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.

Thursday 26 June 2025 - Beinn a'Mheadhoin

Sue and Roger climbed Carn Ghlusaid and its two neighbours. 

Tom went up two Munros at the eastern end of the north Glen Shiel ridge.

David supervised the removal of his damaged car by way of a low loader, then went for a local walk.

Early morning rain had subsided before Julie, Mike and I drove to Dornie to set off up the breast of 414 metre Beinn a'Mheadhoin. There was a nice view across Loch Long (above).

Whilst this hill is modest in height it punches above its weight. The gnarly summit ridge looks challenging from below.

 

It wasn't long until we had good views back past Dornie.

The Bell Heather is showing off in vibrant dark red clumps just now.

Julie and I made it to the top before a brief squall saw me diving down to a sheltered spot while Julie waited for Mike, who had got a little directionally confused.

There were good views from our sheltered lunch spot.

After a fairly lengthy break we headed off towards a lochan, passing it near Julie's head and taking a right turn from there.

Eventually we reached a 'path' beside or in the River Glennan. This is the view of our onward route after reaching the 'path' which criss-crossed the river, getting wider every time thanks to side streams.

Intermittent showers visited us as we soldiered our way back to Dornie, crossing the river several times.

This may be a small hill, but after 10km of pathless yomping it had Mike complaining that the walk was harder than the much higher Munro summit that had been his target yesterday.

Here's our route- 11km with 450 metres ascent, which took us nearly all of 6 hours.

Meanwhile, Sue and Roger were enjoying the paths that led to their Munro summits.

Sue spotted some Round-leaved Sundew.

Wednesday 25 June 2025 - Meall Sguman

Today Sue and Roger walked over the Three Brothers. A group of us failed to complete this walk in April 2009, but today the two of them succeeded with ease.

Tom and Mike went onto the south Kintail ridge, climbing to two and one of the summits respectively. 

David had a bad day as a truck drove into the back of his car in the car park near the battle site.

Julie and I cycled 11km up the track from Killilan to Carnach then we walked up Meall Sguman (544 metres). The track, pictured above, rises 100 metres over the course of its ascent to Carnach. A mole ran across the road ahead of me.

There are views across to the gully that leads to the Falls of Glomach.

We left the bikes at a sad looking building that seemed to be under siege from House Martins.

Here's the view back down to Loch na Leitreach.

An excellent stalkers path gained quite a bit of height.

There was a good view back down to Carnach, before we lurched onto a plateau and joined an ATV track that led across a river and onwards over boggy ground towards the summit.

Here we are on the summit, near where we lunched in a sheltered spot. 

We disturbed some deer, as usual.

After a while we descended gently to rejoin the main ATV track to the left of Loch Lon Mhurchaidh.

A waterfall is passed on this path.

After encountering three groups of DofE students and their assessors, we arrived back at the bikes.

It was an enjoyable ride back to Killilan. 

Here's our route:

11km bike ride with 150 metres ascent in an hour.

7km walk with 450 metres ascent in 3 hours.

11km bike ride with 50 metres ascent in 45 minutes.

Many flowers again. Here are a couple. 

Heath Spotted-orchid

Arnica