Cnoc an Liath-bhaid Mhoir & TumPs
Sub 2000s: Cnoc an Liath-bhaid Mhòir
Date walked: 17/07/2023
Time taken: 4 hours
It raced with the force of life - brown-stained and surging to the sea, tumbling over smoothed rocks. Yes, pausing at times by a wide bend, but then moving, always moving down through the Strath.
I was moving too, but upwards through that same Strath - the Strath of Kildonan. The remains of dwellings long, long forsaken mark this place, though they are not long forgotten. The people cleared from here remembed by means of a fine statue at nearby Helmsdale, but also more importantly remembered by us in our time.
At Kinbrace I turned, crossed that river and the landscape opened up. There was room to park by a large timber stack by the start of the track at Badanloch. I got the mountain bike out the boot and felt the fairness of the morning.
An excellent track leads out from here, a sign told me it leads all the way to Crask, though if it retains this standard of surface throughout I cannot testify.
I soon passed the sluice that is the outfall of Loch Badanloch and the beginning of the River Helmsdale.
The hills in this morning light were more green than brown and the forecasts fifty percent chance of rain seemed a less rather than likely probability.
I turned from the track on to a rougher one that eventually came to some agricultural buildings that really felt far from anywhere. By the Nissen hut I left the bike, I confess I'd ended up pushing it the last couple of hundred yards.
The track goes on to a boathouse and could probably be cycled that far, but I'm not sure if it would be worth the hassle.
A detour over the TumP Creag an t-Socaich appealed it from it I got a first good view of Loch na Gaineimh below and my target Marilyn beyond.
Descending down to the Loch the terrain was wet underfoot. There's been plenty of rain lately but only after a very dry period. I imagine the ground here is always wet, I was glad to have my welly boots on!
Loch na Gaineimh's shores of gritty sand yield both her name and another of those places of sublime beauty that these northern flows quietly gift the wanderer. Places for the mind to escape to on busier days!
Foam laced the edge and the prints of the deer that must come here to drink the waters marked the place as theirs, never mine.
I walked the shore and then headed uphill skirting the bogs where necessary. Red grouse - a pair of chestnut fireworks- burst from beneath my feet.
Before long there on a wee knoll was the trig point and an open view over a great, still wild, landscape. Cloud bothered the tops of the Bens Griam and distant Ben Loyal. Morven and the Caithness hills were too obscured, the remote hills of Ben Armine let white waves pour over them. But there and alone I felt that this distant moodiness was in harmony with my immediate tranquility. I'd say that this was a place where things could quickly change.
I moved on to the TumP Creag an Lochain which at one point had a length of bog defending its lower slopes that felt like a moat. I found a way past, then up to a small cairn and another fine vantage point.
It was quite a steep descent back to the western end of Loch na Gaineimh and this end is wetter underfoot. By the lochside my eye was caught by the distant cone of Morven. Now clear of cloud it spoke of the vastness of these parts, their sense of space.
By the track I returned to the bike and then at a picnic table by Loch Badanloch I took my lunch. Sand Martins flitted through the air and I was reminded that a can of coke doesn't accompany well the taste of banana.
Soon, I too was moving like the waters down Kildonan's Strath.
I was moving too, but upwards through that same Strath - the Strath of Kildonan. The remains of dwellings long, long forsaken mark this place, though they are not long forgotten. The people cleared from here remembed by means of a fine statue at nearby Helmsdale, but also more importantly remembered by us in our time.
At Kinbrace I turned, crossed that river and the landscape opened up. There was room to park by a large timber stack by the start of the track at Badanloch. I got the mountain bike out the boot and felt the fairness of the morning.
An excellent track leads out from here, a sign told me it leads all the way to Crask, though if it retains this standard of surface throughout I cannot testify.
I soon passed the sluice that is the outfall of Loch Badanloch and the beginning of the River Helmsdale.
The hills in this morning light were more green than brown and the forecasts fifty percent chance of rain seemed a less rather than likely probability.
I turned from the track on to a rougher one that eventually came to some agricultural buildings that really felt far from anywhere. By the Nissen hut I left the bike, I confess I'd ended up pushing it the last couple of hundred yards.
The track goes on to a boathouse and could probably be cycled that far, but I'm not sure if it would be worth the hassle.
A detour over the TumP Creag an t-Socaich appealed it from it I got a first good view of Loch na Gaineimh below and my target Marilyn beyond.
Descending down to the Loch the terrain was wet underfoot. There's been plenty of rain lately but only after a very dry period. I imagine the ground here is always wet, I was glad to have my welly boots on!
Loch na Gaineimh's shores of gritty sand yield both her name and another of those places of sublime beauty that these northern flows quietly gift the wanderer. Places for the mind to escape to on busier days!
Foam laced the edge and the prints of the deer that must come here to drink the waters marked the place as theirs, never mine.
I walked the shore and then headed uphill skirting the bogs where necessary. Red grouse - a pair of chestnut fireworks- burst from beneath my feet.
Before long there on a wee knoll was the trig point and an open view over a great, still wild, landscape. Cloud bothered the tops of the Bens Griam and distant Ben Loyal. Morven and the Caithness hills were too obscured, the remote hills of Ben Armine let white waves pour over them. But there and alone I felt that this distant moodiness was in harmony with my immediate tranquility. I'd say that this was a place where things could quickly change.
I moved on to the TumP Creag an Lochain which at one point had a length of bog defending its lower slopes that felt like a moat. I found a way past, then up to a small cairn and another fine vantage point.
It was quite a steep descent back to the western end of Loch na Gaineimh and this end is wetter underfoot. By the lochside my eye was caught by the distant cone of Morven. Now clear of cloud it spoke of the vastness of these parts, their sense of space.
By the track I returned to the bike and then at a picnic table by Loch Badanloch I took my lunch. Sand Martins flitted through the air and I was reminded that a can of coke doesn't accompany well the taste of banana.
Soon, I too was moving like the waters down Kildonan's Strath.
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Standing Stone 81
- Activity: Bird-watcher
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- Distance: 103 km
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