Wigtwizzle - Norman Smith's Travel Blog.: Highlands Holiday - Anthrax, Waterfalls and not much more!

Not the best of days, in fact I would say that it was the worst of the entire holiday. As we needed a supermarket, we opted for a drive up to Ullapool, stopping at Gruinard Bay on the way. Top priority though was to have our customary morning coffee so we picked a wet Inverewe Gardens as it was on our route and we knew we could count on it to deliver the goods. Sal, as she tends to do, also hit the gift shop and bought a few bits and bobs for herself.

We fortunately hit a dry spell as we pulled up at Gruinard Bay and it more or less stayed that way until we headed towards the hills of Dundonnell. I think this was the first time I had been the only person on the beach (except for Sal). No matter what time of year I've called, there is usually people there. Once again, Sal put her beach combing head on and disappeared into the far distance and I took some photos before joining her. The beach was divided in to two halves, the northern end was just sand whereas the southern end was scattered with rocks which the Inverainvie River and Little Gruinard River had brought down from the hills beyond. The channel entering the Loch was quite wide so I should imaging a fair amount of debris is be brought down when the rivers are in spate.

Apart from being one of the few places in the UK which is inhabited by Choughs (maybe next time Sal), Gruinard Bay's other claim to fame is Gruinard Island which was a Second World War biological warfare testing ground for anthrax. In 1945, when the island's owner sought its return, the Ministry of Supply recognized that the island was contaminated, and so could not be de-requisitioned until it was deemed safe. In 1946, the government agreed to acquire the island and to take responsibility for it. The owner or her heirs would be able to repurchase the island for £500 when it was declared "fit for habitation by man and beast".

For many years, it was judged too hazardous and expensive to decontaminate the island sufficiently to allow public access, and Gruinard Island was quarantined indefinitely. Visits to the island were prohibited, except for periodic checks by Porton Down personnel to determine the level of contamination.

Starting in 1986 a determined effort was made to decontaminate the island: 280 tonnes of formaldehyde solution diluted in sea water was sprayed over all 196 hectares of the island and the worst-contaminated topsoil around the dispersal site was removed. A flock of sheep was then placed on the island and remained healthy. On 24 April 1990, after 48 years of quarantine and four years after the solution was applied, junior defence minister Michael Neubert visited the island and announced its safety by removing the warning signs. On 1 May 1990, the island was repurchased by the heirs of the original owner for the original sale price of £500!

As we drove through Dundonnell the heavens opened and I mean opened. One of the benefits of the wet weather though was that most of the waterfalls were in full spate. If the weather had been ok I would have gotten out of the car and taken some photos as they were quite spectacular but as it was, I just snapped one and that was more or less from the car door.

The weather stayed that way until we were a few miles from Ullapool and then it finally stopped. If it had been a nice day, we would have headed further North in to Coigach or Assynt but as the weather was so bad,we plumped for food and a beer. We bought our butties at a local deli and then headed to The Ceilidh Place, where we had been earlier in the year, for a pint.

We then had a quick walk around the town, popped to Tesco to replenish our food supplies and then decided that, as the weather just wasn't going to improve, our best option was to head back to Badachro and, more importantly, the Badachro Inn. We sat in the Inn's conservatory which overlooked the Loch and had a very welcoming pint each.

Even though the weather had let us down a bit, we still enjoyed our day. All we could do was to keep our fingers crossed and hope that the next day would be better.