#SundayWalk A photo 🧵
It's years since we did a walk we used to do a lot, a circumnavigation of Lexie's Loch. This is a walk that simply means turning left instead of going straight as we leave our gate, and head up into the hills.
Soon, a glimpse of Lexie's Loch can be seen, more correctly Loch Leathad a Bhaile Fhogair, the loch of the autumn settlement.
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2. It's the time of the year for ling heather, and the entire walk smelt of honey. It's such a wonderful time, when you can catch an inkling of what it must be like for a bee. The heather is so prolific this year, though remarkably hard to photograph
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3. Soon we passed an old house. We think this house must have been destroyed by fire - notice that huge crack across the lintel.
I was fortunate enough to have been given some stories about this place from some elderly folk, now no longer with us, most notably one about the tradition of seeing death lights.
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4. On with the #SundayWalk, and as we've been climbing steadily, we turn around to get some breath back, to get a rather good view of the split rocks of Clachtoll.
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5. And so up to The Old Soldier's House. This is a place that ought to be spooky but is really peaceful. My Westie used to love it here, and want to linger. It has been unoccupied since 1945
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6. Some years back, we discovered The Old Soldier's well. Even now it's at least a metre deep, though the water is almost up to the brim. This is a bout 100m or so from the house, so not too inconvenient. It's quite well built and the stonework extends downwards, as expected from a well
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7. Some years back, I found a barn owl resting in a crack in the rockface behind The Old Soldier's House. So imagine our joy when an owl burst out of the rock face not that far from where I'd seen it years back.
Just in case this was really Jareth*, we kept our distance, in case through dangers untold we had to fight our way to the goblin city
* - What? You haven't seen Labyrinth? Say it's not so.
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8. Once, more we turn around, as again, at this point we've headed up perhaps the steepest part of the walk, steep enough to have to zigzag up. And there's Clachtoll, widely acknowledged to be the Centre of the (known) Universe, laid out before us.
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9. From this point in the #SundayWalk we can look to the right and get a view of the iconic hills of Assynt, though sadly not including the best mountain in Assynt, and the second best on the planet, Quinag. She was hidden in the mist and, perhaps like folk who like her, is way over to the left of this image.
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Stevan
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