Scourie Friday: Don't close that toilet

Friday: Don’t close that toilet 

It was another sunny day and with a relatively calm sea we decided to have another go at the mischievous Mackerel.  

From the Shore House Restaurant   TARBET

Mackerel Fishing Kit 

After an hour or so readying the RIB and all rods set and secured in the boat, it would not start. No amount of surgical examination of the engine and electrics could persuade the thing to start and then take us fishing.

We consoled ourselves by driving the five or so miles up the road to Tarbet, a tiny village where one catches the ferry to Handa Island. Tarbet is also home to the most excellent Shore House Restaurant where there is an excellent menu of seafood: With views over the water to Handa they offered smoked salmon from the Salar Smokehouse or hot smoked mackerel from the Summer Isles smokehouse.

I enjoyed the Sweet Pickled Herring served with fresh salad, with yummy brown bread and butter. Salmon was on the menu, from Loch Duart (one of the Scourie Hotel’s beats) served with a fresh side salad and hot buttered new potatoes and a seafood Platter - fresh Handa Prawns and Crab, Smoked Salmon and Smoked Mackerel. It was a grand occasion for the Scourie team to actually be out to lunch themselves and a good way to round out a wonderful week.  

Tarbet’s public toilet is about to close! (and not just for the winter). Although the cash-strapped Highland Council has bowed to public pressure and delayed plans to axe 29 rural toilets – aimed to make annual savings £338,000 a year

Councillors Alister MacKinnon and Allan Henderson, on behalf of the Highland Council’s administration, said: “The review will be extended to October 31, to ensure we have a sustainable network of toilets across the Highlands. The Administration are also looking at ways of creating a council loan fund to help communities with conversion to community ownership.”