Today was a delightful quiet rambling sort of day with no rush to get to a new location, no "must sees", no finding of new accommodation. A chance to finish doing the washing, have a relax and reset. So, what did we actually do?

Home prepared breakfast (read, finishing up lots of bits and pieces of tucker collected over the past 10 days) and then a 20 minute drive into Gairloch to look around. Some beautiful scenery, plenty of multi coloured sheep and horses, lovely small Lochs all in the offing. Arriving in Gairloch we spotted signs to a waterfall and also cruised by a sandy beach of all things! Supplies purchased, we headed back towards South Erradale along the increasingly familiar single track road. We saw some floating pontoons out in one of the small coastal harbours then were shocked when one of them moved! A group of harbour seals happily lying on just submerged rock looked like they were floating! Hilarious.

We then went on to the end of the road to Red Point beach, another 2 miles along the road. The landscape is very boggy with low growing coarse reddish vegetation. Closest to low growing salt bush...I can imagine the midges in summer! Closer to the beach side, at this beach the grass gave way to sand dunes...a challenge to climb later in the day as suggested by our current host.

Bronnie decided to enjoy the afternoon of audio book and a reconfigure of her luggage to streamline getting into and out of new places, so I decided to head out again to explore the sights :) First stop was Flowerdale falls. The start of the walk walked past the Gairloch estate manor with signs everywhere saying private residence, no photos etc. Along the path was a signposted "Justice Island", a small island in the river where the consequence of crimes was metered out...hmm...glad to be there at daytime. The path continued on and on and on...and up and up and up...pleased I didn't pressure my travelling companion to join me on a "short walk". Admittedly for me, there was no sign indicating the walk length. The waterfall itself was nice but the ability to get a good vantage point was whelming and wet, given the rain (unforecast but you get that here). I followed the path above the falls and came out into another glorious valley between high rocky mountains that reminded me of a scene from the Neverending story and the rockbiter (if you know you know). I continued back to the car to complete all things considered a nice walk.

The drive back to South Erradale and beyond saw a short stop to photograph the sheep and I was delighted to spot a pheasant there too! Sprinting around a bit like lyrebirds. Funny. Off to the end of the road at Red Point Beach for a walk through some paddocks with sheep and cows and down to the sand. Lovely scenes with the sun poking through clouds looking across the water to Skye and the Quiraing in the distance. Back to the car via the challenge of the sand dunes, ticked that box, and then off to another nearby beach for some more photos (and trips on round stones...quiet....didn't get hurt this time). As I headed back to the accommodation I stopped to say hello to some white galloway cows nearby. Gorgeous teddy bear looking things. Apparently they are an "endangered" breed here in the UK with only 185 animals currently in the whole of the UK. Marketing of the Highland cows probably has a bit to do with it. These were friendly and were happily scratching themselves on the fence posts as I took their picture.

Back to South Erradale for a dinner with meat purchased from one of the UKs best butchers. Just a minute steak, pork sausage and a meat/spring onion patty but it sure was good!!!! Tomorrow, we head further into "the North".