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Saturday afternoon was clear, both in the sky and the calendar, so I decided to finally visit the little lumps to the east of Beinn Stumanadh, which go by the names Meall an Spothaidh, Meall a' Bhreac-leathaid and Meall Meadhonach. These are small hills with a long approach from any direction.
I arrived at the Beinn Stumanadh layby around 13:25 and set off along the track towards the bothy. There were a few sheep on the slopes.
- Stumanadh from the bridge
- Achnanclach
Past the bothy the track turned right and I went straight on over some soft, tussocky moss with occasional flowers and bumblebees. And toadstools.
Eventually I rounded the end of Borgie Forest and came in sight of Meall an Spothaidh.
- Meall an Spothaidh beyond the shoulder of Creag Dubh
Not being entirely up on Gaelic pronunciation, I'd started to think of it as Meal and Spotty, and was wondering what Superted's faithful companion used to eat. Maybe that currant-studded dessert that my local inn used to call Richard's Pudding?
- The Three Amigos
The OS maps have a souterrain marked near here so I detoured for a look. I'd read that a souterrain is an ancient underground room, and that there is a well-preserved and open one near Borgie. A quick check told me that the same structure is described on several different websites with at least two different grid references, neither of which matched the one one on the map, but I went down on the off-chance and looked at several likely-looking boulders in a field. There were no obvious entrances.
- Remains of walls?
- Spothaidh from the field
Back on the ridge I visited several craggy little tops, admiring the views and enjoying the height and seclusion.
- Loch nam Breac
- More of Spotty
- The landscape formerly known as Borgie Forest
I'd planned to retrace my steps, but where was the fun in that? Beinn Stumanadh beckoned.
I headed for what I thought was the main ridge, but turned out to be an extra hillock between the two, and eventually found the way around the south side of Stumanadh's peak. An easy walk and slide followed back to the Achnanclach track.
The first part of the track was recorded, the rest is an estimate/guess - there are a lot of bumps east of Spothaidh.