Waterfalls,Frogs and Dragonflys
Martin B26 Marauder 41-34707
on Ben na Feusaige.
(Distance covered = 4.8 mile/Ascent =+485m)
Day 3 of my 2014 walking Holiday in Scotland while the Girls were over at the Canadian Highland Dancing Championships in Montreal.
Day one had turned out to be an epic visit to
the very dramatic crashsite of an Avro Lancaster in the Beinn Eighe Range.
While taking photographs at the Lancaster crashsite it started chucking it
down with rain which didn't stop right through the night and into the
following day. The second day of my holiday was spent in the car hoping the
terrential rain would let up enough to set off up the Mountain. By the time
the rain eventually stopped it was late afternoon so all I could do was have
a very early night ready for a very early start the next day.
View down Loch Sgamhain from the camperpug. Not a
bad place too spend the night even though there was a derelict building
just off shot to the right which had "Go Home English Scum" written in
very large letters on its side.
The next day promised to be a lot better weather wise so I was up and off at 6-00am, I moved the car about half a mile further west along the A890 from where I'd spent the night and parked next to where a stretch of old and abandoned road joined the new road.
A quarter mile long stretch of the old A890, unused and abandoned.
As the crow flies the distance to the Marauder crashsite was just over half a mile, but as the crow flies would have been up a very steep incline half of which was through woods. My planned route was to follow a path that ran alongside the Allt Coire Crubaidh burn for a couple of miles to the western end of the glen, where it turned uphill. I was then going to backtrack along the top of the ridge to reach the crashsite.
Heading up the glen as the Sun was beginning to appear over Ben na Feusaige.
As I passed the western end of the aformentioned woods I spotted a waterfall half way up the steep slope on my right, so thinking it might make for a good photo I opted for a shorter, steeper but more direct route up the side of the woods with the intention of returning the longer way. When I reached the waterfall it was no where near as impresssive as it had appeared to be from the bottom of the hill.
Not quite the photo opportunity I had envisaged; the early morning sun peeking over the top of Ben na Feusaige didn't help!
I didn't have a grid ref for this crashsite, I just knew which Mountain it was on and I also had a photo from the interweb. In the background of the photo were two small Lochs; well one small one and one very small one, I could see that if walked up the Mountain keeping the northern end of one lined up with the southern end of the other, then I should come across the crashsite, a strategy that would have been useless if the Mountain had been covered in clag, but on this day it worked.
Above and below:-The two smal Lochs I used to find the Marauder crashsite, which can be seen at the bottom of the photo below.
The crashsite of the Marauder consisted of a small scar which was littered with a lot of interesting small pieces and quite a lot of melted alloy as well as a few panels and spars scattered around the immediate vicinity, one of which was home to a frog, who was not well pleased to be disturbed.
As it was such a nice day I decided to do a bit of bonus Munro Bagging so headed off up to the summit, my second Munro of the week offered spectacular views all around.
View north across to
Beinn Eighe, where I had been two days earlier to visit the scene of an
Avro Lancaster crash.
Above and next two photos:-Views south across Glenn Carron
Location of the crashsite .
My plan on the way back was to head across to the lower ground I had seen earlier, to make my descent back down into the Glen, but halfway there I came across a burn which dropped off downhill quite steepy, and I could also hear the distinctive sound of at least one waterfall.
This burn looked like a much more interesting route to follow downhill.
The burn made it's way down the side of the Mountain via one waterfall after another and the light was now much more accomodating for taking photographs, I also found a very nice spot to sit on a rock in the warm sunshine to enjoy my bait.
Where I had my lunch break, definately one for my "nice place to have a picnic" top ten!
Above and next 5 photos:-Some of the many waterfalls which conveyed the burn down the side of Ben na Feusaige.
The route I took on the way up, taken from the route I took on the way down.
Nearly at the bottom, a rather windswept and weather beaten Knarly old tree.
Once I was back to the bottom of the Glen below Ben na Feusiage it was a short and easy walk back to the car and I had plenty of time, so I diversified into a spot of wildlife photography, which mainly consisted of chasing Dragonflies around until one sat still long enough for me to take a photo.
above and next 6 photos:- Some photos in Coire Crubaidh.
By the time I was back onto the landrover track for the last mile back to the car it was very warm and sunny and I was reluctant to leave, but I had to relocate down to Glen Clova , which was quite a distance to drive.
Back on the Landy track for the last mile back to the Pug.
Ben na Feusaige summit from the Landrover track.
After my day on Ben na Feusiage I relocated quite a way south east to Angus where I was meeting up with some relatives of Joe Wetherson, who was one of the crew of the Vickers Wellington* that crashed on Muckle Cairn above Glen Clova. We had previously visited the site in 2013 when they had laid a plaque in memory of their Uncle, but the weather had been so Atricious they hadn't seen anything that was more than 20 yards away, so a return trip was organised with the hope of better weather. While in Glen Clova I was also planning on visiting an AW Whitley and an Airspeed Oxford*** crashsite which would take up the rest of my week.
