The back of beyond, again

After a day's cycling, I am about 10 miles from where I started,  but the other side of the sound of Mull.  The length of Loch Sunart: from rural highland games at Kilchoan to a tourist visitor centre with gift shop, craft shop, mini garden centre and café at the head of the loch at Strontian.   I know which I prefer.  Then away from it all on the wild south side of the loch, down a beautiful and almost too long river valley, to Loch Aline, overlooking Mull and with a few houses, a hotel and a ferry back to where I was this morning.   Apart from that, not much reason to visit. 

The next morning, as I eased myself back up the long hill out of Loch Aline, the last significant hill of my whole trip, I started to miss the hills already.  I'll miss the wide-open landscape, the gurgle of hidden waterfalls by the road, views of distant mountains, the stillness. And the people I met.  Today over breakfast a fellow hotel guest told me he was a GP standing in for the local GP who was 'getting away' for a few days.  The district of Morvern, south of loch Sunart, only has about 300 inhabitants, but they have to have a GP, who provides 24 hour cover and is the local A&E  service, as some have a 40 mile drive to Loch Aline.

A long descent into Kingairloch revealed the calm expanse of Loch Linnhe, and views across to the mountains which were to be my enchanting companion for the rest of the day, in ever changing perspective and light.

Loch Linnhe is part of that diagonal rift that cuts right across Scotland from Fort William to IInverness, and I'm heading back north-east to Fort William, where I started 13 days ago.