horns of wilmington's cow

By anth

Rock Balance

Now I know not everyone in Scotland is going to be happy about the access legislation, but there's one thing doesn't actually do - it doesn't give everyone carte blanche to trample over your land, doing what they want and making your life hell. Access has to be exercised 'reasonably'.

So trying to get on a coast walk to see an apparently impressive cave, and finding a sign like this was vaguely irritating. Not to worry, we thought, we can skirt round. Only to find the bull had changed from 'angry' to 'wild'. We conferred with three gloriously eccentric old blokes (aged 76 to 81) who had turned up to do the same walk on the best way forward, and one procured from a neighbour an alternative route start to drive to.

Not that this was without issue as we found another bull sign, and a sabotaged gate (we've since found that the access committee for Skye provided the 'kissing gate' to the land owner in order to protect his land... He's tied load of fence wire round it making it impossible to open). Anyway, undaunted we found the steep slope to a shoreline with a raised walkway, almost reminiscent of the Giants' Causeway, and the sought after cave.

An hour spent in the still glorious sun brought out the seabirds (from gulls to shags) and a couple of seals.

To round off a good day we went to one of our favourite restaurants, Coruisk House, where the owner recognised us, two years after our last visit, and then carried on to Elgol for a sunsetting view of the Cuillin, and some rock balancing.

This is what it's all about.

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