I'd watched my fill of locals by about 1pm so I hopped in the car and picked the Other Direction to the one I came into Ullapool in on the day before. Then I took a B road off that road as soon as I found myself behind a tourer that was going to slow for me, and that had me ending up at Clachtoll where I was thinking about camping a couple of days hence.

My journey first took me via a bunch of inland lochs and a whole bunch of Nothing and when Scotland does Nothing it certainly does it with a certain air of 'Fuck you' about it which is both humbling and intimidating and makes you want to suck your thumb and hug a blankie. Bleak rainy hollows, shored up on either side by wet stony hills with granitic boulders jutting out of them. Damp sheep chewing depressedly on dead heather. The odd suicidal highland cow leaping into the road and hoping you will kill it and free it from its personal hell....that sort of thing.

When I hit sea lochs, things got a bit prettier and it was a bit of a relief because at least there was Something again, sometimes even pretty bits of Something like mountains on the other side of the loch (albeit mountains swathed in rain and low lying cloud and still muttering 'Fuck you' quietly under their breath at me).

The first bit of life I hit was about 30 miles of single track road later - Inverkirkaig. It was situated in a dip on the bow of the road and next to the most amazingly pretty bit of sea loch with a tiny island just off from it where some row boats were moored, and probably had a kids tree house hidden it it (or should have). If I could have screamed to a halt and goggled at it, I would have but there was nowhere to stop apart from passing places and there was rock or a drop into the sea on either side of the road so it didn't seem polite to block it. Oh if there had been a wild camp spot there though I certainly wouldn't have considered it.

Strathan was next and it was a bizarre little group of houses seemingly in the middle of nowhere - wasn't even on the edge of a loch or anything which usually provides the 'draw' for some sort of semblance of civilisation. Here, the houses seemed to be randomly plonked in the middle of the moors, no view, no decent road, didn't appear to be any telephone wires going to it either. Perhaps one antisocial person moved there once, then got lonely and invited a friend from which it all ballooned out of proportion and soon everyone had moved there (then wondered why they had, and who was going to collect their bins). Anyway the houses mostly looked new and a lot had statics out in the garden and 'to let' signs so I think most people had bought/built houses then moved out into the shed at the bottom of the garden so the tourists could stay in them. And I even saw a municipal looking wheelie bin outside one so some brave binman somewhere must do that round.

Lochinver looks great on all the tourist photos but when I got there, all I found was a fish processing factory - and a deserted one at that (because I'm daft enough to find a fish processing factory reasonably interesting and would actually have stood and watched it for a while had it been running). I moved on....

Finally I hit the campsite at Achmelvich (wasn't impressed - was a desolate campsite with no decent views and no decent amenities, situated solely because someone whated to make a buck rather than let people have a decent holiday) and Clachtoll (which was ok, but certainly not seafront as they tend to lead you to believe in their adverts....plus Clachtoll beach contains approx ooh....10 minutes worth of entertainment and then you're wondering where the nearest TV/bar/restaurant is).

Thankfully, there was a fast route back from Clachtoll because I was getting a bit single-roaded out. The A road back to Ullapool was blissfully car free apart from the odd short stretch, so I tanked it back and had the good fortune to be able to race the Stornoway Ferry from where I first saw it of Ardmair point, back to Ullapool (and I won with 10 mins to spare to park up and run down to the Ferry point to watch it dock). That was fun. Ardmair point also has a campsite but its less than impressive as well - all the caravans have the good spots and the tents are relagated to a shit field at the back with no views, you can certainly tell where the owners allegiance lies with this site.

So I ended up watching the ferry dock (again), and I had haggis for tea (again) though this time I asked for it with chips and got it battered. I once heard that the Scottish battered everything (fish, mars bars, the english...) but the battered haggis had me non plussed for a second or two. I picked the meaty bits out of the battered bits...its seemed the English way to cope with it...

Now I'm waiting for the sunset at my tent (again) though this time I'm hiding behind mesh because the midges are quite fiesty today. I expected them on the campsite, but they're actually also on the high street, at the beach, in the Edinburgh Woollen Mill Shop trying on handknitted sweaters, in the chippy ordering haggis and chips twice and a diet coke, driving 4x4's to CostCutter and buying black puddun'. I think I said before that I didn't believe I had been bitten. I now know that not to be true because I saw one of them in action landing on me, tucking a little napkin into the neck of its jumper and getting out a knife and fork, then tucking in - all before I could stop him and squish him (actually its the females who bite isn't it?).

...It seems by a quirk in biology but I don't seem to react to midge bites, or that's to say I get a little red mark where the anticoagulant has spread, but no itching, no swelling, nothing. So I'm not sure if I should just give up and let the wee beasties have a munch or no' considerin'. Having them buzz round my head is kind of annoying (though my Highland Salute - similar to the Aussie salute but faster and more frenzied - is coming on nicely). Also the bite itself is a tiny bit irritating, but thank god I don't react to them like I do to cat fleas (huge itchy lumps). Maybe this is the Nordic bit of my genes coming through - I'm automatically immune to any sub-artic circle breed of midge. We'll see if I continue to fair ok as I go further North.

Ooh...sunset. Got to go (grabs camera and launches out into a cloud of midges).

I hate to say this, but all Highlanders DO eat haggis, black puddun' and shortbread. Sometimes the only way you can get a feel for a place is to people watch the locals and I've been doing this all day. In doing this, many cultural stereotypes have come to light.

The first good place to watch real locals in action is the local co-op. I made sure I was there first thing because (knowing how things work in isolated areas being Manx) I knew all the bread, milk and any other fresh goods would all be gone by 10am - and sure enough all the locals (aka old ladies and people with plain hairstyles and practical clothes) were there fighting over the local made scones, rock cakes and milk, haggis and black or white puddun'. It's all gone by lunch so tourists might be mistaken in thinking locals live off pot noodles and tinned beans like normal city dwellers. Not true.

Then I lurked at the bus stop. I eavesdropped a great phone conversation there - it was a bad line so the person had to repeat everything and I got two cracks at working out what they were saying. The accent was really thick so 'I'll meet you in Costcutter' came out as 'Eel meet yi un coarstcatta'. There was something going on about there being black and white puddun' ee tha fridge, and having to meet Mark later 'un toon' but most of it was lost on me. There definately seems to be something going on with puddun' though locally - and this is what motivated me to have haggis for lunch.

Practically everywhere sells haggis, but the purveyor of choice is the one near the ferry terminal carpark. All the foreigners know about this one and the people ahead of me were French. When she asked thickly what was in a particular sauce bottle, the local broke cultural boundaries by saying 'veen-i-ger' in a bad french accent, which made me laugh.

I stood around as the Stornoway ferry docked, emptied and loaded up again (praise be for waterproof over trousers!) and watched, amazed as for a brief 30 mins the entire town was ground to a halt as ferry traffic shunted its way through the streets, then somehow everyone just evaporated again and it was only me, the gulls, and a couple of wet bikers heading for John O'Groats. The interesting bit was seeing the huge lorries going in and coming off - this must be the only way Stornoway gets goods, via 2 ferries a day. Wonder how much a washing machine costs on the island?

Finally I did a tour of all the other local shops - the bookshop, the hardware store, the farmers market. Here you could find locals merrily purchasing fishing bait and sheeps stomachs in their battered oil skins - and one guy was even wearing a kilt and he wasn't being ironic.

It's finally stopped raining now, though this looks to be soon replaced by a slightly more disturbing weather front that is already tugging down some of the cheaper tents in the site (the ones held up with cutlery or horribly mangled tent pegs). The guy in the tourer next to me has spent the entire day so far sitting at the wheel reading a newspaper and smoking fags. He looks bored. I am a bit bored too so I'm going to hop in my car and see whats round the next headland - see you later.

Ah there's nothing like it, waking up to the lapping of the waves, the call of the gulls, the gentle patter of the rain...and some Scottish bloke banging on my tent because he wants me to pay up for my camping.

Yes its raining. Thus today is going to be a challenge to keep myself amused. Instinct says pack up and move someplace else, but logic tells me that it will probably be raining there too, and will also probably have less shops ergo will be even more boring. At least I've got the Ullapool and Loch Broom museums to amaze and delight me, and a shrubbery and arbortetum which are always fun in the rain. After that I can mooch in the chip shop for a while, maybe watch the Stornoway ferry come in and go out again, feed some effervescant vitamin tablets to the gulls and before you know it, the day has gone in a whirlwind of excitement.

All the tourers are bailing out, perhaps just cos its easier for them to pack up in the rain than us tents. Dunno if they know something I don't though e.g. Its blazing sunshine in Inverness. Doesn't seem likely.

Something that's definately new since last visit - I don't remember all the signs being in English and Gaelic a la Welsh style signage. Quite a few books are also duel language. Absolutely none of the locals are talking Gaelic of course but according to some tour books I've been reading, it's undergoing a ressurgance in Orkney/Shetland and it looks like they are having a crack at it on the mainland too. I imagine all the international visitors think it rather quaint, and there are a surprising amount in Ullapool, mainly coming for and hour in huge tour buses to buy short bread and Nessie hats in the gift shop and disappearing again on the next Stornoway ferry. There was at least one Spanish lot who overnighted on the campsite though, and of course the Rotel bus full of Germans in some sort of Hotel on wheels where each has their own coffin sized cubicle to sleep in, and trailing a waggon that folds out like a childs toy into a fully functioning bar, restaurant and ballroom/olympic sized swimming pool. I'm glad I wasn't trailing *that* along the A835 for an hour.

Right, I've digested my croissants (purchased south of the border 'last croissant for 235 miles'), time to go into town and loiter in some dry spots for a while.

No midge bites to report.