Ullapool

Ullapool is a planned little grid of white houses on Loch Broom, put there in 1788 as a herring port. It is still a working harbour: ferry to Stornoway, prawn boats, the smell of diesel and salt when the wind is in the west. It is also where we pour Highland Candle Company. That is not a branding flourish. The tins leave from here.

What it is actually like

Small. You can walk it. Shore Street does the postcards; the hill behind does the weather. The Ullapool Museum is in the old church if you want the herring years without a leaflet voice. Ceilidhs happen. So do wet Tuesdays when the only plan is tea and the window.

North and east of town you are into Assynt and the Coigach: Stac Pollaidh, Achiltibuie, a lot of rock and not a lot of phone signal. South-east, Corrieshalloch is twenty minutes and a proper hole in the ground. The Bone Caves are a walk, not a shop.

Practical

Inverness is about an hour and a quarter if the A835 behaves. Parking in July is a sport. Midges in still July evenings are not a myth. The ferry books out. None of this is a reason not to come. It is a reason not to treat it like a theme park with a gift shop attached — even though, yes, you can buy a candle. The Ullapool jar is salt and harbour, not a souvenir snowglobe.

Christmas: the creel tree on the waterfront is the local joke that became the local landmark.