Christine's walking & birds blog

A skua was a good bird to get me on my way as I dropped down the bank before climbing to the first cairn.

I ignored the climb to the second cairn, and edged my way round the flank of the small hillock instead; this put me close to the loch, where I flushed a female mallard. I was surprised to pick up a path, not going directly towards the trig point but skirting the base of the high ground instead, and making the walking pleasant. But eventually I abandoned the path and struck off across the spongy terrain, trying to pick areas where heather was growing rather than bog myrtle. I'm sure it was as dry as it ever gets, but there were still plenty of pale mossy patches that looked innocuous but hid squelchy ground beneath - miniature Grimpen Mires! From car to destination was just under three kilometres - it felt three times that, with the added obstruction of two fences to cross. But at last I reached the trig point, and the first thing I did was send a photo to Greger (although it pinged off to him before I could send a message with it - still not entirely in charge of my new smartphone!) He'd stayed at home while a man came to repair the wooden fascia under the guttering, after a leak in the roof. 

I had seen a pair of wheatears, loads of meadow pipits, and a few skylarks on the walk out; while the faint call of a dunlin was nice to hear and not something to investigate further, as it could still be breeding. And that was it for birds - but I did have company at the trig point in the rather grotesque shape of a giant tachinid fly.

I spent some time in this lovely lonely spot, looking across the moorland at the hills of Coigach, and watching the ferry as it tracked across the blue, blue sea towards Stornoway. It was with a sinking heart, however, that I looked back at my car, twinkling in the sun where the road made a sloping line across the grey-green landscape.

Nothing for it but to set off on the return journey - although I would vary it by heading for the high ground. Bye-bye trig point I thought, looking back at it over the Lochan Deabhaidh from which it gets its name. The foreground shows a nice dried-up area, although it was still fairly rough walking.

But further on I was back in the bogs. However, they had their attractions - as in an absolute mass of sundew plants. I'm not sure if they were great or oblong-leaved, or a hybrid between great and common/round-leaved. It was difficult to get the whole plant in focus, so I held one of the flowers between my (very red - must have been the heat) fingers in order to focus and show some detail.

I gave up on my plan to gain the high ground as it meant a diversion and too many ups and downs of rocky knolls. Watching out for a particular patch of bracken that I'd noted when leaving the path, I finally re-found the path and followed it back to the road.

The trig point had no flush bracket, and I learnt from the website trigpointing.uk that it's a "secondary" triangulation pillar - that is, not one of the 383 that constituted the original, "primary" network.