From our front door it's a few steps to this track which climbs into the forestry - mostly coniferous - below
Bheinn Bhraggie. Follow it for a mile and one comes to a special spot where....
....there's a gate which leads out onto what used to be glorious, open moorland with wide, unobstructed views. Along the next section of track we've seen herds of red deer as well as a fox; it's a wild, lonely place where the wind blew free.
The deer are now gone and what used largely to be coarse grass and heather has....
....been planted with serried ranks of trees - again, mostly coniferous. Very soon the views, of The Mound and....
....more distantly of Loch Fleet, the Dornoch Firth and Easter Ross, will be obscured by a wall of trees and a blanket of silence will descend on the area for....
....most of the birds seem to prefer more open habitats which include deciduous trees and shrubs.
This new forestry is there for good reason: we need the wood, these are fast-growing trees, and the trees that have been planted are native to Scotland. What is wrong is the density of the planting, and the lack of open spaces and a generous ad-mixtures of deciduous trees. However, whatever trees are planted the new landscape will never have the grandeur of what is there now.
Looking on the wonderful Bing Maps site, the track divides into many routes which seem to offer a walker's paradice. I was amused by the names applied to the footpaths as they asscend Ben Bhraggie. Mon U Mental, Treeline Trail, VTOL Duke's Hazard, and my favorite, Lactic Ladder. No doubt the view is commanding. Happy walking!
ReplyDeleteThese trails are mountain bike tracks. The. network is maintained by local volunteers and is, according to our children who are keen mountain bikers, very good. However, they're not well-known so are underused by visitors - such a shame. We walk them, though some are for bikers only.
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