Imagine you are at the edge of the sea on a day when it is difficult to say where the land ends and the sea begins and where the sea ends and the sky begins. Sea kayaking lets you explore these and your own boundaries and broadens your horizons. Sea kayaking is the new mountaineering.
We were quite hot by the time we had finished the portage and manoeuvred the boats over a salt marsh to the edge of Loch Moidart where we...
...joined these mallard ducks on salt water (for the first time in this trip.)
I always love that feeling of weightlessness when you paddle a heavily loaded boat away from the shore.
We were not going very far. We still had to do second luncheon and we needed to wait until the flood tide had filled the tidal north channel of Loch Moidart.
Castle Tioram (pronounced Cheerum) sits on a tidal island and would make an ideal place to stop. We saw various tourist fleeing the island as the rising tide threatened to cut them off. However we would not have the castle entirely to ourselves...
...this magnificent sea eagle was wheeling overhead on its great barn door wings.
I always associate Tioram Castle with the birl of the bagpipes because on my first visit, there was a piper playing at the foot of the castle wall. He was not a local, in fact he was on holiday from Nova Scotia! The sound of the pipes echoing from the castle walls and the misty cliffs round lonely Loch Moidart was spine tingling. I nearly expected to see the Young Pretender himself being carried up the loch in a birlinn.
At first it looks like there is nowhere to land as the grey walls of the castle merge into the grey rocks of the isle which fall steeply into the sea but...
...turn a corner and there is as delightful little beach. However, who knows what grisly deeds took place there in the castle's heyday?
Tioram was the ancestral home of Clan Ranald from the 14th century. The family owned the castle until the early 20th century, though it has been a ruin since the early 18th century. The castle currently belongs to a Scottish businessman, Lex Brown, who has been in a long battle with Historic Scotland to restore the building to a habitable state.
We spent a lazy hour as the tide rose and I even managed a swim in the 11C water then it was time to continue our exploration of Loch Moidart.
It is difficult to say where Loch Shiel ends and the River Shiel begins but...
by the time you arrive at the triple arches of Shiel Bridge (1935) the current leaves you in now doubt that this is now the river.
Slightly downstream is the older single arch bridge built by Thomas Telford in 1804. In higher flows a little rapid forms just out of sight and downstream of the bridge. On opur last visit we could hear it roaring.
On this occasion it was like the proverbial millpond.
The Shiel is an important salmon river and the season runs from early May to end September. As we were here in Mid October we had the river to ourselves.
Unlike the majority of Scottish rivers there is no weir or dam to control water levels. On our last visit the river level was as high asa the fishing platform hand rails.
The river winds through some magnificent countryside. Gentle riffles signify the presence of...
...shallow shingle raspids.
The autumn colours were stunning.
As we were due to arrive at low tide there would be about a 3m drop over the final rapid to the sea so we decided to portage...
...through the lovely deciduous trees that line the river.
Ian's orange deck was particularly harmonious with the fallen autumn leaves.
The rapid was not nearly so fearsome as on our last visit, however a nasty eddy can catch the unwary here and with loaded sea kayaks we were happy to leave this section un-run.
After a diversion to see the Falls of Shiel, it was but a short stroll till we caught sight of the sea in the sheltered waters of Loch Moidart,
Leaving St. Finan's Isle we entered the outer, lowland section of Loch Shiel.
At Dalelia we spotted a tall stone cross, almost hidden by the trees. It is a war memorial erected by Dalelia's then owner, Lord Howard of Glossop, to his son. Lt. Philip Howard. Philip was only 23 years old when he died in action in France in 1918, near the end of WW1. His family's wealth could not protect him from the ultimate sacrifice and waste of war.
At first the loch was still narrow and we paddled close to shore but...
...then the loch opened out again as we left the mountains behind.
A brisk tailwind meant we made excellent progress...
...and the combination of sun and a following wind...
...brought great smiles to our faces.
Ahead we saw the pier at Acharacle. It was time for a stop. Acharacle is a corruption of Àth Tharracail which is Gaelic for "Torquil's ford". At the end of the Viking occupation of Scotland Torquil was the leader of a band of Vikings who fled here pursued by Somerled the Lord of the Isles. Unfortunately the water was too deep to cross and they made a final stand but all were slain.
We pulled the boats up onto the grass beside the slipway and left them in the shade of a...
...magnificent rowan tree. Then we proceeded...
...along the pier to...
...the pie shop where we enjoyed hot soup and pies before...
...slowly returning to the loch side where boats were nodding gently at their moorings, where once a Viking band was slain..
We arose well before dawn. It was cold in the still morning air by the shore of Loch Shiel. That cold of course is what kept the midges away. A few months earlier and a windless morning like this would have been Shiel hell with midges.
We left the tents up till they were nearly dry and...
...loaded the boats all before...
...the rising sun's rays hit the beach.
Soon we were back on the loch and as we approached a...
...wooded narrowing, we turned a slight bend and there before us lay...
...St Finan's Isle which almost blocks the loch. It is a moraine island which formed as the glacier which cut Loch Shiel melted depositing its rubble. At one time it probably dammed back the waters of the loch raising the shoreline.
We landed at the old stone jetty where generations of locals have brought the remains of their dead...
...to be buried within its relatively soft soil.
Stones of various ages crowd the summit of the isle around the...
...ancient walls of St Finan's chapel. It was built in about 1500 by the chief of the Clanranald to replace an earlier wooden structure. It was abandoned in the late 1600's so was already a ruin by the time Bonnie Prince Charlie came this way in 1745, on his way to Glenfinnan at the head of the loch. Almost certainly the Prince would have stopped here and made his way up to the chapel. St Finan (the leper) was born in Ireland and is thought to have lived between about 520 and 600. Several places in Scotland and Ireland are named after him. He is not to be confused with the later St Finan (of Lindisfarne) who died in 661 after becoming Bishop of Lindisfarne.
At the east end of the chapel lies the altar backed by a recess, which contains a stone cross. On the altar is a remarkable object. It is a Celtic seamless cast bronze bell. Amazingly it has been here for over a thousand years. Nowadays it is chained up but it is amazing that it has survived the millennia without being plundered. Of course there is a dreadful curse attached to the bell and any one who stole it would regret doing so for every second of their few remaining days... During an internment, the bell is taken down to the jetty and rung at the head of the cortège as they slowly make their way up to the waiting grave.
The bell has a remarkably pure tone and it is always a pleasure to ring it. How many objects round us today will still be in full working order in 1,000 years time?
The chapel offered a clear view down the lowland outer loch which contrasted...
...with the mountains that crowded the long inner loch.
All too soon it was time for us to leave the peaceful isle. We could just have paddled past but why race through life? It's those that rush, for whom the bell tolls...
