12 April - Inchnadamph to Oykel Bridge Hotel

Day 5:      12 April 2011

Inchnadamph to Oykel Bridge Hotel

(18 miles          8 hours walking)

So I woke up about 15 miles further NW than I had intended finding myself (on this trip) to a clear, windy day that promised sunshine and showers.

The view from my room at "The Rose" B & B in Lochinver - The Suilven obscured by low cloud

My immediate aim (after a lovely breakfast) was to hitch-hike back to Inchnadamph and continue my trip onwards to Oykel Bridge. The unpleasant aspect to this plan was that it involved revisiting – in an up close and personal way – the site of my previous discomfort and rubbish navigation of the previous afternoon. Nevertheless it had to be done and I was swiftly picked up by 2 walking chaps and taken back to Inchnadapmh. [The chaps slightly disconcerted me by mentioning that there were mice in the bothies. Thanks guys…]

I managed to negotiate the valley to Bealach Trallgil much more successfully than on the previous day, and then followed a compass bearing of approximately 120 º to the path that runs south along the west side of the River Oykel. My previous acquaintance with Dubh Loch Mor (of the oval-shaped island!) definitely helped!

From there it was just a question of following the Oykel River south through Benmore Forest (another forest with no trees) to Benmore Lodge on the shores of Loch Ailsh.

During this part of the journey there were many showers and throughout the course of the day I must have put on and taken my waterproofs off about 15 times. Near Loch Ailsh there was an immense hail storm with pellets the size of bullets raining down on me. I turned my back to the wind, put my hat on, and let my pack take the brunt of it!

The forestry section south of Glen Ailsh was fairly dull although the tracks were wide and the navigation was easy. In fact, the tracks were being made by huge forestry vehicles as I walked that day, and some of the tarmac was still soft. The only dilemma involved getting from the upper path to the lower path by the River Oykel, and I followed a clear-cut through the trees towards the southern end of the forest.

The ancient sheep enclosure

The path through the clear-cut was wet and hummocky, as the photo shows, but took me down to the river path via a beautiful ancient stone sheep enclosure. This was marked on my 1:25000 map as a circle with a line attached to it :



I arrived at the River Oykel path by a post marked ‘25’. This might give walkers who are going from the south to the north some indication of a good place to alter course from the river track to the forest path.

Shortly after I took this photo I forced myself to stop, ‘brew up’, soak my feet in a stream and air my socks. It was a lovely afternoon by the River Oykel and there were loads of birds including dippers around. I also thought I saw a kingfisher. The water was very brown so I boiled it properly (for a change) but when I got to Oykel Bridge hotel and had a bath, the tapwater was browner than the river water, so after that I wasn’t that worried about the colour.

On most days I have persuaded myself, much against my natural instinct which is to keep going, to stop and drink something, mainly to force myself to have a rest. Coffee and hot chocolate by a stream - what could be better! Simple pleasures really come into their own on a trip like this.




On arriving at Oykel Bridge Hotel I found the place completely deserted and the doors closed. There was no response to my knocking. I tried phoning the hotel but had no phone reception (again). As the sky turned black (again) I got desparate and ‘broke in’ through the drying room. I found two ladies dressed as old-fashioned maids (only they were real maids) in the kitchen, so all was well.

Key points about Oykel Bridge Hotel:

1. This is a very old-fashioned fishing hotel
2. I am in Room 13 again
3. There is no T.V. in any rooms (although I found a residents lounges with a T.V. and nobody else seemed to know it existed - so i claimed it for my own)
4. It is a very posh hotel. I had headed notepaper in my room and wouldn’t have been surprised to meet royalty here
5. There is no internet
6. There is barely any phone reception – I was shown the one place adjacent to the car park where you could get a phone signal
7. I washed my socks and made good use of their excellent drying room
8. There was hardly anyone else staying there
9. The food was fabulous

There were (actually) 4 men staying here, all dressed as Toad of Toad Hall with flat caps, ties (with mysterious mason-like insignias), camouflage fishing jackets, corduery lederhosen, woolly socks up to their knees, fishing spats, and a copy of the daily telegraph about their person. I had a strange conversation with one of them about issues affecting fishermen these days. He said there was a shortage of salmon due to over-fishing etc and you have to use single-hooks these days when fishing for salmon, instead of double or triple-hooks. He told me with some compassion that salmon were prone to stress and you have to “catch them gently” and “allow them to recover after you remove the hook before you expect them to swim away”!!!!! What a loony!! How can you catch a fish gently?! It has to be one of the most aggressive acts imaginable!

So that was my experience at the Oykel Bridge Hotel. It is a great place; sort of U2 (Telegraph Road) meets Hamish Macbeth (if you ken what I mean)