Kilchoan Football Tournament

Here are a few photos from Saturday's Kilchoan Football Tournament. Full match reports to follow soon! Well done to everyone who took part and many thanks to those who went and supported :-)

Many thanks to Morvern for the photos

A Ship with a Secret

The Hebridean Princess is frequently seen passing Kilchoan. She's probably best known these days as the ship the Queen hires in the summer to get away from it all (see BBC report here). Before her purchase by Hebridean Island Cruises, she was a Cal Mac ferry plying the route between Oban and Craignure.

But she had a second, secret use. Read more about it here.

Many thanks to Tom Miller for drawing The Diary's

attention to this.

A Scotch Argus

A butterfly almost unique to Scotland - the only other places it is found is in two locations in Northern England.

In the hills of West Ardnamurchan, it can be very common on a sunny summer's day.

More about the butterfly here.

The Hill of Pools - 2

As we approached the summit of Meall an Fhir-eoin, we found that the pool near the summit of the connected, un-named 262m hill we had just climbed wasn't unusual. Scattered across this relatively flat-topped summit were a number of quite large and varied pools. The one above we named Pyramid Pool.

This pool stands above a sheer drop. Meall na Fhir-eoin is formed of the hard, gabbroic rocks of Ardnamurchan's ring dykes, their continuation around to the east being visible in the distance beyond the pool.

Typical of the pools is this one, beside which we sat and ate lunch. Again, beyond its further lip the slope falls precipitately away.

Also scattered across the top were large numbers of pieces of rock - this one is about the size of a football - which are definitely not the local gabbro. They are erratics, lumps of rock brought in when glaciers covered even these high peaks. And it was the movement of the glacial ice which scooped out the hollows in which the pools now lie.

These two lumps of rock form the summit of Meall na Fhir-eoin. Beyond them the ring dyke rocks continue round to form the hills above Sanna, some of whose buildings can just be seen.

A map of the area is here.

Ardnamurchan Wilderness

Sgurr nan Gabhar with the flank of Meall Clachan an Daraich to its right and Meall nan Con, West Ardnamurchan's second highest peak, in the distance.