Bumper

Thursday May 28, 2026

Ullapool, Scotland 

Distance traveled: 140 km. Cumulative distance: 3160 km

Weather: Best day of the trip. Started out absolutely cloudless. Temperature 19 - 26 degrees. Hoping it lasts till bedtime because we should see a beautiful sunset. If we can stay up that late.

Kristy

When we checked into our Ullapool B&B two hours early we were greeted by the hosts' daughter and their cat Kristy. I asked if the cat was allowed in guest rooms because she was super friendly. "No" was the response; she's not even allowed in the guest areas at all let alone in a guest room butnshe must have snuck in when the door was open.  I said "I guess that means she's not allowed to sleep in the guest beds either". Fun haters. We were told there was another cat sister to this one but she is less friendly. So close yet so far.

It was such a gorgeous morning we got going a little earlier than we needed but it was good to be on the road. We rode the 20 minute route up to the Corrieshalloc Gorge National Nature Reserve, which is known for its limited parking and the website asks visitors to not be abusive to staff when there is no parking available. One thing they DO get right, and this is in many places we have vistied on this trip, there is often designated motrocycle parking. However, today we were early enough that there was still some spaces for cars and motorhomes. 

Designated motorcycle parking.

The nature reserve is a fence enclosed area where the government is attempting to eradicate invasive non-indigenous species of plants and return it to the natural flora of Scotland, so things like American skunk weed, rhododendron, Japanese knotweed and many others have been dug up and removed from the enclosed area and replaced with indegenous plants and trees. The fence was very high - at least six feet. We decided that this was to keep deer on one side of the fence, though it was unclear to us which side the deer were meant to reside.  However, a quick review online indicates that there are red deer inside the park. 

There is a 160 year old suspension foot bridge over the gorge, with strict instructions that no more than six people should be on the bridge at any one time, with futher descriptions of how the bridge is inspected and maintained for safety every year. Nan and I waited patiently for people on the bridge to have their time, then we proceeded. While we were on the bridge, a seventh person - and a big guy at that - proceeded onto the bridge. I said to him, "I hope you are not the cause of the bridge collapsing". He wanted to know why that might be, so I told him the bridge was strictly limited to six people at a time (there is a surveillance camera pointed right at it). "I don't weigh much" he told me (I'm guessing 220). So I was forced to confess that I've put on a lot of weight this trip, as I  moved closer to the end of the bridge. 

After our visit, we returned to our B&B and we were just chilling in our room, which has a large window and opens a large amount. All of a sudden, a grey cat not unlike Kristy but NOT Kristy jumps up onto the ledge then without hesitation, into our room.  We knew it couldn't be Kristy because Kristy has a lightly impaired walk and this cat was fine. Well, nobody said ANYTHING to us about some other cat being in our room, so we didn't see any reason to boot this cat out. We named her Bumpy because she head-butted and rubbed us to no end. 

That's not "love" in her eyes, that's "don't  touch me or I'll shred you to ribbons".

We eventually did have to make the hard decision because we each had our own agenda for the afternoon. Nan was going to walk around Ullapool and stimulate the local economy. Since, based on the weather forecast today was likely to be the last day that doesn't start the day with "showers" and end the day with "rain", I wanted to make the most of it on the bike and stretch it out a little.