|
The weather forecast at the beginning of the week was good,
and how wrong they were - yet another soaking on the hills
for the sturdy explorers, seventeen of them this time: Abbie,
Alexander, Allan, Benjamin, Calum, Charlie, Chloe, Elliot,
JD, Katie, Lucy, Melissa, Nicole, Peter William, Robin D.,
Sarah and Thomas; with Andrew, Andy, Chris, Gary, Joanne,
John Dove, John Evans, Pamela and Sandra ; plus Brucie, Toby,
Jess and Ruth to sniff out the good paths.
We started from the parking place below the 'Plate Rock' and
carefully made our way down past the dumped rubbish (why can't
people use the bins?) to the old Kinlochmoidart fank. The
explorers went round it pretty carefully but none of them
attempted David John's feat of drawing a plan afterwards.
They looked at the houses which made up the fank and then
walked and slithered down to the beach where there was another
house and a good beach clearance for pulling a boat up.
We picked our way along the shore, stopping for another cattle
pound, possibly the original one, and a possible cairn before
crossing a big stream with clay in its bank. Then we left
the shore and struck off inland to look at a whole series
of houses and cultivation areas all over the hill. We found
a good corn kiln, which the explorers climbed into and where
I took the only photograph - conditions were not good. The
explorers had a distant view of the old Kylesbeg croft and
heard about Marjory and Harold Drummond who used to live there.
We returned to the shore along the path Harold used to use
and found his old boat shed by the shore.
We stopped at an fallen coppiced oak with a rock shelter close
by and had a break and then pushed on up to the top of the
hill where there were more houses and another corn kiln.
Finally we reached the main road and followed a deer track
back down to Kylesbeg again, but there was too much water
in the tunnel to go through it. The last part of the walk
was down the verge of the road, crossing at one point to look
at one of the stone bridges on the old drove road. The explorers
were like drowned rats by the time we reached the cars.
John
Dye
|
|
|
