Lochan an Dobhrain

Lochan an Dobhrain, the small loch of the otter, is special in several ways.   It's one of West Ardnamurchan's more remote lochans; it drains into two burns, one at either end; and it is, in our view, the area's most beautiful lochan because of its many little islands and very ragged outline..  It can be reached either from Fascadale by walking westwards along the coast and then cutting south into the mountains; or, as we did the other day, by walking northeastwards across the old fields from Achnaha, and skirting south of Sgurr nan Gabhar.  Either route is fairly hard, but this lochan is well worth the trouble.

The picture above shows it from the west, looking towards Meall an Fhir-eoin.  The lochan sits high in the hills, in a bowl of land in a break in the great ring of igneous rock that circle the flat land around Achnaha.

The islands are formed of lumps of rounded rock upon which vegetation has, somehow, managed to grow.  Mostly it's heather which, in a month or so's time, will be a blaze of colour.  Because of the lochan's name, we keep hoping that we'll see an otter swimming eating a fish on one of the islands, or swimming in its clear, peat-brown waters.

The last time we visited it, the month was April and the surrounding vegetation had the colours of a long winter - yet a small yacht was already making its way through the passage between Ardnamurchan an Muck.

What we hadn't noticed before, but spent some time puzzling over on our recent visit, was this structure in one of the shallow inlets.  Someone has spent a great deal of time building this low wall out into the lochan.  That the water is very shallow and rocky on either side suggests that it can't have been a small harbour or shelter for a boat.  It might have been a fish trap, but it would have been a very porous one.  What can it have been?

A map of the area is here.