Who Packed The Swimming Trunks?


The hot weather continues, causing all sorts of unusual behaviour.

Up the Inner Sound, between Raasay Island and the mainland, the gentle winds played around us, sometimes fading away, sometimes allowing sails.  The cruising chute is a lovely sail, big and bright, but always slightly worrying in case the wind rapidly rises (it is a handful to get down in strong winds).  In this case, the winds were benevolent.  We carried it for three hours and then the wind died away completely, leaving it hanging slackly, so we pulled it down and motored.


Cruising Chute to Shieldaig
Above Shieldaig looms a large mountain (or a large hill, if you come from the Himalayas).  We decided to walk around it, not realising quite how far it extended to the SE, so we had a long day out.

Shieldaig with Local Raised Feature
After following some road, we struck across the moor and then followed a burn.  It was hot, so I decided to cool off in the water.  Rosie wouldn’t join me, perhaps concerned lest a stalker (original meaning of the word) should appear.  I’m sure that he wouldn’t have minded!

Doug Worrying About Hungry Trout
We followed the burn up to a fresh water loch, Loch Damh, which was a beautiful sight on such a day.  Unfortunately we chose the wrong side to skirt it, over rough moorland, which was hard walking.  On the other side, we later discovered, there was an easy track.  Maps are strongly advised, if you can get them.

Loch Damh

On the way back, we found a road and cheated by hitching a lift back to Shieldaig.  It was a hot day after all.  I left Rosie to put out her thumb since women normally do better than hairy men.  The locals are friendly folk, and the first car (and the only one going our way during the previous half an hour of walking) stopped immediately.  We were dropped off in the village centre, where we found some freshly smoked salmon for supper.

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