21 - To Tarbert, and Fionnasbagh, An Coileach, Inner Loch Stocinis

Thursday 18th May – To Tarbert, and then Fionnasbagh,  An Coileach, Inner Loch Stocinis - 23.6 km, 690 m ascent (if only walked one way)
view map
A cuckoo was calling as I rose at 5 am. A stream just below made a good water supply for a strip-down-to-waist wash and a shampoo – very refreshing. The sun was just lighting the tips of the highest hill. As I stood with a cup of tea, taking in the scene, it dawned on me that there was no wind. The clouds were drifting slowly. The cuckoo was now two or three cuckoos, joined by another with a lower voice. I had never noticed that they had different pitched voices before, but then I’d rarely heard cuckoos competing for attention like that. I was ready long before the bus time, so I set off towards Tarbert at 7:10 am, thinking I would meet up with the bus coming down, and also that this would save me walking this section on the next day. I reached the Ghreosabhagh junction at 7:50 am and then started to wonder which coastal loops the bus service went around. 

Morning sun over Loch Tarbert and the Isle of Scalpay

Perhaps I should have walked southwards to reach a section that could not be missed out. Too late now! I continued on; over the high point before the descent into Tarbert, silver light was glinting between a pattern of islands and headlands east of Loch Tarbert. Reaching the junction where the road leads to Drinishader at 8:20 pm, it felt like a close call. Could a bus leave Tarbert at 8:10 am and pass here before 8:20 am? It seemed unlikely but possible. If I had missed it there was no point in doubling back. I could complete the section to Tarbert and get the next bus, while still hoping the bus might still be on its way. As I started to descend, a heron rose from a lochan on my left. Around 8:35 a bus came into sight – delayed? Unlikely from what Murdo said. It was a West Coast bus with a different driver – “Murdo’s long gone,” he said.

Rain and sun followed – the edge of a squall – but it was too warm to just add an extra layer. Receiving a surprise shower without a cag already on was due to a poor prediction on my part – the cloud was not following the low-level wind direction, so it hit me even though I’d seen the rain that I thought would pass me by. At the Tarbert hostel, I found a bus schedule giving the next bus time as 11:30 from the pier, so I had almost two hours to look around Tarbert. I looked around – found that the toilet block has a shower and that there was a waiting room. Lots more rain arrived while I dried out a bit in the waiting room and then put on my over-trousers. After a ten-minute walk around Tarbert, I’d seen it all, so I set off slowly back along the road south, looking for every point of interest. I failed to find them, but eventually two snipe came to my aid, circling high above and around me doing their display flight. The day was brightening so I sat on a gate for a while, watched a ferry approaching, until the bus arrived at 11:35 am. 

A dark pool near the start of the track from Fionnsabhaigh

 There then followed a scary ride - a roller-coaster experience that would have been fine if the wheels were held on the road by rails, but tight twisting bends, dips and wiggles were negotiated at speed with what seemed like half a tyre off the very narrow road on each side at the same time; and that might not have been quite so bad if the land (or lack of it) hadn’t dropped away from the road on at least one side at a time. Anyway, somehow the elderly crofters didn’t notice and held their conversations with the driver, and the driver threw the small coach / large minibus about the tangle of road, around every possible loop and side-shoot of metalled road down the east coast towards Roghadal. I paid my dues (£1.20) and alighted (12:20 am) at the junction by Fionnsabagh (076872), headed west along the back road behind Roineabhal for 200 metres, to find the track on the right, just behind a building. 

The track was lovely straight away – a well-drained, raised surface, carpeted with fine grass – very easy to walk along and to follow. Passing lochans, I noticed the elegant shape of grebes – sleek, low floating birds with long necks (longer than divers), with thin heads, head-length pointed bills, red necks, dark plumage above the waterline, but white breasts revealed in flight. So, they looked like red-necked grebes – late in the year according to my bird book, but there is no other alternative in my book to fit its shape and colours. When I reached Loch Holmasaig, I left the defined track and headed north. 

Passing Loch Holmasaig heading north, Heileasbhal Mor and An Coileach in view

I attempted to keep this course towards Heileasbhal Mor, but the craggy lumps with small cliffs with soggy areas between deviated my course repeatedly. Passing Loch Huamnabhat at 1:05 pm, I continued north but suspected that I was being forced east of north. To be surer of my position, I took bearings from identifiable peaks and where the bearing lines crossed I identified my position (076897 at 1:55 pm), so I was east of my intended route by about 200 metres. After a 2 pm lunch, I set off to go around the east of Loch Uamh nan Cnaimh and then intended to follow a 60-degree bearing to the Sail a Choilich ridge. The drops in the land where the streams ran south prevented me from following this route, so I went higher and further north before I could head north-east towards An Coileach.