Walk 168

Sonachan Hotel to Acharcle 27miles

Ardnamurchan Lighthouse

I walked out of the hotel along a very quiet road on my way to the lighthouse at Ardnamurchan, this is the most westerly point of the mainland UK and is my 3rd cardinal point, I sat on the picnic benches outside the visitor centre to take in this information and felt very proud of my achievement.  Once I had finished basking in my glory! I had the main task of today's walk ahead of me. I walked back along the road from the lighthouse in order to make my way across land to Portuairk, I had noticed a track on my map as Id walked up to Ardnamurchan but unfortunately someone had put a very big metal gate behind which sat a static caravan park, so I walked a little further along the road and picked up a sign post to Portuairk. The track was rough in places all the way to Portuairk and I did manage to get lost on one occasion but my GPS soon pointed me in the right direction.  After Portuairk I picked up another rough track towards Sanna bay, this was much more distinct however the decent into Sanna Bay is not for the fainthearted as its steep and very rocky.

Sanna Bay

The weather was starting to warm up as I left Sanna Bay and started on the "Route One" walk to Fascadale, the first obstacle was a very boggy 2 mile section passing the ruin at Plocaig on the way, now I say "very boggy" but this does not in any way sum up how bad it really was in no mans land!! a couple of time I sank up to my knee in smelly brown water, it was disgusting. So once I was out of the swamp I picked up a rough track all the way to Fascadale it was well marked with way markers at several intervals. At Fascadale I picked up a road to the farm at Achateny, I ducked alongside the farm buildings and made my way across a field full of sheep heading for the phone box I could see in the distance at Kilmory, once I had negotiated the dry stone wall at Kilmory ( don't ask!) it was road and track all the way to just before Eilagadale, here I met a couple on a hiking day out and we had a chat about the track to Gortenfern which they said wasn't too bad and they were right!

The track to Gortenfern

At Gortenfern the track wound its way through the forest to Gortenorn via Singing Sands, then on around Kentra Bay and finally arriving in Acharcle.  This was a thoroughly enjoyable days hard walking and definatley in my top 10 walks so far on my journey.

Accommodation: Loch Sheil Hotel £50.00 BnB, best avoided unless you like being insulted by the rude staff.  There are a lot of other smaller BnBs in the village which I assume would be much nicer.