Having no real plan for the day apart from cleaning up any litter in the car park and chatting to people as they came and went from the mountain, I was delighted to be joined by my friend and fellow member of the Skye WLA team, Shirley Grant.
There's something about following a familiar trail with somebody with an artist's eye that makes even the slightest, most inconsequential thing seem extra-ordinary. And so our short walk to the waterfall took on the feel of a David Attenburgh documentary. Shirley was out to photograph orchids. I'd seen them on the lower path, but the dry spell had brought with it a growth spurt that obscured them from our view. We noted ultramarine spikes of milkwort, yellow tormentil, the deep magenta blaze of bell heather, thick tufts of bog myrtle and what Shirley told me was goat willow, with its velvety foliage and fluffy flower-heads. The june bog-cotton waved gently in the breeze. We even found whorls of not-yet flowering butterwort and beside it, sundew's spiky 'grabber' hands.
We had almost reached the falls by the time we found our first orchids, hiding furtively in the long meadow grass, deep purple and pale pink speckled heads. Beautiful little wild things and bearing no resemblance to their ostentatious tropical name-sakes, but somehow more lovely and more precious.
We'll come back here over the next couple of weeks. I wonder what we'll find...
Tell us what you see
Maybe if you're reading this and thinking of a trip up Blaven you'll let us know if you spot anything of interest along the path, or post your photos on the John Muir Trust's facebook site? We'd love to hear about your experiences.
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