02-Sep-2003 -- I wasn't too happy that morning sitting at the breakfast table of the B&B we were staying in Ullapool. It was raining raining. Not good for a confluence walk...

Luckily, by the time we drove away north the weather started to clear up and the rain stopped. We parked our car at a carpark by the road near Elphin and started walking at 1045. The distance to the confluence point from that spot was about 5.6 km.

I had a quick peek at a detailed map of the area the night before in the tourist information center in Ullapool and learned that there was some kind of dirt road leading SE for about 2 km. Unfortunately we could not find it at that time and opened a fence and let the GPS guide us further SE towards the confluence point. We had to cross/climb several fences keeping sheep apart (?).

After we climbed the last fence, things were getting a little bit harder. Wet grounds, bumpy boggly grounds, grounds with deep muddy canals eroded into it. In short, I had kind of underestimated the speed at which we could travel forward.

We came by a little stream and followed it upward, chasing away a few sheep in the process. Somewhat further we found a little waterfall and even higher up another, bigger one (see picture).

From the second waterfall on we had to climb to the top of the hill. Halfway up we stumbled across two deer. Walking a bit further suddenly a whole herd of deer started running away from us, it must have been 20-30 animals. A great sight! (see picture)

Soon after that we reached the confluende point at 1345. The views were magnificent. To the north we could see Loch Urigill, to the south Loch a' Chroisg (although I'm not 100% sure of that).

I took the readings, took some photo's and film and after a short rest we started our return at 1415. This time, we followed the top of the hills for as long as we could as this was a lot easier to walk than the way we came up that morning. Still, we had our share of the same wet grounds and muddy channels, but not as much as on our way up. About halfway down we encountered the herd of deer again. Heading further down, about 1.5 km from our destination (the car) we stumbled on a dirt road and followed it down. It lead to a metal fence door just next to a little farm house about 30 m away from the one we took on our way up... DUH!

So at 1715 we got back to our car. A confluence walk what I had expected to take about 2 to 3 hours, had in fact taken 6.5 hours... Well what can I say, we were tired but it was worth it. Our second confluence point, and the most northern in Scotland is a fact.