Sunday 22nd October 2023
This turned out to be a disaster of a walk but let’s start at the beginning.
After four days of storm and two days of amber weather warnings, we woke up on Sunday morning to blazing sunshine and clear blue skies. As Saturday was accompanied by 60mph winds and torrential rain, we skipped a dog walk. This isn’t something we do very often, maybe three or four times a year. A bit of rain or a bit of wind doesn’t usually phase the dogs (well, it doesn’t phase the boys, Elodie will take one look at a light drizzle and refuse to leave the house!)
Loch Migdale was a walk we did a few years ago and always stood out in our minds as one of our favourites. It’s a beautiful place but it was just such a nice day and the dogs loved it so it has been one we’ve wanted to revisit since we moved here and Sunday was the perfect day.
As Elodie is still recovering (from whatever has been causing her limp), we started the day with an hour along the beach next to the house. It was quite bizarre seeing all the rocks that three days previous was a lush sandy beach. According to one of the locals, east winds take the sand away and west winds bring it back.
Elodie loved being back out and loves the beach and having all three of them out together again was lovely to see.
We didn’t want to push her too hard so we left her home and took Shadow and Osric onto the Migdale.
The short drive up the Dornoch Firth was stunning in all its vivid autumnal splendor. We headed for the car park down the single tack road just off the A949 at Spinningdale (if you drive over the Springdale Burn on the main road, you’ve missed the turning).
As is fairly common for the Woodland Trust walks, the map information board in the car park also offer paper maps to take with you. Last time we walked along the path alongside Loch Migdale but today, we decided to head up into the woods. As we’d left Elodie at home we opted for the Honest George’s Circuit which at 4km we thought wouldn’t take us too long.
The walk started with a brief up hill climb before heading back downhill and along the (small, single track) road and the path into the main wood soon appeared.
So far it wasn’t too soggy (spoiler alert: it lulled us into a false sense of security) and the markers for our chosen route were very clear and easy to spot.
After a few minutes the path started getting wetter and wetter and before long, the stream (Allt Leacach) that should have been running alongside the path decided to become one with the path.
Not being scared off by a bit a water and enjoying the stunning scenery too much we thought nothing of it and splashed on. The path soon started to climb up but despite being a bit boggy, it wasn’t too slippery and being too captivated by the views we really didn’t notice the climb.
The higher we climbed, the thinner the trees became and we started getting glimpses of the loch below and a few snow capped mountains in the distance.
Here’s where things started to go wrong, in the space of five minutes:
- Shadow’s harness came apart
- Another pair of walkers let us know the path ahead was impassable
Shadow’s harness – we’ve been using Perfect Fit dog harnesses for about four years now. Until now, I’ve always thought they were brilliant. Their customer service is exemplary and their modular design means you (should) end up with a secure, well fitting harness.
Shadow has had his harness for about two years. We purchased him the largest girth harness which is designed for large dogs who pull. Technically Shadow is a medium dog (at 20kg) and whilst he can pull if he’s scented something exciting, he walks very nicely these days.
45 minutes into our walk in a huge woods in the middle of the Scottish Highlands, our Husky who is not off lead trained broke is Perfect Fit harness. He wasn’t even pulling, he simply trotted off for a sniff and when the lead went tight, it just ripped. As Shadow is never allowed off lead (Huskies aren’t great at recall, they have a high pray drive and it’s even harder to teach an older rescue dog who has been abused to recall. He always stays on the lead), we had a little panic.
When Shadow first came to live with us he hadn’t had any lead training and I couldn’t manage him. After a year of hard work on his part and James, Shadow learned to walk nicely on a lead with harness. Walking him on a collar and lead was not possible. Luckily, Osric has a similar size harness and he has been trained to walk on a slip lead. So poor Osric handed his harness over to Shadow and spent the rest of his walk on his collar and lead.
As we thought we were around the half way point (our phones had no signal so we couldn’t view our position on our route tracking app) we decided to carry on.
A few minutes later, a couple enjoying some food at a view point let us know that if we were planning on doing the circular walk down the loch, we wouldn’t be able to get through. Apparently the water had submerged the path. These two told us they were checking various routes to for damage following the storm and the path by the loch wasn’t passable.
We’re so grateful to them, had we walked that far round, only to have to back track the entire walk, we’d have been over 3 hours and it would have been dark!
So we decided to about turn and head back the way we came. Something I always hate the idea of, seriously, we’ve gotten lost before now because of my refusal to go back the way we came!
We stopped in the shelter by the car and read a few of the information boards which explain some of the local history.
Despite having to do half the walk on his collar and having to go back the way we came, Osric still seemed to enjoy himself.
All in all, it was a 1.5 hour walk (only 1.10 of actual walking) and 3.3 miles. It wasn’t the route we intended but we’ll go back and do the full loop once Scotland has dried out a bit.
My Highland Haven 