Near the mouth of Loch a' Chairn Bhain is the house and garden at Kerrachar. This was the site of a remarkable garden project for over ten years where the owners proved that with patience and imagination, a prodigious range of plants could be grown in the sheltered site despite the northerly latitude and exposure to salt laden wind. Over ten thousand people visited the gardens during the period it was open to the public, which is all the more notable as the place has no road leading to it and is only accessible via a 30 minute boat trip.
Eventually the workload in maintaining the garden in a condition to be a visitor attraction became too much, and though much is still grown here it is no longer open to the public.
Across on the north side of the entrance to Loch a' Chairn Bhain is another sheltered location, also only accessible by water and this time via a narrow channel.......
....which opens out into an almost completely enclosed lagoon with the intruiging name of Loch Shark. Enclosed, sheltered and surrounded by trees, I imagine that on a calm, overcast summer evening, naming the loch after another fearsome predator might be more appropriate - "Loch Midge" perhaps?!
I managed to find a spot to land on weed covered rocks for first luncheon - the colours of the weed were really zinging in the sunny conditions. Out of the breeze, the sun was warm and pleasant.
To the south, Quinag had completely changed appearance from this angle. When I got back on the water I would heading out of the shelter of the sea lochs and into more open water in Edrachillis Bay, but not for long as my next destination had given shelter and protection for millenia........
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