Independent overland travel through Africa in a Unimog called Moglet

The best bit about not having a timetable to work to is you never get too stressed about when things are 'supposed' to happen, and whether they actually do or don't. And what makes it even better is when things clearly work out for the better, by absolute virtue of the fact that they didn't happen according to the original plan. Rambling a bit perhaps, but today was a case in point. If the plan yesterday had happened, we would have reached Applecross and parked up in the village somewhere for the evening, none the wiser about what we were missing out on. As it was, we didn't arrive in Applecross until a day later, which meant we arrived with perfect timing to take photo's of a Highland calf that had obviously only just been born in the last hour or so!! :-) Had we been 'on time' yesterday, poor old mum-cow would probably have still been in labour. I love it when a plan comes together!

And if that wasn't enough to convince us that things always work out for the best in the end, the road from Applecross down to Lochcarron, the one we needed to take, had been closed for the last week and had only just re-opened - had the last week or so gone to plan, we wouldn't have stayed in Gairloch for so long, and would have arrived in Applecross just in time to get stranded there by a broken down snowplough at the top of the pass! Hurrah for lie-ins and lazy days! :-)

It was still a little nerve-wracking to see the signs at the start of the Pass of the Cattle (poetic name!), warning you that the road was pretty much closed in wintry conditions and had a current high risk of snow generally getting in the way of free-flowing traffic. However, back down at sea level when we started on the road, it was easy to shrug off the concerns and put the signs down to some over-fretful local, or something left over from a week or so perhaps. But then as we started to get higher and higher, more and more snow pockets started to appear by the roadside, and we wondered what exactly we were going to run into (hopefully not literally). It was comforting that a couple of cars had approached us from the opposite direction, so we decided the road must be fine and clear, so no reason not to carry on. Didn't really think too much about the possibility that they may have got half way up and had to turn around, or that they lived this side of the pass and were popping into Applecross to do some shopping, or look at baby cows...

Visibility grew worse and worse, which as the altitude increased I grew more and more happy about - the less I can see of the sheer drops passing inches away from Moglets wheels, the happier I am! The snow had definately fallen, and drifted deeper than we'd seen at any time before on our Scotland travels. The picture doesnt really show it up too well, but the ploughs had clearly cut through the snow that had drifted across the road, slicing cleanly down from top to bottom and revealing the depth to be half way up Moglets doors - around 4ft deep. Thank goodness for snow ploughs!

Once we made it over the snowy top, Jason then had to contend with a series of tighter and tighter hairpin bends, the likes of which I'd associate more with the Alps than anything in the UK. But we made it down safely, stopping half way down to take a few more pics. Jason also commented on the sheep - apparently there are two main types, the first of which will stop what they're doing (generally chewing something) and look at you in a quizzical kind of 'What on earth are you?' type of way and then go back to their chewing once you've passed them by. The second is much less intelligent, generally taking one look at Moglet and deciding 'I'm not sure what you are, but I think I must run and poo at the same time until you're gone!' There's lots of the second type...

Once back at sea level, we continued on our journey as far as Lochcarron and stopped for lunch - an open cafe means the possibility of toast, and you know that's something we have to investigate! Our luck was in so we gorged ourselves on toast, chips, tea and cake :-) We also filled up the diesel and popped into the inevitable Spar for more supplies. From this point, our plan was to scout around all the little unclassified roads between here and the Kyle of Lochalsh (the jumping off point for the Skye Bridge) to find somewhere to hide away for the evening, and cross over to Skye in daylight tomorrow.

The minor roads we unfortunately very minor, with barely enough passing places here and there and certainly nowhere we could stop for the night without causing a roadblock, so we ended up carrying on to Kyle to look for somewhere to stay. More unfortunateness, Kyle is a reasonable sized town so not really suited to being inconspicuously parked. So we went for the other end of the spectrum, and parked up in the middle of the public car park on the sea front, where everyone goes to get their tickets for the ferries :-) It was dark by the time we arrived and pretty much deserted, so we had our pick of the spaces and did our best to be pointing the right way according to wind direction. This happened to coincide with an extra large space for coach parking, so everyone's a winner.

You'll be amazed to hear that during the night, the wind picked up :-) But it wasnt anything we couldn't handle, so in went the earplugs and off we went to sleep. Next morning we woke up bright and early (honestly!) and were ready to hit the road at half ten - a record! Then I went and spoiled it all, taking advantage of the fact we suddenly had a phone signal and called my good buddy Nadine for a gossip catch up. An hour or so later I finally hung up (meanwhile Jason had been sitting in the cab listening to the iPod, followed by driving Moglet in circles around the car park!) and we headed off over the bridge. They used to charge a toll for the crossing, but this was apparently extremely controversial and was abolished a few years ago. Not sure why there would be a fuss, does anyone begrudge the toll for Dartford? Unless it was stupidly expensive, or no reductions for the locals perhaps?? Who knows. Either way, its free now, although oddly the ferry also still runs if you fancy a boat trip (and of course putting your hand in your pocket coz the ferry ain't free!).