Scotland Holiday
Tuesday 25th June 2019
Today the weather was looking best further out west so we decided to visit the island of Eigg (pronounced Egg!).
We drove out to Arisaig to get on the passenger ferry. It took about an hour to get out to the island. On the way we saw a large number of seals on the little islands.
On the way over we could see this highest point An Sgurr and we decided that we would walk up it.
The impressive peak was originally a lava flow from the volcano on Rum about 58 million years ago. The lava followed an old river bed, filling the glen. Over subsequent millions of years, the pitchstone lava, which is harder than the surrounding basalt, withstood erosion and was left standing as the surrounding rock was worn away both gradually over time and more quickly during times of glaciation. Now the mile-long ridge stands proud, with the summit at 393 metres.
It was a nice walk with easy to follow paths. The last section up on to the peak was quite rocky under foot.
We got back down with an hour to spare before the ferry. We wondered about going to visit a couple of little caves that are on the island - one of which was Massacre cave - In 1577 a group of Macleods from Skye landed on the island seeking revenge for the latest act in a long running feud with the Macdonalds. The entire population of the island hid in the cave for 3 days and the Macleods were unable to find them. However as they sailed away they spotted a lookout and were able to follow his footsteps in the snow which led them to the cave. The Macleods built a huge fire and the smoke killed 395 people trapped inside the cave. Later, other Macdonalds were to exact equally bloody and ruthless revenge on the Macleods at Trumpan Church on Skye.
Instead we decided to visit the cafe and rest our feel as tomorrow we plan to go up Ben Nevis!
The boat ride back was quite rough but was made better by seeing lots of seals!!
Today the weather was looking best further out west so we decided to visit the island of Eigg (pronounced Egg!).
We drove out to Arisaig to get on the passenger ferry. It took about an hour to get out to the island. On the way we saw a large number of seals on the little islands.
On the way over we could see this highest point An Sgurr and we decided that we would walk up it.
The impressive peak was originally a lava flow from the volcano on Rum about 58 million years ago. The lava followed an old river bed, filling the glen. Over subsequent millions of years, the pitchstone lava, which is harder than the surrounding basalt, withstood erosion and was left standing as the surrounding rock was worn away both gradually over time and more quickly during times of glaciation. Now the mile-long ridge stands proud, with the summit at 393 metres.
It was a nice walk with easy to follow paths. The last section up on to the peak was quite rocky under foot.
Instead we decided to visit the cafe and rest our feel as tomorrow we plan to go up Ben Nevis!
The boat ride back was quite rough but was made better by seeing lots of seals!!
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