From Marc Gerard:
Following our first visit to Ardnamurchan in 2009 the return home was immediately followed by the booking of 2010’s Highland holiday. We knew there was much more to discover in the area and a return to Cluain Ghrianach at Laga would serve us well.
That last week in September would be preceded by a week on the Drimnin Estate on Morvern so, as with the previous year’s stay, the mid-holiday changeover journey was going to be quite short. Hopefully, visiting slightly earlier in the year would improve the odds of catching fine weather – possibly a triumph of hope over experience. However, it worked. As with the week at Drimnin, our time at Laga in 2010 was dominated by good to fair weather – the hills were back on the menu.
Now, walking with my brother can bring with it some small concerns. I’m sure that he would have something to say about this, but he often presents himself for holidays carrying some sort of injury or two. Under testing circumstances this can occasionally lead to explosive, tourettes-style outbursts of profanities.
Part of our early-week ascent of Ben Laga provoked such a reaction. I actually prefer walking “off piste” where the enforced discipline of following a path is removed and you have to work things out for yourself, but it also means that you are sometimes presented with awkward ground to cross or climb. The start of the walk made use of the track leading to Loch Laga, but the climb up the hill leaves the track far behind and parts of Ben Laga’s lower western flank fell into that “awkward” category with uneven ground waiting to catch the unwary – and it did. For a short while I probably wasn’t the most popular person in the world, but then we crested a rise near Lochan Coire na Moine to be confronted by a herd of red deer. For a moment we were undetected, so quickly ducked down and stared with broad grins all round. Binoculars were hardly needed, but the camera had to stay in its pouch as the noise of undoing the fastening would certainly have sent them running. Sometimes it’s much better to just look. The encounter finally came to an end with stags and hinds heading round to the north, possibly spooked by a change in direction of the gentle breeze. By this point the climb was providing an increasingly dramatic view over our shoulders to the west as we gradually rose above the adjacent more minor hills. The top was eventually reached and, thankfully, the fairly high cloud base enabled good views to be had in all directions, especially over Loch Sunart and the islands of Carna, Oronsay and Risga with drifting puddles of light adding to the scene. The lines of our previous week’s walks on Morvern could also be picked out.
Lumps and bumps dominate the rocky summit of Ben Laga, as do a number of lochans. Wandering about opened up the views towards Muck, Eigg, Rum and Skye, with Marsco on Skye being particularly easy to identify thanks to its angled side. Meall nan Each on the opposite side of Loch Laga looked like an interesting walk, but we decided to save that for later in the week.
Weather forecasters were suggesting a return to the bright but cold weather we had had the week before. Miraculously, they were right. Remembering the previous year’s fun, Ardnamurchan Charters’ boat hire got our business again. A bright day pootling about was begun by undertaking the rounding of Oronsay into Loch na Droma Buidhe, a jaunt which discretion made us abort last time out. Mission accomplished, we headed back out and started towards Loch Teacuis, then there was a cry of “what’s that great knobbly thing” – this is an expurgated version. It was insisted that there was something big in the water, but no sign remained and there were no further sightings. To this day that “Nessie” moment is the source of much ribbing, but knowing what can swim into Loch Sunart I have to accept the possibility that it might have been a basking shark, for instance. The one confirmed sighting we had was a small pod of unidentified porpoises which swam, and porpoised (!), ahead of our boat for a while. A great half day on the water.
We had been having regular breakfast time visits to the house from a Jack Russell terrier; a robust and friendly little thing which seemed to like playing fetch, but without the letting go bit after the fetch. I think I recall it lived at Laga farm. However, and notwithstanding the spellbinding red deer encounter on Ben Laga, we were to eventually get a visit from an altogether different animal.
As suggested by numerous entries in the visitors’ book, we decided to start deploying jam-smeared slices of bread on the picnic table outside the glazed wall to the sitting room. Blackcurrant jam did the trick and we had a visit from a pine marten. We tended to keep the sitting room lights off in the evenings to allow us to see out as night fell, all we did was leave an outside light on to illuminate the foreground. Never having seen one before, it was slightly startling to have one of these creatures get so close. It was bigger than expected with this one surely getting on for 2½ feet long overall, and the colours and markings were quite striking. A camera was not to hand and getting up to get one ran the risk of scaring it, so we decided to repeat the process the over the following nights and keep a camera handy to record the wondrous moment. Needless to say, the response to our diligence was to be a complete absence of pine marten – maybe next year.
The final walk of the week was to the top of Meall nan Each, the hill on the west side of Loch Laga which we saw from Ben Laga. A breezy, cold but bright day was delivered so we set out. The Loch Laga approach track was used again initially, but another enjoyable off piste climb soon ensued, as did another terrain-prompted tourettes-style verbal outburst from my brother, but after rounding an apparently un-named lochan tucked under Leac an Fhidhleir the top and its trig point was reached fairly uneventfully. This summit is more clearly defined than that of Ben Laga, possibly hence the trig point, but bare, slabby rock still prevails. Even though the sky was clearer than for our climb up Ben Laga, the wind on the sea was limiting visibility somewhat – maybe we should come back next year. Nonetheless, the sunshine helped to illuminate the view west towards Ben Hiant and added some autumnal colour to the scene.
Thanks to the improved weather compared with the previous year’s visit we certainly got a far broader sense of what Ardnamurchan had to offer – the wildlife, the landscapes, the seascapes, the skies, and the space – fantastic. It’s possibly worth mentioning that my home territory is under the eastern end of the South Downs in East Sussex. Now, there is absolutely no doubting that I’m fortunate to have such stunning countryside on the doorstep, with the rolling hills being described by Kipling as "Our blunt, bow-headed whale-backed Downs". Similarly, I would challenge anyone not to rate the sight and sound of a skylark fluttering against a blue sky over a summer field on the top of the Downs as one of the British countryside’s great moments. However, you can never truly get away from the corrupting influences of modern life, whether it be due to the skylark’s blue sky being streaked with aircraft con-trails, the (at best faint) sound of road traffic, or the fact that the views always contain some bit of visual pollution to jar the eye. I know I’m comparing apples with oranges, but it gives an indication of what attracts us to places like Ardnamurchan and gives significance to that list of what it has to offer.
2010’s stay was brought to an end with more mesmerising hours spent just staring out from the house, including the sight of a pair of sea eagles seemingly playing above the headland of Sròn nam Bràthan. I always find these huge birds captivating – bright white tail and seemingly big enough to carry a payload of bombs.
The second week of the next year’s Highland holiday had been decided – we would come back here once again.
The National Lottery had continued to stubbornly refuse to select our chosen numbers so, with heavy hearts, the early-starting 12 hour journey home was begun with the drive to the Corran ferry being punctuated by a couple of red deer hinds running across the road in front of the car and giving one last reminder of what we were leaving behind. Arrival home prompted an almost immediate booking of 2011’s holiday. A hat-trick of stays at Laga was set and the countdown began…
No comments:
Post a Comment