More Training

With the day starting drizzly, and the hilltops again lost in mist, we started at Sanna for the second of Rachael's Nepal training walks, planning to visit the beaches around the abandoned village of Plocaig.  Georgina Smith, one time Greenham Common protester, has her banners out near Sanna car park for everyone to read, a bit of intellectual stimulus before we began the physical slog.

Photo: Rachael Haylett

To get our blood pumping, we started by climbing one of the hills to the north of the village, from where Rachael's sharp eyes spotted something dark moving in the distant sea.  Realising what it was, we ran down to the point at Rubha an Duin Bhain to watch two basking sharks working their way westwards along the coast, one of them....

....coming in quite close to the shore.  It's been some time since we saw any of these magnificent beasts round our side of the peninsula.  If they come close to the bay below our house, we rush down to the kayaks and paddle out to them.

For most of our walk it didn't rain - much - but it came on as we walked through the village of Plocaig, now a home for sheep.  The picture shows the last of the houses to be inhabited and, in the distance, Meall Sanna.

To the northeast of Plocaig there's a wide bay, at the back of which lie a series of fine, sandy beaches, each in its own private bay.  The tide was coming in, so little sand was exposed but....

....in one place we found the tracks of either an otter or a mink.  The lack of clear sign of the webs between the toes suggest it's most likely to be a mink, but we have seen otters on these beaches in the past.

Along one section of the tracks the animal seems to be jumping, with all four paws hitting the ground together.  The boot gives a scale, so the animal was leaping about 75cm.

We made our way back to the car by heading south towards the Allt Sanna and following it downstream.  This is the old bridge across the burn, just as the stream reaches Sanna township.

A map of the area is here.