Ullapool Thursday morning. Weather warmer but still quite grim - very strong winds and some heavy rain. Yesterday took 4 hours to cycle 23 miles to Ullapool and was very hard going against the wind. Walked up quite a lot of the hills, and even then was occasionally putting the brakes on to avoid being blown backwards. What's more the teashop at Elphin was closed - wah!! So sheltered behind a phone box for some chocolate biscuits instead.

Much pondering on best plan from here - original plan to do 2 days backpacking round the Beinn Dearg group, but conditions forecast to continue wet and windy for today and tomorrow. Alternative would be to cycle on and do Ben Wyvis tomorrow, keeping the others for the slightly better wather forecast over the weekend. On the other hand that would increase the total cycling distance against the wind, which doesn't appeal! As a compromise will spend the morning recuperating, then cycle south. If it looks feasible will walk in to camp as high as can find a sheltered spot - if tomorrow is ok then would be able to do all six summits, if totally grim can retreat again and re-plan from there.

On the plus side should be well acclimatised to challenging weather after this week!