Two Basins

We walked today from the B8007 where it passes through the open area called the Basin just before it reaches Camas nan Geall, working our way up the southeastern slopes of Ben Hiant.

It's a bit of a scramble diagonally along a steep slope cut by the occasional rushing burn, but it takes one....

....high above the abandoned village of Bourblaige.  This is a walk we've done before, chosen today because it lay in sunshine while protected from the strong westerly wind by Ben Hiant.

Below the 300m contour line wildflowers which have been out in the croft lands for a couple of weeks are beginning to appear, primroses, celandines, violets and this, a lone wood anemone miles from the nearest woodland.

We were heading for another basin, a cup of land nestling between Ben Hiant and a lumpy hill close to the coast, Stellachan Dubha - see here in shadow.  It's a hill with two peaks, this one the lower.

We left the basin on our right to climb Stellachan Dubha's first peak, from where we looked straight down onto a small group of red deer, one of several we saw during the morning. Then....

....as we dropped down into the saddle between the two peaks, we had a first view westwards along the peninsula towards Mingary Castle and Kilchoan, with Beinn na Seilg rising above it.

From the second summit we enjoyed the full panorama of the south coast of the peninsula, but we didn't linger as the wind was almost strong enough to blow us off our feet and bitingly cold.  If it's a view we've enjoyed before, there was one change: at the bottom left of the picture one can just see the buoys marking out the location of the new Marine Harvest fish farm.

We thendropped down into the basin.  The peak at top centre of this picture is Ben Hiant.  Few see it from this direction yet this is a relatively easy walk with spectacular views, taking just two hours.