Strathnaver Trail

Home vacation day 2, and I was headed West in search of the Strathnaver trail.  This patch of road is in Sutherland and has 16 sites along it that detail out the history of the county.  There are cairns, stone circles, clearance villages, churches and fishing spots.

I took the road to Old Craggie to get to the start of the trail.  I stopped at the Fosinard Flows interpretation center (aka the train station), which outlined how the peat flows formed and pointed out that these are fairly unusual because it requires optimum conditions.

As I was crossing over another very narrow 'road' to start the trail, I spot a fairly scraggly looking herd of deer.

I also came upon a harvest locations.  Not clear what they use peat for, but I was very curious at the machine that must have been used for the harvest.  At the Flow center, there were numerous cautions about over harvesting as this will poison the land/environment/atmosphere as peat flows hold over 5% of the world's carbon.

I stopped at 6 of the stops.  Some required hiking, but most didn't.  I was glad I had done the peat center, as I now had a much better appreciation for the different kinds and colors of sphagnum that create the peat and caused its spongey consistency.

I stopped at Grummore Settlement; Grumbeg Settlement; and Gloomy Memories Memorial.  All of these were about the clearances - discussed in previous blogs.  The sites themselves were just piles of stone perched on the hill side overlooking Naver Loch.  They must have had the most tremendous views.

Stop 4 was Syre Church, which is a corrugated iron structure and so pretty it almost hurt your eyes.

My penultimate stop was the red priest's stone.  There was much lore associated with the red priest and based on the stories he was fierce.  

All that was left of his church was a single stone with a cross inscribed on one side.  It was said that if the river raised to engulf the stone that the people would once again take back the land from the sheep - reference the clearances.  As a result, the countess had the river reinforced.  I wondered why she didn't just have the stone removed.

My brain full and car snacks eaten, I headed home and made the 3 of us some popcorn and we laid on the couch eating it in a lazy on vacation manner until Badger's popcorn drool grossed me out, and he was banished to outside.