Well no-one can accuse us of being fair weather walkers! We talked the night before about which walk to take our wee man on and decided on this one (which we had done before and estimated to be around 10 miles). Saturday morning hailed a pretty dull, grey day (fairly typical of the summer we have had to date) but, not put off and hopeful it would remain dry, we set off around 8.30 to drive the 15 miles out to Achnashellach.
We started the climb on a stony path, over the railway and along side the River Lair. The normally beautiful views over to Fuar Tholl and Sgorr Ruadh were lost in the low cloud and rain and we walked on with Ivor manically sniffing around in front of us.
The rocky path would eventually lead you to Beinn Liath Mhor, which we
had said we would do one day but haven't yet got round to it, but
instead we continued on along the path to reach the "Tea House" bothy
which we knew would give us welcome shelter to enjoy a cup of tea.
After a cup of tea we headed back out to carry on the last leg of the walk. At this point we saw evidence of cows being around so we put Ivor on the lead but he was soon running free again as there was not another soul or creature to be seen. At this point in the walk we would normally get good views over to Beinn Eighe but the landscape in front of us with shrouded with cloud.
As we carried on up the hill track the heavens opened and we were all like drooned rats! I took a chance to look back at where we had walked from and the sun was shining through onto Beinn Eighe and we could see it's stony slope. By this time my feet were squelching in my shoes and looking out for the small woodland which I knew indicated that the end of the walk was near.
The rain eventually eased and the sun tried to poke through as we came through the forestry gate and descended down the path which would take us back to where we started. At this point we had some good views down to the valley below.
Back homes, showered and dried off we relaxed for the rest of the day and Ivor slept all afternoon on the sofa before going to bed. We think he enjoyed it!
1837ft climb/2hrs 41mins/8.9 miles
