Sunday 16 September 1979

Farm or Forestry?

September 15th 1979

Anne and I were spending a September weekend with Anne's sister, Marjorie, in Inverness, and decided to head up the Ullapool road to climb hills in the Ben Dearg group.

In those days, there was no gate on the forestry track up from Inverlael, but there was a big sign which said "Farm and Forestry Only". However, we were reliably informed that the sign could be safely ignored, so up we drove in the wee Fiat 126, and parked at the top of the road. Just as we were getting our boots on, a Land Rover drove up, and a gentleman in tweedy clothing jumped out and enquired "Well - farm or forestry?" in a plummy accent. We grovelled appropriately (thought afterwards we could have pretended that none of us could speak English), and he turned out to be reasonably friendly, and advised us where they would be stalking, and where we could go safely.

We climbed Meall na Ceapraichean and Eididh nan Clach Geala, but we always refer to it as the "farm or forestry" walk.

Nowadays there is a locked gate at Inverlael, but it is well worth cycling the 3 miles up the track - as we have done twice since, once to climb Seana Bhraigh (12/07/04), and once to climb Ben Dearg and Cona Mheall (15/0707).

And, of course, checking abut stalking by using Hillphones.

(written 12/08/09)