A 1970s Guide Book

Many thanks to Alistair S. for letting me have a digital copy of this 1970s guide book published by Stanley and Madge Wilson who lived at Camas Inas.  Alistair writes, "Either my parents or I bought the booklet quite some time ago but, if it was me, then it’s been to Africa, the USA and is now finally back in the UK.

"Pre my present-day travels, I visited Ardnamurchan only once and that was back in the 70s. I recall the bar at the hotel was renowned for its enormous whisky collection which I think was stacked up behind the bar. The road north (A 861) was just recently opened at the time and I think the road to Ardnamurchan lighthouse was a track."

I understand that the Wilsons died some years ago, so the Diary is republishing the booklet on the internet in the sincere hope that this does not offend anyone close to the Wilsons, and in the hope that reading it will give some enjoyment to everybody, and especially to people who remember the peninsula in those days.

The booklet can be downloaded here.

Upside-down Waterfall

Just along from the Sanna turn, there's a small quarry on Kilchoan township's common grazings.  In wet weather, a rivulet falls down the face of the quarry - but not today, because the wind was picking up the tiny waterfall and throwing it back on itself.

In Search of a Battlefield - 6

The last Diary post which addressed the continuing mystery of the site of the Battle of Creag an Airgid, silver hill, which took place in 1518 or 1519, was almost a year ago - link here - and addressed the problem of locating the cairns raised, after the battle, one over the bodies of the MacIain chief and his two sons, the other over those of their men.  Locating them depends on accounts which refer to the route of the Sanna road. In that last post it stated, "In our searches we have made a fundamental mistake - assuming that the Sanna road followed the same route in MEM MacDonald's day as it does today. It doesn't."

In that post, I used the 1872 OS map, but the clipping above is taken from the 1885 1" Coll sheet, which shows the contours.  Using it, the old tracks to Sanna (green) and Glendrian (orange) could be superimposed on a recent OS-derived map:

It being a truly dismal day today, with the rain washing across Ardnamurchan and the hills resembling quagmires, we took a walk along the modern Sanna road to try to identify points 1 and 2, where the old tracks diverged to Glendrian and Sanna respectively.

Point 1 was easy to find as it lies immediately to the east of the southern end of Lochan an Ealachan, the lochan of swans, sadly no longer named on the modern maps.  The Glendrian track can be seen crossing a small marshy area beyond and then rising across the hill in the middle distance.  Given a finer day, we'll walk this.

Point 2 was also easy to find as it lies immediately to the west of a very distinctive dog-leg in the course of a small burn - this is marked 3 on the second map.  The Sanna track leaves the present road and follows a small, open glen, heading much more directly for Achnaha.

 Looking back, this picture shows the points where the Sanna track leaves the present road, 2, and the very distinct V-shape of the burn, 3.

Despite the conditions, we set off up the hill to follow the Sanna track, and found this old plank, perhaps evidence that the route we were following is the correct one.

We stopped at the top of the rise where we came in sight of the steep glen into which the track drops and, in the middle distance, the ridge of Sithean Mor, over which it passes before rejoining the present Sanna road.  Again, now that we've found it, this track offers us another walk, this time back along the route which the invading MacDonalds and their MacLeod allies may have followed on their way to the battle site.

Unrelenting

Some idea of the ferocity of the gales overnight is given in this picture from Kilchoan Early Bird of spume welded to the cliffs to the north of Ardnamurchan Point lighthouse, just visible above the cliff.

With the change in the wind direction into the northwest, here on the south side of the peninsula we're even more in the lee of the hills, but the new direction is bringing down much colder air, so we've had a day of hail, sleet and snow showers.  There's been yet more disruption to transport, with no sign of any ferries, not even the Tobermory one - in fact, we've not seen a ship in the Sound all day.

We drove over to Swordle this afternoon.  This caravan has been parked in this spot for ages but it only took a sudden, fierce gust from a slightly unusual direction to send it toppling.

By the time we reached Swordle the sun was appearing in brief intervals.  This view down to Swordle Bay shows one of Ardnamurchan Estate's letting houses, Swordle Bay House.

By the time we turned for home we'd had a couple more snow/sleet showers, and Ben Hiant, seen above Braehouse Cottage in the glen of the Achateny Water, had turned grey-white.  The forecast for the next two days remains for gales and wintery showers.

Storm Damage

The storm was everything XC Weather had promised, with Sue Cheadle reporting gusts of 103 mph at Sanna and Kilchoan Early Bird sending this picture of the sea this morning.   Here on the south side of the peninsula we had a wild night, with gale force winds, thunder and lightning around 10.15 last night, and the lights dimming several times during the electrical storm and again around three in the morning - yet, amazingly, the power was still on this morning when we woke. We were just thanking our lucky stars when, at nine, the power went - a transformer blew up near Caim - and it's been off until just now, a quarter to five.

The radio reported all trains in Scotland at a standstill, ferry services shut down, bus and coach services disrupted, and power out in 70,000 households - yet AJG carriers manage to be out here delivering supplies at 9.30 - picture shows driver John MacDonald whom we frequently see here, and who seemed totally unfazed by the devastation around him.

We took a walk through Kilchoan in the morning, finding very little damage - just a few rather shocked geese on the marsh at the back of Kilchoan Bay which seemed - understandably - very unwilling to take flight, and....

....the sad sight of two beautiful trees down in the garden of Maell mo Chridhe.  But elsewhere, things had been much more lively.

 This container at Achnaha had been blown on its side....

....some static caravans had had a bad time....

....and this small caravan, which we think may have been towed onto the peninsula by a visitor yesterday, had been blown off the road.

In amongst all this chaos what's so heartening is the cheerful way people cope with what was a frightening night.  And they're philosophical about the next few days - another gale tomorrow, and more rain, more wind, and temperatures predicted, by XC Weather at least, to fall during the following days, so we'll be seeing sleet and or snow as well.

Special thanks to Kilchoan Early Bird for pictures 1, 5, 6 and 7.