Plan your trip
GETTING THERE
Stoer is on the B869, seven miles north-west of Lochinver. Lairg is on the A386, with rail access from Inverness.
WALK HERE
Follow Walk 24 in this issue for a great little walk up The Ord at Lairg. You can reach Stac Fada by following the coast westwards from the village of Stoer for half a mile. Then climb Meall Dearg beyond for great views. Retrace steps to return. You can download a route for Rosehall and the Achness Waterfall at lfto.com/ bonusroutes and a route for Raven’s Rock Gorge at forestryandland.gov.scot/visit.ravens-rock
WHERE TO EAT, DRINK & STAY
In Lochinver, we recommend the
An Cala Café and Bunkhouse (01571 844324, ancalacafeandbunkhouse.co.uk); accommodation from £25 but please check for current restrictions. Also try the Culag Hotel (01571 844270, culaghotel.co.uk); its Wayfarers Bar has main meals around £10. In Lairg, try the Lairg Highland Hotel (01549 402243, highland-hotel.co.uk), which has doubles from £85 and main meals around £11.
iMORE INFORMATION
For the full geophysical story in technical detail, you can find papers by Ken Amor and Mike Simms on the Geological Society of London blog at blog.geolsoc.org.uk. Find out more about the Ferrycroft Visitor Centre in Lairg at highlife highland.com/visitor-attractions, and for general tourist information go to visitscotland.com. Please check all restrictions before you travel.
Ice-cold, lacquer-clear, ready to refill waterbottles, freshen feet, or frighten the wits out of your scalp if you dip your bonce in the stuff, stream water is a sensory firework for a summer’s day. Tasting obscurely mineral and sort of flatter-than-flat, it’s a drink that knows its business and brooks no nonsense. It’s here to bring the sun-drunk back to their senses posthaste with its powerfully chilling effect.
Wonderful freedom, not having to pack for every weather! Alright so the ratio of our bodyweight to our total rolling mass is never less than substantial, but without spare layers and waterproofs this is the closest we’ll ever feel to a dandelion seed adrift on the breeze – a solar-powered will o’the wisp taking manon-the-moon strides. You’ll forgive us if we prance a bit, now and then!
The modern world might have lumped sitting along with sugar, salt and tobacco in the box marked Evil Scourges, but we walkers are in credit and an indulgent mixed selection of summer sits is entirely our due. There’s the leaning against the corrugated trunk of an oak tree in the shade sit; the sun-warmed dry stone wall sit; the slope just steep enough with your rucksack’s help look-down-at-the-valley sit, and a hundred more. Because sometimes there’s no
Basking beneath a lone pine tree near Blake Rigg on Wetherlam, in the southern Lake District.
better way to appreciate the world than to let it happen around you for a while (but be warned – time goes twice as fast on your bum).
Imagine living your whole life in gloves and never knowing directly how hot, cold, smooth, rough or wet things were. Yet we’re quite used to blanking off the 14,000 nerve endings we have in our feet. Are we sure we know what we’re missing? Walking barefoot informs you about the world and your place in it in surprising ways, it enhances your proprioception (sense of your place in space) and makes you temporarily abandon the modern, heel-striking, joint-wearing way of walking we’ve fallen into. It also takes you back to toddlerhood and that sense of delighted, excited discovery that’s so cheering.
You’re not imagining it – the smell of cut grass is delicious. Mowing releases what are called greenleaf volatiles – aromas which are the same as those released by ripe edible plants and fruits. We’re attuned to recognise these as a powerful seize-this-moment signal – and don’t you just want to? Amazingly, it’s been discovered plants themselves can recognise and respond to these airborne aromas, causing them to shuttle sugars
COUNTRY WALKING
AUGUST 2020