally need my 10 stop NDF, but as it was still 07:45am on 1st November, it was still dark enough without it to get this long exposure. Whilst a nice shot, I wasn’t happy with the composition. I was struggling to isolate the islands at water level so decided to climb back up the embankment to get a higher viewpoint. In my minds eye when I planned to visit here, I had mist on the water, early morning sunlight, maybe majestic white swans paddling by. Ok maybe not the swans, but I was struggling here in such flat light. My second image was only marginally better.
From a higher viewpoint
This was better, but the smaller island in the background was merging with the nearer and the tops of the trees were interfering with the skyline. I liked the line of trees to the left of the main island but wanted some separation.
Separation, it’s all about separation.
I’m no higher here. I have just moved over to the right. What this has done is isolate the far island from the near and also separated the 4 trees from the tiny island that was on the left. Also, just the move to the right has moved the highest tree tops in front of the hill behind rather than breaking the skyline as in the previous shot. If you are going to breach a skyline with your subject its needs to be bold. Finally, the cloud covered Canisp is now in-between the islands and the composition feels more balanced. So, three different compositions of the same view. Which do you prefer? Not the conditions I would have preferred, but it has served as a good example of how moving around a location can change the composition significantly, and getting separation and balance is key. All I needed was a little mist between the islands and the far shore and this would have been pretty much perfect. I suppose that means I need to come back. There was only one other way I was going to improve the composition from this angle and that was to employ a drone. But I really don’t like drones. I’ll come back to my dislike of drones another day, but it involves ‘more money than sense’, ‘sitting in the comfort of your car in a nice car park’, ‘not getting wet’, ’no effort required’. If paying my mortgage depended upon my photography, I’d likely employ a drone as a secondary piece of equipment, but as it doesn’t, I won’t. I’d spotted a group of rocks further down the shoreline, but they looked quite tricky to get to, involving wading through part of the loch. I dropped Max back at the van (in his smoking jacket) and discarded my pack just carrying the setup I was using. I managed not to fall in, get my feet stuck or drop anything in the loch as I wobbled through the water nearing the top of my wellies. Once I had made my way over to the rocks my luck changed, as did the temperature of my feet.
What’s that reflecting in my camera screen?
It was a faint glow I noticed at first, but things were brightening up behind me. This composition was ok, with the 3 rocks giving some foreground interest, but as you can see from the phone shot above, the flat light was giving no contrast or depth to the image. Another great shot with some mist or an amazing sunset behind, but not as it was. Thankfully what was appearing behind me did materialise as direct light for a mere 15 minutes, so I snapped away.
Morning light
As the rocks were very close to the camera, I decided to set my aperture at f/11 to give me a reasonable depth of field to get both rocks and trees in focus. To do this I used the hyperfocal distance method to place my focus. The theory of Hyperfocal Distance is well explained on a number of google searches, but in short, by placing your focus at a certain distance from your camera, depending upon the aperture and focal length, you can guarantee everything will be in focus from halfway to the focus point all the way to infinity. Using the Hyperfocal table in Photopills, my aperture of 24mm at f/11 has a hyperfocal distance of 1.72 metres or 5 ft 7 inches in old money. This would give me focus from half that distance 0.86 metres all the way out to infinity or in this example the trees and the hills beyond. This is best explained accompanied by a visual representation.
Having looked this up on the table, I estimated what part of the rocks was about 1.7 metres away and focused the camera on that point. Is this the best method? Well, I have had mixed results and given an option I would normally go for focus stacking, taking several shots at different focus points from near to infinity that can be stacked and blended. However, when things are moving or there could be changes in light between shots this method can be quite difficult to execute. If you look at the image captured, the reflection of the trees in the water extended right up to the rocks, and given I was using a 2.5 second exposure, chances are each shot (probably 3) would have a different reflection in the water as the breeze changed the surface of the water making the blend challenging. No need for a graduated filter or bracketing here as the tress were lit from behind me and no risk of a silhouette. I wouldn’t say Loch Assynt was disappointing, but clearly this location needs mist or better light to be appreciated, so now I have some compositions, I just need to come back another time for the light. Maybe Ardvreck Castle further down the loch would give me something special. A short drive down the loch and I parked up Mr T in the layby. My time was limited at this location, so after a few test shots and a wander, I opted for keeping the castle aways a little and bringing in the peak of Spidean Coinich in the background.
Ardvreck Castle
Spidean Coinich is the tail of the Y-shaped Quinag whose highest peak Sail Gharbh you can see beyond the first peak in this image. In my first image I wanted to keep the detail in the clouds as they fanned out from the top of castle. They were creating fantastic leading lines and definition in the sky. To do this I kept the shutter speed at a relatively quickly half a second at f/11. The sky was actually quite bright at this time, so I dropped in a graduated filter to bring the sky down a little and not blow out the highlights. From memory this was a 6 stop grad medium filter so as not to interfere with the castle or mountains. A nicely balanced composition complimented by the great cloud formations, but if only that sun would come back out again and light up the castle.
Longer Exposure
Whilst I waited for the chance of the sun emerging once again, I dropped in my 6 stop NDF and pushed the exposure out to 60 seconds for a different perspective of the same view. Unfortunately, the sun did not reappear, so I jump across the road and grabbed a few shots of the waterfall right next to the van. Two for the price of one at this location.
Ardvreck Castle Waterfall
Time to move on and my next stop was to be Knockan Crag 20 minutes away. In the time it took to drive to the location, day turned to night and the heavens opened once again.
Lochan an Ais and Cùl Beag take a direct hit
Man, it rained so hard, I climbed between the seats to get in the back of the van and put the kettle on to avoid a right soaking. This cloudburst battered the van in the car park for over an hour, so I had some breakfast and double checked my route for the rest of the day. I intended to travel down the narrow roads to Brae of Achnhaird so needed to be sure of my route and timings so I didn’t miss the light. The downpour seemed to be the back end of the miserable weather and the sun quickly came out. But, I had to make the decision to skip this location as I wanted to return to the Strathcanaird viewpoint and get that panorama with better light.
Stac Pollaidh beckons
I was so glad I returned to this location and grabbed this shot. The light was perfect, and the post downpour clouds made for a great sky. This image was taken using my usual 50mm prime lens multiple shots technique and stitched together in Lightroom. As planned, I had moved about 20 metres to the left today, which reduced the impact of the fence line in the foreground. I took a quick phone snap of the little map at the viewpoint.
Inverpolly
Just one more photo from this viewpoint of Stac Pollaidh before I jumped back into the van and made my way down the winding road through this very valley.
Stac Pollaidh
As I was bumbling along the narrow road, eyes on stalks looking out for oncoming vehicles and the next passing place, I spotted a tree sticking out from the side of the bank and dived into an “extended” passing place. Clearly, I wasn’t the first person to stop here, but didn’t want to push my luck so I moved quickly, scampering down the embankment to get the tree framing the loch and Stac Pollaidh. No time for waiting for the light here, so “wham bam” I grabbed the shot and legged it back up to the van. Nothing to see here! No Englishman plonking his van in a passing place at all. Never happened! This wasn’t to be the last time I was running today.
Not a shot from a passing place
Not a great shot, and no time to wait for the sun to come back again, so I thought maybe I could try again tomorrow on the way back. I was in for better luck as I got to the bottom of Stac Pollaidh and took a little more time to get this next image of the sun reflecting off the crags and great autumn colours near the road.
Autumn colours of Stac Pollaidh
I’ve read plenty of accounts and seen many images of climbs up Stac Polly, so fully intend planning a return visit without Max at some point. The view would be amazing from up there! The rest of the way to Achnahaird, the road got narrower but more scenic and soon enough mountains were replaced with sand and sea and after a sharp right down a farm track, I landed at my overnight stop. I’ve rocked up at some great overnight parking spots before now, but this one was surely pretty near the top. I think the fact the sun had come out did help, but I had a fat grin on my face.
No 1 camping spot
I’m not one for getting too over excited, honestly, but right now I was a kid in a sweet shop. That view! The location! Them mountains!
Do I go left, or do I go right? Up? Down?
Tick tock, time was ticking away until sunset.
To my left was a medium sized hill that looked like it would command a great view, so I was off. Parka on (don’t let the sunshine fool you, it was freezing), full pack (who knew what lens I would need) and Max. We started at a reasonable marching pace, but it wasn’t long before I found myself running up that hill (queue Kate Bush) desperately hanging on to Max on his lead who was showing me the way. It was an almost exact repeat of Bow Fiddle Rock 2019, except this time I wasn’t running downhill, which I think may have lessened the effect. It’s not the initial impact of knees and hands into the soft muddy peat that shocks you, it’s the full backpack in the neck as you come to an abrupt stop. Imagine slamming the brakes on in your car with an unrestrained 40-pound St Bernard on the back seat. I don’t think anyone saw me, but my gloves were now rendered useless soaked in brown peaty water and I’d ruined a brand new pair of pants in the process. The ones I had bought yesterday in that 25% off sale in Aviemore for goodness sake. Dooooh. Onwards! Thankfully the view from the top was great so I set about one of my skinny panoramas.
Achnahaird Bay
The low light was highlighting the lines of raised ground creating perfect leading lines down to the shore. These are man-made, and left over from the farming methods of the early crofters. I have seen the same at the foot of Quiraing on Skye and dotted around Lewis and Harris. According to the Soil Survey Of Scotland, I believe it is known as the “lazy-bed system, whereby peat cut from parallel furrows is spread over the intervening rigs and mixed with shelly sand and seaweed to form a better rooting medium”. Mainly used for potatoes. Something wasn’t quite right with this image though. I could see a lovely sandy beach in the distance, but it was too far from me, and the bay was slicing the image in two. I think as the tide was in, there was not much beach in view, so it more resembled a loch than the coast. It’s a great record of what I was seeing, and if you look closely you can see Mr T parked up in the bottom right corner. But it wasn’t the image I came here for. After pondering for a while I decided to abandon this spot, head back down off the hill and walk along the shore towards the beach I could see. It was here I found what I was looking for (Now I can here Bono). A nice beach, the sea filled less of the image (being up high isn’t always necessarily best) and a very obliging lady and her two dogs took a walk across the sand bank just as the sun was setting behind me giving the image a sense of scale.
Achnahaird Beach
Left to right Suilven, Cul Mor,Stac Pollaidh, Cul Beag, Beinn an Eoin and Ben Mor Coigach. What an amazing place. I can’t begin to describe the scale of the view and how I felt “on the edge of the world” out here on the coast. One road in and one road out to a small number of houses. What a great place to live. I was much happier with this image so headed back to the van to get that kettle on, warm up and get my soaking wet pants and gloves dry.
What a good sunset feels like
It was a lovely quiet night down on the shoreline and I spent the evening editing images as I knew I was going to have a lazy morning before heading off mid afternoon. Yes! A lie in!
The view from the van just before sunrise
I briefly woke to check out the sunrise and grab a snap from the van, before going back to sleep for a well-earned lie in. Weather changes quickly out this way and whilst having breakfast, a weather warning came in for gale force winds and heavy rain which was hilarious given I had just enjoyed a cracking sunrise. But, the wind was soon picking up so I decided to head off before lunch and start to make my way south through the Highlands. I didn’t really have much of a plan, more a desire to visit a few places on the route home. I decided to head for Inverness and follow the route down Loch Ness as this would give the most miles for my buck. The weather quickly turned as I followed the A82 towards Strone.
Dark clouds looming
In short, the weather deteriorated very quickly as I trundled down the A82 so much so driving was becoming quite tricky, so I opted to pull in at Fort Augustus and park up in the community campervan park for the night. 24 hours were lost sheltering from this one. I won’t go on about it, you know the routine: howling winds, rocking van, wet dog and a few beers from the fridge. Later the next day I eventually pulled into the layby on the road to Glen Etive and found a good parking spot for the night.
Another great parking spot
It was around 1pm and it looked like the rain was coming to an end, so I headed out in a light shower to the waterfalls at the base of Buachaille Etive Mòr. This is a VERY popular spot for photographers, but I could see there were no other vehicles and I had the spot to myself in the rain. It’s a tricky location to negotiate and the view of the mountain is obscured by a number of trees limiting the compositions. Such is the volume of visitors, its an absolute mud bath on the banks of the river overlooking the waterfalls. I found a good view right on the edge of the bank and grabbed my first image whist it was still raining.
The last of the rainfall
The rain was starting to clear with the breaking sun reflecting off the wet rocks of Buachaille Etive Mòr in the background and a few shafts of sunlight starting to break through to me at the river. I moved around a little and found another composition that involved me kneeling down in the only dry spot with one of my tripod legs hanging over the edge and sitting on a rock above the river. There is a lot to capture here so I was using my wide-angle lens way out at 16mm. As the light began to move closer, the sky became brighter and I opted to bracket the image to avoid losing the detail in the sky. I couldn’t user a graduated filter here as the top of the mountain and tree would appear darker and look odd. The dynamic range of the Nikon Z7 and bracketing should allow me to bring this out in post-production. My first image as the rain was clearing was all about the mood and keeping my camera lens dry, so I chose to just about freeze frame the water by setting my exposure at 160th second at f/11. For this second image I wanted to take my time and get some movement in the water, so moved my exposure out a little at a time until I had the desired effect. Not long streaks you would associate with ½ second more just some motion blur. I settled on 1/30th second giving me what I was looking for and then adjusted my aperture to f/16 to give me the right exposure as the light changed.
I was happy with this image and set about flipping my camera to landscape to grab a second shot, when I heard lots of voices behind me. Within seconds I was surrounded by a large party of German photographers. Literally, seven people tried to crowd around me as I was kneeling on the floor. I swear at one point this chap behind me rested his camera on my head.
You’re surrounded, come out with your hands up!
The grimacing lady to my right was getting quite frustrated and whacked my tripod a few times before I had to ask her to back off. I don’t speak German, but I can guess what was being said. I had taken my second shot and checked all was ok, but was I moving? Was I pump! I took a few selfies, checked some imagined second shot a few times giggling to myself before I finally, slowly stood up and took my time putting my camera in my bag and folding my tripod. I’d have been more convivial if it hadn’t been for the tripod bashing.
My German friends
Where the furthest left man is standing you can see the only dry spot where I was kneeling. I suppose it is to be expected when visiting such a honeypot. I wandered upstream a little standing next to the riverbank giving them something to remove in photoshop when they got back home before saying Auf Wiedersehen as I crossed over the river and headed towards the small bogs higher up, still in shot. I’m so naughty!
Reflections of Buachaille Etive Mòr
The light had come and gone in a brief 30 minutes, during which time I had grabbed some great shots, been nearly pushed in the river by my German friends and placed myself right in shot on the other side of the river for good measure. "Verrückter englischer eindringling". My time in Scotland was running out and despite many prayers, there was not going to be any magical sunset where I was, so it was a case of enjoying the location and getting an early night before the long haul home in the morning.
I had finally managed to visit the Assynt range, and although the weather had been changeable, I found some great locations and compositions that I can come back to at any time when I am nearby. The beach camp at Achnahaird had been the highlight of this second part of my Autumnal adventure in Scotland and I will definitely be back to explore further. A chap who also stayed over recommended Achmelvich Bay up past Lochinver and was in his opinion the best beach on the whole west coast of Scotland. Now that needs to be verified at some point. Breakfast at my favourite café (therealfoodcafe.com) fueled me for the 260 mile drive home for a shower and a proper hot meal.
Thank you for reading this far, and I hope you enjoyed the trip.
Keywords:
Achnahaird Beach,
Ardvreck Castle,
Assynt,
Coigach peninsula,
Inverpolly,
Landscape Photography,
Loch Assynt,
mountains,
Scotland,
Stac Pollaidh,
Suilven,
Summer Isles,
sunrise,
sunset,
Ullapool
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