Thursday 8th September 2022
Today’s walk was off-road for a change and relatively short because there is only one place where we can break the two day walk out of Morven. We drove to Drimnin and left the car by the slipway and started our walk. We followed a track up to the main Drimnin Estate road which, as I mentioned yesterday, has been resurfaced with very coarse granite chippings which make slightly unpleasant walking.
The day was warm and dry with some light cloud. The track climbs gradually and the view over the Sound of Mull opened up as did the view across to Ardamurchan.
Oddly, given we were miles from anywhere, we heard a vehicle behind us and we turned to see a “large-vehicle” escort van approaching; it passed us and continued until it disappeared up a branch of the track into forestry land. Presumably it was going to to do something related to the logging industry but it seemed a bit unlikely they needed an escort vehicle on a remote forestry track.
With some relief we came to the end of the resurfaced track which was now the “old road”. The road was built as an infrastructure project for the Poor Relief Scheme in the 1880s. Local men unable to sustain a living from their crofts could work on building the road that connects little settlements along the coast that otherwise relied on boats. There was probably a rudimentary path connecting the settlements that could be used in bad weather. The road had cast-iron mile posts, some of which still exist. It is said that the money made by workers on the scheme allowed them to take a one-way ticket to leave the area and that by 1900 it was as depopulated as it is today.
We were surprised by a second vehicle coming up behind us, this time a pick up truck with a piece of timber and small portable generator. The track now really quite rough and the truck was proceeding very slowly.
We came down the side of the hill and found the track blocked by the pick-up truck. It transpired that the two men in the truck were repairing a bridge involving removing some of the sleepers forming the road way and making new handrails. They pointed out the sleepers to avoid and we went across more readily than we did the bridge at Ellery.
The track winds around the shore and past Druimbuidhe, a traditional house and, next door, a converted barn which is now let as a holiday cottage for which it is suggested that access is only by boat.
I guess that is true because if you were to stay there for any length of time you would need more than you can readily carry in from Lochaline fifteen miles away though you would only need to walk the final five miles. Another half a mile brought us to the end of the track at Doirlinn. This old house had formerly been left open so it could be used as a bothy by passing sailors and presumably walkers as well. Now it appears to be locked and work on the roof is in progress.
The next section of the walk was a cause for concern. Half a mile away there is another path going to Loch Teacuis. Previous walkers have described considerable difficulty in getting between the two path ends and Ruth Livingstone tried it from both ends and did not succeed. So this was to be the challenge of this walk. Yesterday we had a met a local man and when we told him our route, he suggested that it should not be too bad. A book of local walks suggested that enthusiasts might like to try the connecting section but that it was difficult. I had suggested to Jill that the proximity of the recently opened self-catering cottage at Druimbuidhe probably meant that the path would be used by guests and now much easier than previous reports described.
We paused at Doirlinn and put over-trousers on; because of overnight rain the long grass and bracken overhanging the path was all very wet. Fortunately for us, there appeared to be the makings of a path leading in the right direction from the south east gable end of the cottage; people had certainly been through there and it looked as if someone had dragged a bike through. So we followed it. It was a wet squelchy path for the first 200-300 yards but it was definitely there to follow, and further on I was convinced we were walking on a very old path that had become lost.
There were three, slight, flimsy marker posts of well-aged timber along the way as well and so clearly there had been a useable path once upon a time. At one point the path branched and we took the left branch which descended to the rocky shore but went no further. We retraced our steps and took the other branch and that led us to a gate in a deer fence; we had found the other path. As it turned out this was much easier than our walk up Loch Striven and easier than our cross-country walk through the forest near Ormaig a few days ago – though possibly not quite as easy as I had suggested it could be.
The path continued through the trees and gradually got wider and more definite before bursting out onto a forestry track. We had our sandwiches perched on some rocks. Thereafter we had a couple of miles to bring us to the car at the end of the road at Kinlochteacuis.
Having squeezed the car on to the grass verge at the side of the road and left it there overnight, it was a relief to see it still there – though it was difficult to think of any real reason why it wouldn’t be.
Just Coasting 