After two days of cloudy weather which delivered almost two inches of rain, we were desperate for a bit of sunshine and a good walk, preferably somewhere where it wasn't too sodden underfoot, so we set off for the
Allt Choire Mhuilinn, following its right bank from the road down to the sea through dripping oak woodland.
Unsurprisingly, the burn is in flood, the peaty-coloured water thundering down the most impressive of several waterfalls along this short stretch.
The glen of the
Allt Choire Mhuilinn is steep-sided and thickly forested. This is the view across it as it nears its mouth, with Ben Hiant in the distance and the point called Maclean's Nose to the right.
There's a new bridge across the burn just before it reaches the sea, which was just as well as we wouldn't have been able to cross it otherwise.
This is what we were looking for, the series of bays, with shingle beaches at their backs, which stretch from the
Allt Choire Mhuilinn mouth eastwards almost as far as Maclean's Nose. All of these bays would have once had names but....
....only two are named on the OS map - this one,
Camas Choire Mhuilinn, and....
....the last of the bays,
Camas Clacha' Mora, which means the 'bay of large stones'. It's cluttered with large, slippery rocks which we've fought our across in the past, climbing up at the back to look at the signs of settlement on the ledges above it, but we're getting old so, today, we reluctantly turned back.
Along the highest of the shingle storm beaches a daisy, possibly s
ea mayweed, Tripleurospermum maritimum, was in full flower despite the lateness of the year. As can be seen, this beach is one of the worst for flotsam - perhaps because it's downwind of Tobermory - with plastic water bottles one of the most common items of flotsam, but there are some useful things, like plenty of nylon rope and....
....a new-looking boathook. For older walkers, all these beaches are good for natural stone benches on which to rest weary legs.
It's also one of the best sections of coastline for seeing otters. While the fish farm was being installed they disappeared, but they've been back now for some time, living quite happily with the occasional noise of speeding RIBs.
Plastic water bottles...geologists in centuries to come will be able to date this careless period exactly.
ReplyDeleteIt is of course far worse in countries where the only clean drinking water now arrives in these bottles. Far too often there is no official system in place to collect them. In October along roads and hillsides in Nepal I realised that veritable billions of these old water containers are poised ready to tumble into the tributaries that fill the Ganges. There is no secondhand market or incentive to collect them up .Public health in countries like Nepal depend entirely on these hygenic water containers. We all know that used plastics remain easier to collect at point of use than at sea. It is beyond time for scientists to be pressed to find a biodegradable alternative.