Friday 27 June 2025 - Totaig, and a broch

On a 'more rainy than usual' day, Tom took David to Inverness to pick up a courtesy car, and everyone else either stayed in or went for a 5.8km stroll to Totaig and an impressive broch.

Beyond the road head nearly 2km along from our house, the path is lined with mature trees as well as plentiful wild flowers.

Eilean Donan castle loiters just across the loch from where we are staying a few miles along the dead end road to Totaig.

Beyond Totaig is a path that goes all the way around the coast to Glenelg. An obstacle is soon encountered, a huge landslip that has obliterated the path.

The way around this is very muddy, but we were soon back on the path to the broch. This is a fine structure remarkably well preserved, though currently threatened by overgrown bracken and other plants.

We spent some time admiring the structure before dragging ourselves away and returning to Totaig via the same grassy path.

On reaching the landslip we watched a white tailed sea eagle gliding high above the us.

After this, Sue said "now we just need to see an otter". I looked to my left and was able to respond "yes, there are a couple down there!"

We watched them for some time, fishing in the bay pictured below. They got further away and are just amorphous blobs in the sea in our pictures, but we followed them with the binoculars until they were far out in the bay.

Walking back to Lochside House, the rain had eased, but conditions in the mountains looked pretty grim. We were happy to be enjoying a well earned rest day, which will conclude with a meal at the Kintail Lodge Hotel, where I held my Munro compleation party back in 2004. I doubt the food will match the quality of our own home cooked meals that we have enjoyed over the past week.
It turned out to be very good.

Here's our 2.9km each way  there and back route:

Just a few 'botanical' pictures today. 

Tree Lungwort coats many tree branches, Yellow Iris flowers are abundant, Maori Holly may be an invasive species - should it really be here?, Northern Marsh Orchid should definitely be here, and we came across a very pretty patch of Common Butterwort. 

Tree Lungwort

Yellow Iris

Maori Holly

Northern Marsh Orchid

Common Butterwort

Later: a slight problem getting to the pub! Luckily a gentleman with a chain saw was in an oncoming vehicle.