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Spending a lot of our time around Roybridge when on holiday in Scotland, we've managed to do all the Munros in the local area so it would make sense to include more Grahams and Corbetts on our days out in the hills, there's plenty to do so we'll never get bored
Searching for a hill to do to keep ourselves occupied for an afternoon I'd looked at Creag Dhubh, it's only 10 minutes up the road from Bunroy and, being interested in old religious buildings, the starting point by the church and the opportunity to have a look around added more interest to our afternoon. So, after a visit to Fort William in the morning to get stocked up on essentials (peanuts, chocolate, beer, those sort of essentials
) we decided to have lunch and then have a trip up Creag Dhubh.
There's a good sized parking area just off the little road near the church, during the week I guess it's not a problem to use it for our purposes, on a Sunday I don't think I'd be bold enough.
Parking spot view
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
There was a bit of damp in the air but we decided to go light with just the essentials in our bags, we set off from the parking aiming for the little lump Tom a' Chrochaire. On the top we could make out our intended route so we set towards the sheepfold marked on the map and then head uphill from there.
There's no path so it was just a case of keeping an eye on the map, this Graham can be done from Glen Roy and we did find traces of a path at around NN309822 we thought it might have been an established path, it was heading in the right direction so we used it for as long as we could see it.
By now the views were getting better
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
We lost the path in a boggy bit and it didn't re-appear
so we just kept going up,
After what seemed no time at all we spotted the trigpoint and made a beeline for it, not far from the top the path re-appeared, better late than never
There's a small cairn a bit further east from the trigpoint that looked a bit higher so we bypassed the trig and headed for that, there's not much in it but I think the cairn is the summit, not being sure I took piccy's at the trig too
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
It's a nice little hill, the views from the top to the higher mountains around are good, looking at the smaller hills showed us that there are many mornings/afternoons/days out that will be new to us so close to base
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
We set off from the trig in the general direction of Tom a' Chrochaire and the church, a good aiming point once you can see them, we wanted to avoid the steeper bits so once the church was in sight we aimed for a point around NN307815 where we could see a gate in the fence. Through the gate we revisited the top of Tom then back to the car.
We saw this Orchid on the way down, not sure which one
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
Looking back, those ferns were taller than us
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
Back at the car we de-booted put the bags in the car, had a snack then went to look at the church.
This church, Cille Choirill is 15th century so it has some history, it's dedicated to St Kerrill (Cyril), unfortunately the door was locked so we couldn't nip inside to have a look, it's old, judging by the architecture and some of the gravestones date back to the early 18th century, it's a lovely setting and well looked after, we spent some time just looking and enjoying the peace.
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
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Martin Hawer, on Flickr
A nice afternoon out.