Ullapool

Ullapool is a town on the north-west coast of Scotland, best known to many as the place to catch the car ferry to Stornoway on Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. So a lot of people just head for the quay on arrival, and wait in a line to board the ship.

(Click on any of these maps or photos to get a clearer view)

But if you're staying in the area, Ullapool is the only proper town between Thurso and Kyle of Lochalsh - a big distance indeed, and therefore it has the kind of shops and facilities you'd want and expect. If you need anything better, then it has to be distant Inverness.

It's one of those 'planned settlements' originally laid out with industrial-scale fishing in mind, and the heart of the town is built on a grid pattern. Its setting is very attractive, on a wide flat spit that sticks out into Loch Broom, with a backdrop of high mountains and some forest. Here's a shot. (Not mine! It's off Wikipedia)

The local micro-climate is supposed to be mild, although palm trees should not be expected - well, I didn't notice any of them!

A couple I know used to live here, and they eventually got married at Achiltibuie, a coastal village on the Coigach peninsula just to the north-west of Ullapool - of which more in a post to come. I was curious to see for myself what had made Ullapool so attractive for them as a place to live in. Besides, I was curious anyway, as I'd never actually visited the town in previous forays to the north-west coast of Scotland. Now I have. There are still several places I've yet to see, the main one being Lochinver. I haven't finished with this part of Scotland yet.

It was my last day at Culloden, a Sunday; next day I'd be towing the caravan up to the furthest north I could go to, at Dunnet Bay, between Thurso and John o'Groats. The weather wasn't auspicious. It was overcast, with a chilly breeze. But rain wasn't forecast, and I hoped that it would brighten up as I went along.

The route was simple: A9 to Tore, then the A835 all the way to Ullapool. The A835 turned out to be, for the most part, a well-engineered road with its sharp bends turned into easy curves, and plenty of long straight stretches. Done that way, I suppose, to make it possible to overtake big lorries and slow tourist vehicles. As it was early in the tourist season, and I drove briskly, the A835 got me from Inverness to Ullapool in not much more than an hour. I enjoyed the drive, and Fiona loved it. (That car, which was then close to clocking up 130,000 miles, has an undiminished appetite for long, fast drives, and lots of turbo-charged overtaking. Who am I to thwart her?)

Soon enough I was driving along the east side of Loch Broom, with Ullapool in sight only a few miles ahead.

On the opposite side of the loch was a string of lonely-looking houses, linked by a narrow road. It was a long dead-end, the road leaving the A835 some way behind me. These houses would have a magnificent view, but their roundabout access might mean it would take half an hour for a resident to reach even Ullapool. No quick popping-out for them! And of course, no quick way for an ambulance, or a fire engine, or the police, to get to one of these houses, especially in winter. And although, once on the A835, one could make faster progress, it would still be an hour to Inverness for any serious medical emergency.

Not a good spot for anyone elderly, then. And although I wasn't myself yet 'elderly', I considered myself already too old to live in such hard-to-get-to locations. A dream home in the Highlands? No thanks, for all kinds of practical reasons, not just the likelihood of dying in an ambulance on the way to the only seriously good hospital.

The outskirts of Ullapool were rather pleasant, with houses up on the wooded hills to the right and the loch on the left. The road dropped to the main part of town, the ferry quay very much in view. As you can see, the 11.30am Sunday morning CalMac ferry hadn't yet departed. It was not yet quite 11.00am.

I wanted the main car park. On the way to it, I drove by a church with a lot of cars in front of it, and people entering, all dressed in their finest. One lady was in a striking red outfit. The men were all in suits. It struck me that churchgoing was a serious business hereabouts, not to be approached casually. I later realised that it had been Ullapool's Free Church, the 'free' being an historical term, denoting independence from the established Church of Scotland, with a very different system of governance and style of worship. Such things were not my area of interest or concern, but it was a passing foretaste of an experience I had later that day at Achiltibuie.

The main car park was adjacent to the Tesco store, and although not a large Tesco, it was the best thing for many miles around and reasonably comprehensive. A reassuring touch of civilisation. I don't think I'd be happy if I didn't have a decent store like this within easy reach.

With Fiona parked, and instructed not to move, I set off around the town to get a feel for it. I was quickly annoyed with the grid street pattern. All the streets looked similar, and you had to proceed in a series of zig-zags. It was good for getting in the day's 10,000 steps, but it wasted time and added unnecessary extra distance. This part of the town was mostly residential, and I noticed how green many of the gardens were, evidence of that mild micro-climate. 

There were even flowers out, and not just daffodils.

It seems to be more and more usual to see bilingual English/Gaelic signs in northern Scotland generally, but especially in the Highlands, where it's much more likely to be Gaelic/English. Every street name was translated into a Gaelic equivalent.

At no point did I hear it spoken in Ullapool's streets and shops, but I'm sure that Gaelic must be in daily use by some of the residents. The way it's written - with lots of silent letters, and unexpected quirks of pronunciation - disguises the way it sounds. I have heard a song sung in Gaelic - sung using the voice only, with no instrumental accompaniment - and it was entrancing.

Tesco was not the only 'modern' shop or facility here. There were (for instance) outdoor shops catering for the adventurous, art galleries, and hotels and eateries, some of them rather sophisticated. Some of the concrete architecture was questionable, jarring against the eighteenth-century buildings, but it all looked neat, and on the whole Ullapool came across as an attractive place. In no sense was it the arse-end of the north-west Highlands. Whereas my experience of Oban (2002) and Kyle of Lochalsh (2010) wasn't so positive. 

Inevitably, one is drawn to the quayside - and the ferry terminal. It had clearly been rebuilt in recent years.

By the time I reached it, the terminal building doors were shut, and the queues of cars and lorries wanting to board the ferry had disappeared inside the ship. It was ready to go. I scurried around, trying to get some shots.  

Then it was off. It detached itself from the quay, and headed out towards the open sea. It was soon outpacing me. Weird to see a row of shoreline houses, with ship at the end of the road.

The show was over. The people on board had a three-hour voyage ahead of them across The Minch. Possibly a rough voyage, even though Loch Broom looked calm. But if ever I were to take the caravan over to the Western Isles, this would probably be the way I'd do it, rather than from Uig on the Isle of Skye (seen in 2010). That said, the return fare for self, car and caravan is very expensive, so it's unlikely that I will. Or put it another way, if financial prudence and acumen somehow puts the necessary money in my hands, I'd rather go to Orkney or Shetland.

I was starting to think of lunch, but decided to go straight on to Achiltibuie for that. But making my way back to the car, I saw a bookshop. Inside was an attractive range of Highland and Island books. This was just a bit of one bookcase.

   

My goodness, a whole section devoted to books in Gaelic. There must be people in town or the immediate area who would buy them. They surely weren't for the regular tourist - especially not a lady from Sussex!

One book caught my eye, full of fine photographs of locations on Lewis, with a text by a local author. I bought it for the photos - not for the text, which was full of very personal reminiscences, and dwelt a little too much on one of the author's books. 

  

One odd little thing happened in the bookshop. I usually have a little chat with the person on the till, about the book I'm buying, or how nice the shop is, or where I'm from - something like that. But this time there was nothing of the kind. The lady serving me couldn't look me in the eye, and was terribly soft-spoken, so that I could hardly make out what she was saying. In fact, she seemed painfully shy. I wondered why. Shyness is common in small children, but really quite rare in mature adults, and (for obvious reasons) hardly ever found in retail situations. I hated to think of her forcing herself to deal with the public all day long, doing a job quite unsuited to her nature. 

Or - a different notion, this - could it have been an example of Gaelic upbringing? I'd read somewhere that born and bred locals in the Highlands and Islands might seem quiet and unassertive when faced with an outsider. Was there anything in that? Did she find my efforts to strike up a quick conversation difficult to handle, because in her culture, her background, strangers were to be kept at arm's length until properly known and accepted? Did I seem brash to her, or perhaps over-confident and something of a challenge? Or insensitive? I hoped not.

It was time to move on. The A835 continued northwards into hilly country, and I followed it. I noticed some brand-new housing on the way out of town. Ullapool was attracting incomers. I wondered where they all worked. Was there industry, light or heavy, hidden away somewhere? Ullapool did well from tourists and festival-goers, passing through or staying there, but I saw no sign of a major all-year employer. A mystery, then.