We set off before the day heated up, down the road, passing Cows & Calves & Bully Beef
To the Bay of Hinderayre
Then, turning up the track past the Kirkyard
…… an Orkney gate PLUS an ordinary metal gate – Belt & Braces approach
An Orkney gate is when wire is attached to a gate post, then the wire is stretched across to a piece of wood.
This ‘gate’ can then be easily moved across a gap, and pulled back again as needed.
Down the track to the Hall of Rendall, noticing Slender St. John’s Wort and Eyebright by the path
In the field, cattle enjoying a muddy wallow on a hot day
The Rendall Doocot in its marsh-land
with magnificent Butterbur arching over the stream
By the Hall of Rendall we noticed a sycamore tree with vibrant red keys
Then, from the shore a good view of the Holm of Rendall
with its cairn, as labelled on the O.S. map. When I go for walks I look at this skerry, and have thought that it just doesn’t make sense to have your cairn on a skerry which you have to cross the sea to get to. Imagine the trouble building it, and the risk of inundation. I know, people will do all sorts of extreme things for their beliefs, but this just didn’t make sense. If, however, the sea wasn’t there and the area was land, it would be a convenient little mound in the landscape on which to place your cairn.
This is just ’round the corner’ from the Bay of Firth….
https://www.abdn.ac.uk/
I suppose folks might go to all that trouble to put their cairn on a tiny skerry in the sea – but a lower sea level makes a lot more sense.
Back up the track and turning right for home, Fire-weed on what was turning into a fiery hot day
We also saw I don’t know how many Meadow Brown butterflies, quite a few Painted Ladies, and one Common Blue – all were flitting about too much for me to take their picture!
I can record where we go on our walks in words and images, but can’t reproduce the sounds and scents that we encounter.
The sound of the stream babbling through the Doocot marshland and of the birds singing overhead, or the scent to the Meadowsweet and Clover. The essence of high summer.
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