Chapter – 3 Wick to Achmelvich

Alexander Mcrobbie

On my way towards Durness Beach and later Achmelvich through the Drumbeg Loop, I unexpectedly experienced some of the most important moments of the trip.

The roads that day felt unreal.

Every turn looked painted.
Every passing place opened into another landscape.
Every few minutes I felt like stopping the car again.

Somewhere during the drive, after nearly two hours behind the wheel, I decided to stop near a viewpoint and take a short break.

There was almost nobody around except an elderly man sitting nearby.

I randomly said hello to him.

That single hello unexpectedly turned into one of the most memorable conversations of my trip.

He started explaining the history and topography of the area to me with so much kindness, almost like a local guide proudly introducing his world to a stranger.

It didn’t take long before I started asking about him instead.

“I’m McRobbie,” he introduced himself. That was enough for him. He never asked who I was. Before I could introduce myself, he had already taken me on a tour of the place through his words, pointing at the islands beyond the sea and telling me their stories.

He lived in Drumbeg, a place where hardly fifty people lived. He spoke fondly about the place, about the people who called it home, and about how life there appeared to those from the outside. Somewhere in that conversation, we ended up talking about the COVID lockdowns where he casually said:
“It wasn’t anything new to us. We’ve always been socially distanced here.”

That sentence strangely carried much more weight than humour.

He spoke about his family, his wife who suffered a brain hemorrhage after an accident while he was driving. Eventually he chose to send her to her family in Glasgow so she could receive better treatment and support. He video calls her every day and visits her whenever possible.

While talking to him, I slowly started feeling there was something very specific and unusual about McRobbie.

He spoke a lot about his life, and his past but only when I asked about it.

Until then, he was simply explaining Drumbeg and its surroundings to me. He even carefully suggested how I should drive through the Drumbeg Loop, warning me about blind summits and narrow passing places.

Peculiarly careful for someone who had met me only ten minutes ago.

He also spoke about his younger days working in Leicester at Liberty Financial Services, although most of his career was in radio communication.

But the real excitement in his voice came when we somehow ended up talking about photography.

It wasn’t intentional.

I had simply asked if he could click a picture of me.

He happily agreed.

One picture quickly became many. He asked me to stand in different places, changed angles, adjusted the frame, and clicked away with the enthusiasm of someone who genuinely loved what he was doing.

That’s when he told me how much he loved photography.

The conversation naturally led to his Facebook photography page. He asked me to search for it because he didn’t have a phone anymore with him. After struggling for a while, I finally found it.

The moment his page appeared on my screen, I saw a completely different McRobbie.

His eyes lit up.

He smiled with the excitement of a child who had just found his favourite toy after believing it was lost.

He eagerly scrolled through his own photographs, telling me little stories behind some of them.

As I looked through those pictures, I couldn’t help but think,

This man was truly happy while taking them..!

But somewhere in that happiness, another question quietly stayed with me.

If photography meant so much to him, why did he no longer seem to manage that page? Why didn’t he even have a phone anymore?

I didn’t ask.

Some questions, I felt, were better left unanswered.

---

Satis’fraction of a second

After a nice good conversation, came the slightly awkward part from my side.

I suddenly felt like giving him something.

Not out of pity.
Not as payment.
But simply as a token of our meeting.

Even now, I still don’t fully know how to explain that feeling properly.

So I awkwardly asked him:
“Hey. You know do you mind if I give you something? May a fiver? This isn’t as a payment… more like… I don’t know… just a token of our meeting? I’m sorry if it’s offensive or even rude but somewhere I feel i should. I don’t even know”

He immediately understood me! He smiled, tapped my shoulder and said:

“No worries man, you’re a cool man. I get it,” he laughed.
“Not as a payment, but as a principle right? Your wish man.”

I was strangely relieved that he accepted it.

Then I opened my wallet.

It was empty.

That moment genuinely broke me a little.

I started searching around and eventually found a few coins inside the dashboard of my car. I gave them to him with so much embarrassment that I could barely look at him properly.

I even asked if I could send him money digitally somehow.

He laughed again.

“Haha, I don’t use those apps. I don’t know man. But this is good man. I’ll keep it with me. You are good mate.”

Then he asked my name.

“Alex,” I replied.

That instantly made him smile.

He said “I’m Alex too, Alexander McRobbie!” and laughed about how he was expecting a completely Indian name before I introduced myself.

After a brief final conversation, we both said goodbye with a lot of questions in my mind about that person.
He slowly walked back to his bench beside the road and rested his gaze towards the ocean, as if he had simply resumed where I had interrupted him. I got back into my car and started driving, but my mind never really left that bench.

Questions quietly followed me down the road.
Was he happy living there, away from the chaos of the world?
Did he ever miss the life he once had? The cheerful years, the career, the photographs, the company of his wife?
If he didn’t even have a phone with him, how did he video call her every day like he had told me?
Why did the photographer who spoke with so much passion about his work stop posting his photographs? I vaguely remembered the last picture on his page being from 2023 or 2024.
None of it made complete sense to me.
The questions stayed with me long enough that I pulled over a little further down the road. I opened his photography page again and started scrolling, hoping that somewhere between those photographs, I might find answers to questions I never had the courage to ask.

I was genuinely amazed by his pictures.

Then I noticed his personal Facebook profile tagged on the page and opened it out of curiosity.

Scrolling through the photos, I saw a completely different McRobbie. Younger, energetic, smiling through life.

Yes, he truly was a photographer.

And then I noticed something written on his Facebook bio.

It read:

“Your worst nightmare :-)”
#Mental_Health_Patient

For some reason, that line stayed with me for the rest of the drive.

---

Achmelvich, The Heaven

Carrying Alexander McRobbie in my heart, I took the turn towards Achmelvich where I was staying for the night.

I knew it was a youth hostel, but little did I actually check the details before booking it.

The moment I took the turn towards Achmelvich, I realized how unbelievably remote this place was. For a very long time, I couldn’t see another human being on the road. Only the pine trees stood around me, shaking in the wind as if they were silently smirking at my confusion.

The roads became narrower.
The loops became longer.
The slopes became steeper.

At some point I genuinely started wondering whether I had lost my way.

Eventually, after a long and confused drive, the maps calmly informed me:
“Your destination is on the right.”

But what the maps failed to mention was that I had somehow arrived at the gates of heaven.

All I could see on my right was a slightly elevated green hill with a single white building sitting quietly against a backdrop of mountains and valleys. The kind of scenery I had only seen in movies like Heidi.

And somehow, I was welcomed by two sheep.
One white,One brown.

I slowly walked up toward the hostel and saw a man in a fedora hat eating pizza on a wooden bench outside.

“Here to check in?” he asked casually before introducing himself as James, the manager.

He immediately got up leaving his pizza behind, but I genuinely requested him to please continue eating while I tried placing my dropped jaw back into position.

I couldn’t stop taking pictures.

And I definitely couldn’t stop sending them to Gobu, probably the one person I was absolutely sure would fall in love with this place instantly.

That’s when I realized something else.

Internet and mobile networks apparently still hadn’t taken the turn toward Achmelvich the way me and my Volvo had.

After struggling for a while, I somehow managed to send her the pictures.

And thankfully, I received the validation I expected.

I guess love always finds its way through something.

After checking in, I also learned there was no WiFi connection either.

Strangely, for the first time in my life, that fact did not bother me much.

Normally, lack of internet would have shattered my entire existence.

What sounds more terrifying?
Nuclear war or no WiFi?

For me, the first one still sounds manageable.

Once I settled down, another unexpected guest quietly arrived to end the day.

The sunset!

And honestly, I don’t think people who truly love sunsets are admiring the sun itself.

They are admiring the pause.

For a few brief minutes, the entire world slows down. Mountains become softer, oceans become quieter, and even silence starts glowing differently. It feels like the day gently forgives itself before disappearing into darkness.

That evening, the golden light slowly spilled across the hills, the sheep wandered around lazily, cold wind brushed past the hostel, and for the first time in a very long while, I felt completely full inside.

Before carrying that happiness to bed, I clicked one last picture of the day. Two people quietly watch the sunset, with one empty chair beside them. For a moment, I placed myself in that empty scene. I quietly reserved that chair for the very few people I would genuinely want beside me one day, watching a sunset without needing to say much. Some people deserve conversations. A very few deserve silence.

That night felt complete.