U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

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Ferg
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U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by Ferg »

Hello all

Having recently returned from a holiday in our camper van in the Scottish Highlands, I wanted to share some pictures of a very special road we visited

We were on the north coast at Durness and wanted to visit the very NW tip of The UK at Cape Wrath. The road to Cape Wrath is the U70 and is not linked to any other road and the only way to access it is by ferry. Now while it's still mainland, a road has never been built to it. The ferry service crosses The Kyle of Durness and is Britain's smallest ferry service!

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The road begins here were two minibuses await you

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The road was built in the early 1800s to allow a Stevenson lighthouse to be built to help prevent the massive loss of life to shipping at the treacherous extremity of The UK

It's 11 miles in length

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with just a few passing places

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The lighthouse was fully automated in 1992 so the road only has to cater for a few thousand tourists annually

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There remain a few derelict buildings; indications of how busy this area used to be - not very, bust busier than now!

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An area in the middle is still used by the MOD for testing and is sometimes closed off using these manned gates

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The lighthouse is well worth a visit, as is the book written about this area (can't find book. if interested, please ask)

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Go explore!

Ferg
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nowster
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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by nowster »

Google Maps has the ferry link as a bridge.
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Ferg
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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by Ferg »

They do, don't they. Well they're wrong!

Streetmap don't

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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by DavidBrown »

You have to love the weight restriction - don't think you'd get heavy vehicles on that ferry!
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Achmelvic
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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by Achmelvic »

Great photos! I was there myself back in August and did the same trip so looks very familar, including that minibus :)

Did you get the pipe smoking English driver? His name is David M Hird and he seems to be the most knowledgeable person about the Cape, has written a book about it.
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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by Nwallace »

nowster wrote:Google Maps has the ferry link as a bridge.

Appears to be another Classic Teleatlas pile of pishness.

Multimap show a bridge as well in Teleatlas mode.
Best thing MS have done is add the Colins-Barts road mapping to supplement the OS 1:50k

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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by Nicholas »

A great set of photos! How on earth would a HGV use that road?!?!
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Ferg
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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by Ferg »

Yep, we got David as our driver. I bought his book too and got totally wrapped up in the whole thing. Brilliant!
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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by bealach na ba »

Ferg, thanks for those pictures - brings back some great memories of walking along that road (west to east, having started at Oldshoremore) a decade or more ago. I didn't meet the ferry, but continued walking south along the west side of the Kyle.
Ferg wrote:The lighthouse is well worth a visit, as is the book written about this area (can't find book. if interested, please ask)
Another relevant good read (albeit only very tangentially odological) is The Lighthouse Stevensons by (IIRC) Bella Bathurst.
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Mark Hewitt
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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by Mark Hewitt »

Brilliant stuff! I was under the impression that the public were not permitted to drive up that road at all? I assume from your pictures that the ferry is open to anyone (got any pictures of the ferry)

For quite some time now I've been planning to do a drive up to the northern most tip of Scotland, probably to John O'Groats first, Thurso then along to Durness, probably Cape Wrath now, and then down the western coast through Ullapool and ending up in Inverness.
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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by Ferg »

There is no provision for getting your car over there though. The ferry is that little boat in my pictures. He might take a Monkey Bike over for you though! The Minibus service is very good if a little too brief a visit

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Big Nick
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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by Big Nick »

If the regular service is a passenger ferry then how did the minibuses get over there?

Do the locals have to charter a vehicle ferry from Caledonian MacBrayne whenever they want to take their cars to the other side?

I'd love to get up there myself as I've never gone much further north in Britain than Spean Bridge. Looks so wild and untamed.
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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by FosseWay »

Big Nick wrote:If the regular service is a passenger ferry then how did the minibuses get over there?

Do the locals have to charter a vehicle ferry from Caledonian MacBrayne whenever they want to take their cars to the other side?

I'd love to get up there myself as I've never gone much further north in Britain than Spean Bridge. Looks so wild and untamed.
It's probably like in the Isles of Scilly -- the normal method of getting between the islands is in small, passenger-only boats, but if they need to transport something big, like a car, they'll use the freight ships (Gry Maritha/Lyonesse Lady) and a winch.

It is, of course, possible to get to Cape Wrath on foot or horseback from the other side, at Sandwood Bay. If you're intending to walk the whole way, this is probably preferable as it's shorter and you're not on tarmac the whole way.
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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by paully »

The road looks like it badly needs Highland Council to do some work on it. I bet that doesn't happen very often.
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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by J--M--B »

Isn't the bus service Summer only? I am sure I have seen pictures somewhere of the bus been taken across at the beginning or end of the season.

There are quite a number of workboats around the coast so I am sure they can find one to take it across rather than bring a Calmac ferry from many miles away. They might even get assistance from the MOD.

Aren't there a lot of old AFVs scattered around the range? Someone from the RCAHMS was telling me about their survey of the area and I am sure he mentioned recording lots of old AFV.

Keep being tempted to go up to get my free ride on the bus but it is a bit far to go perhaps.
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Ferg
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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by Ferg »

Big Nick wrote:If the regular service is a passenger ferry then how did the minibuses get over there?

Do the locals have to charter a vehicle ferry from Caledonian MacBrayne whenever they want to take their cars to the other side?
The buses are floated over on a pontoon at the start of the season and back again at the end for the winter

As for locals, no one lives there! Only the buses and MoD use the road. The buses only last six seasons and their tyres, one!

It's all in the book

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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by SouthWest Philip »

Ferg wrote:The buses only last six seasons and their tyres, one!
Although, to be fair, the buses obviously aren't new when they get assigned to the Cape Wrath run. The one in your photos is an H-reg making it about 15 years old.
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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by J--M--B »

If you think that is bad then you should try a ride up to the Range Control near Durness. The road disappeared under the sand years ago so it seems to be a different route every day as the sand moves around.
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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

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J--M--B wrote:If you think that is bad then you should try a ride up to the Range Control near Durness. The road disappeared under the sand years ago so it seems to be a different route every day as the sand moves around.
Or indeed the military road on Dartmoor. There are numerous craters, plus a ford that is so steeply banked on either side we very nearly managed to wedge a Mondeo estate so it was grounded at both ends simultaneously.
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Re: U70 Road To Cape Wrath - NW Scotland - Pictures

Post by Cherskiy »

J--M--B wrote:If you think that is bad then you should try a ride up to the Range Control near Durness. The road disappeared under the sand years ago so it seems to be a different route every day as the sand moves around.
Yep, hitched a ride with a US Marine observer going up to a Forward Air Control exercise at Faraid Head a few years back - vehicles drive across the beach at Balnakeil Bay first, then join the road (so another section of road not joined up to the network!) at the other end - said road then disappearing under the dunes as you say, for a good long stretch a bit further on.

I've seen photos of the minibus going across the Kyle on the pontoon - a grand name for a couple of planks of wood lashed to some large plastic drums! :shock:

One of these days I'll have to take some shots of the road network on the Otterburn Ranges.
You call that low?
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