Wednesday, April 09, 2025
From the Black Isle, you can look across the Cromarty Firth and see, atop a largely forested hill, a man-made structure known as the Fyrish Monument. This was built in 1782 on the orders of Sir Hector Munro, and modelled on the gates of Negapatam in India - where Munro had served in the British Army. The project gave work to local men at the time of the clearances, when landowners like Munro had forced people from their homes to make way for the latest money spinner - sheep. But it's also a very noticeable landmark possibly built to glorify his military career. Whichever it was, the walk to the top of this 453-metre hill is very popular, with most of it winding up through plantations and only near the summit opening up to bare grassland and heather.
Greger looks out over the Cromarty Firth towards the Black Isle:
We'd looked forward to great views all round, especially of the less familiar side of Ben Wyvis; but the cloud was down over the higher tops and distances were misty. I'd also had some thoughts of "popping over" to the neighbouring hill of Cnoc Ceislein to bag the triangulation pillar - but it now looked much further away than I'd bargained for, and we're not hill-fit yet. It took me some time to locate the trig point through my bins - until I realised that instead of the usual conspicuous dark block, this one was ghostly white.
We set off down, deciding to eat our lunch in the car as it was decidedly chilly on the summit. Coming up we'd heard coal tit, siskin, wren, chaffinch, and crossbill in the plantation - and now we caught sight of a male crossbill, which didn't hang about for a better photo than this.
It had been a sociable climb, with most people giving us a cheerful greeting and lots of children enjoying being out in the open air - although a couple of them, on reaching the top, immediately sat down, got their phones out, and started scrolling!
