Independent overland travel through Africa in a Unimog called Moglet

The next day we wound our way westwards towards the Kyle of Tongue, planning on taking the B871 south through Strath Naver towards Altnaharra, then crossing over onto an unclassified little road which twists its way around the base of Ben Hope. This would then take us north again to the coast, where we'd take a right turn back towards Tongue, picking our way on the old road that skirts the edge of the inlet, rather than driving over the new causeway. It's a bit of a loop the loop route, but when you have no time frame to work to, there's no reason not to drive a route thats been recommended, even if you do end up backtracking here and there :-)

As roads go it was a small one, with about 6" clearance maximum on either side of Moglet at any one time, and plenty of grass growing up the middle. Fortunately we only met one or two other vehicles, and there were enough passing places for it to not be too much of a problem.

And even if the size of the road was an issue, the scenery and the wildlife more than made up for it - we saw our first proper wild deer in real life! :-)

We must have sat watching the deer for ages, eventually thinking about finding somewhere to park up before it got dark. We'd taken so long to reach this point, stopping so many times to take photos that there was no chance we'd be off the little roads before dark. So we pottered along, on the lookout for a big enough passing place that we could stop in for the night without causing any problems for other traffic that should happen to come down the road before we left the next day. And would you Adam and Eve it, take a look at the pitch we found about half an hour later - if that's not a cracking place to spend the night, then I don't know what is!

The only downside to the whole night was Moglets heater was still blowing cold air. But it wasn't all that bad, outside stayed a couple of degrees above freezing and, with the heat generated by making dinner and lots of cups of tea all evening, Moglet didnt go below 9degrees inside overnight, which is fine once you're tucked up in bed.