A Frustrating Walk

With the mist low across the hills and a thin drizzle alternating with moments of watery sunshine, we chose what seemed like a straightforward objective for our walk today, a dun just to the south of Ockle.

A dun is an Iron Age fort, usually very small, but this one is interesting because it lies inland and seems to dominate nothing - unless there was a regularly-used trackway between Swordle and Camas nan Geall, which would have passed close by it.

We left the car near the entrance to Swordle Farm and followed the Allt Dochan a' Churra - the top picture looks back down its valley towards the farm buildings.

After crossing two fences and negotiating several quagmires, we plunged into a coniferous plantation, following a path which ran southeastwards along a pronounced ridge. We don't like walking in woodland as its so enclosed, even less on damp days, and to find this in a place where the OS had indicated open moorland was disconcerting.

The only feature that remotely resembled a dun was this area of moss-covered stones, but since none of the stones were visible, the shape of the structure was completely buried, and any surrounding features which might have enabled us to pinpoint our location were invisible, we couldn't be certain that we had found our objective .

Retreating towards the road, feeling dejected and with the rain increasing, we came across this rock formed of a wonderfully contorted mica schist. It almost made the walk worthwhile - until we returned home and checked the dun's location on Google Maps: we had been nowhere near it.

A map of the area is here.