Gallagher's Sutherland

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Our next leg was the 26 miles to Scourie, giving us our first glance of the ladder of hills, Foinaven. We paused on the way to sort out a problem on the RIP for your previous edition of Professional Imagemaker – it’s a funny world when you are standing looking at a highland wilderness trying to second guess why a pdf has gone goofy and what you intend to do about it! We paused at Gallagher Waypoint-3, the bridge at Rhiconich and caught him out – all this guff about suffering for his art; the 5x4 was quite obviously set up on the hard shoulder of the main road! For our part we certainly suffered. After a series of cold, force 8 nor’ westerly gales the midges were hungry and lying in wait to ambush the Sassenachs. Despite being veterans of midge battles we lost heavily to this fighting force, which saw us off in minutes, scattering, in disarray, up the road, dragging partly assembled bikes. We paused to lick our wounds on the higher ground (where we should have parked up in the first place). We harbour a suspicion that Gallagher set them on us for taking the Mick about shooting from the car! Having rearranged our bikes, swatted any stragglers from the Midge Brigade and applied various unctions to our blotchy faces, we set off on the 16-mile trip to Gallagher Waypoint-4, Olshoremore. After sitting on the beach, nibbling at mueseli bars, we photographed the locals and set off back to the van, plotting a strategy to recover the van without further armed contact with the midge platoon. This was accomplished by leaving the bikes back up the hill and charging at the van, at speed, and making an entry before they had smelled us. We then completed the last few miles into Scourie.

The next day we tackled the 4½ km cross-country route to Tarbet, the departure point for ferries to the RSPB bird reserve of Handa. A sign at the start of the walk warned that the route was ‘unmarked and suitable only for fit, well-equipped and experienced walkers, over challenging terrain’. They were not joking! We stumbled into Tarbet many hours later after a frustrating tramp though a maze of confusing lochans and peat bogs, never totally lost, but never knowing quite where the path was. The highlight was a gate, standing in magnificent isolation on an outcrop of rock with neither wall nor fence to either side – it was one of the few times during our meander that we felt we might be on the path. We refuelled in the restaurant at Tarbet, quiet at this time of the year, as the ferry had stopped for winter. Sandwiches, treacle pudding and custard later, we set off in appalling weather for the 10-kilometre trudge back, relieved only by a kind soul who took pity on us a mile from the finish and dropped us back at the campsite. Considering the wet state we were in, it was an act of kindness that we will long remember.

next mountain of the ladder, Quinag. This included driving along roads that were high on little black arrows and low on width. Continental drivers worried about driving on the left in the UK have no worries here, you are either in the middle or in the passing place. At Drumbeg we chanced into the local grocery store which opened, Tardis-like, into something resembling Harrods’ deli counter. Venison paté, stuffed olives, stuffed peppers, home-made coleslaw – it had everything! We scampered off and ate our purchases, looking out across the bay at Atlantic rollers driving over 60-foot outcrops in the sea, wild, magnificent, and the sun had come out as well! From there we sauntered the remainder of the way, taking in Clashnessie Bay (Gallagher Waypoint-5) to Clachtol, another geological masterpiece which features in all the texts on the subject.

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Photo Quote: Think about the photo before and after, never during. The secret is to take your time. You mustn't go too fast. The subject must forget about you. Then, however, you must be very quick. - Henri Cartier-Bresson