We are up on the West Coast of Scotland this week staying near the town of Oban, and today we went out for a nice walk beside Loch Awe.
We drove down the Dalavich road along the west side of Loch Awe, which is very much off the beaten path. We stopped for a woodland walk along the way, and were quite surprised. All of the trees were covered in moss, and there were lots of lichens and the like growing everywhere. Check out the tree above, I've never seen as many of those growths on one tree before.
It was quite a nice woodland circular walk that we have never done before, at around 5km long.
We thought the tree above looked a little like the wamping willow from the Harry Potter films. Again, you can see that its completely covered in moss.
The walk took us down through the trees to a forestry track along the lochside.
About 0.5km along the track we found the sign for the Crannog, and went down to the lochside to see it.
Not much left to see ! But thats not surprising. A cronnog is an iron age dwelling built on a man-made island in a loch. There would have been a hidden path, just under the water, that would have allowed the inhabitants to get to it. Being iron age, it would be something like 1500+ years old. There would have been some form of hut on that island for them to live in. It was around 30m from the shore and quite small at only about 4-5m across. And we saw two other similar sites when we were driving down the loch - quite interesting !
We also spotted the tree above beside the crannog which had a heap of ferns growing on it !
There was also another tree there with loads more of these growths on.
We also spotted a number of lichens growing on the forest floor, like the one above. My understanding is that the air quality has to be very good for lichens to thrive - but I'm not surprised, as its such a remote location, that the air quality was probably very good here - next to no traffic anywhere near this site.
We got to the bridge above, where the path we wanted snakes back up the hill.
However, it was closed due to forestry operations - they were harvesting the trees in the area, and had accordingly shut the path down.
So back we went ! The puddle above was so still and clear that the trees were reflecting in it quite nicely.
And then we bumped into this guy on the way back, and we had to walk behind it for a little while until he could pull over to let us past (we could walk faster than it). It made me think we were in the video for David Bowie's Ashes to Ashes !
Well it really was a lovely walk, and it was nice to hit a new path down a lovely remote area and see a crannog site.
Thats my wednesday walk for another week - I hope you all had a great wednesday.
All the best from Scotland !
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A beautiful walk with nature, must have bene so refreshing
I had never heard of a cronnog before
Thanks for joining the Wednesday, its always fun for me to visit the walks from all around the world, getting a feel for communities where people live and what they see on their daily walks
They are not very common here, and I havent heard of them in other countries either - but they are pretty cool. None of them have survived beyond what you could see today, although one has been reconstructed, but I've never yet visited it - but its on the list !
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I really envy all you guys that get to have this amazing touch with nature! And I enjoyed the walk with you. That tree I saw reminded me a lot of the one I saw in Harry Potter.
Lovely walk in the woods @hoosie
Too bad you couldn’t go further due to forestry works.
Thanks for sharing. Have a great Thursday 👋🏻😊
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The photographs are damn Nice 🙂