20 th Tunneling

We left about 0930 and motored through the narrows at the head of Loch Lochy then set the genoa and sailed lazily down the loch at 2-4 knots with the following breeze still favouring us. I’d looked at the charts and the only likely anchoring spot as at the far end on the Western side and we headed in that direction. Looking at the map there was a Museum marked at a place called Achnacarry and it looked as though this might be the Cameron museum marked as a 4 mile walk from the Locks at the bottom of Loch Lochy. The OS map made it look an attractive walk so, once anchored (which I did under sail so maybe not as bravely as I might have done otherwise with us  ending up some distance from the shore because the chart showed shallow water some way out and didn’t look that well surveyed). We had a coffee, put the boat in the water, made the boat to dinghy dog transfer and paddled in to the beach. I’d blown the dinghy up a bit by mouth as it had seemed a bit flat after our last voyage at Loch Oich when we’d both got wet bums on the paddle back out to Yemaya.

Sue doesn’t paddle as strongly as I do but likes to direct operations and as I wasn’t going in the direction she wanted she stopped paddling for a bit. As I wanted to go in the direction that I wanted to go in, I then had to demonstrate to her that her slowing down just slowed us down, that I could make the boat go in circles towards her paddle just by paddling normally and her job was just to paddle and let me worry about the route taken and how to change heading. Once this was sorted out we made better progress and were soon on the beach with the dinghy showing signs, again, of deflation. The wind was up at about 12 knots and I was slightly worried about it’s deflating when we came to paddle back, particularly if we weren’t paddling very efficiently.

In any event that was a worry for later. We tried walking along the beach to get to the road at the head of the bay but after a bit this became boggy and brackeny. We ended up seeing a noticeboard up a small embankment, surmising it must be attached to a road or path and waded through the bracken up to it. At the board there was a road and a drive  with ‘Cameron Museum’ pointing up the drive to it. I should have recognised the name Achnacarry. Father, Peter, had been a commando in the war and I’d also done the commando training albeit at Lympstone. The original commando  training had been done in the highlands from Achnacarry and here we were. We walked up the drive past a little hydro electric station and soon had glimpses of the house with a big marquee in the grounds. Shortly before the house we came to a cottage which housed the museum and in we went initially leaving Drizzle outside who’d found a bone and wanted a bit of a gnaw on it, although he then got lonely and changed his mind. We went around the museum which was 90% Cameron based and 10% Achnacarrry and the commando training during the war with some excerpts from Evelyn Waugh’s diaries describing the live firing with the instructors told to aim to miss the students with their rifles, machine guns and mortars etc. but ‘not by much’. All very interesting  and I was introduced to a bit of kit we’d not used, the ‘toggle rope’ which each would have carried for various purposes, one of which had been to join several 4 ft lengths together to make a long rope for crossing obstacles, another being for strangling the hun quietly. The wifey at the reception showed us a walk through the grounds and over a bridge to follow the river back to the bay we’d parked in. We did this, through the beech avenue along which the original tarzan course had been constructed an imitation of which is now at Lympstone,  it was a sunny day and again the deciduous woods were at their best with leaves on the maples turning Canadian and dancing light wafting  through the trees. As we walked down the river with some interesting rapids coming into view a small flock of kayakers arrived at the top, we thought it would be interesting to watch them descend and stopped for ages but they showed no signs of actually coming down so we carried on and made our way to the bay at the bottom which housed a boat house used for boats in the war along with more information boards. As we walked back along the road the kayakers appeared so they had obviously waited ‘til we’d gone before making their descent just to be annoying. We thought we’d try to find an easier way back to the dinghy with limited success and both choosing our own preferred route. My toe, which had scabs healing on it seemed to attract bramble bushes and was leaking again. It’s possible that flip flops aren’t always the best footwear for cross country adventures. Back at the boat I topped up the air in it and we all embarked, luckily the wind had died down a bit and the paddle back was without incident with  Sue refraining from trying to direct operations.

We had a relaxing late lunch in the sunshine before upping anchor and motoring to the Lock at the bottom of Loch Lochy where there is a biggish Hong Kong style junk sitting on a semi permanent berth looking good. We did the lock and swing bridge, the second lock wasn’t in use, presumably as the Loch was not too high and then passed a small bridge which was waiting open for us and berthed on the side of the canal. There were forest walks marked from just along from here and as we were shutting off the engine a chap pulled up on an electric bike to chat. I’d thought he maybe was going to say we couldn’t stop here as it was a transit berth but actually he’d seen the boat and wanted to chat, he was the 80 year old owner of the junk and a shipwright from Dumbarton who’d moved up here about 20 years ago. We chatted boats for a bit which Sue got bored of and went off and soon he cycled off and we took the dogs along the canal to a series of tunnels under the canal carrying a river and two drove roads which the junk owner had told us of. We found these and used them to cross under the canal. I was in my flip flops and Sue had opted for trainers and as it was a bit wet underfoot she took her trainers off and put them on again once out of the other side. We then crossed a road to a single track road warning pedestrians not to proceed further without being suitably equipped. The road followed the river up the hill and was another beautiful walk. There was a ford on the map about a mile or so up the river with a track back down again on the other side so we aimed for this and once there found a father and son preparing a meal by their tent at the river bank. The dogs found this very interesting but didn’t disgrace themselves and soon I was fording the river whilst Sue took her shoes off again for the crossing, on the other side there was a small path by the river and a new deer fence preventing us from accessing the forest road. We followed the river for a bit coming across a clear still pool where a lunch picnic and swim would have been good before finding a tree across the fence compromising it’s usefulness and used this to cross to the forest track. From here it was a quicker but less interesting walk back to the bottom where it looked like trying to walk along the North canal bank might be difficult so we went back to the tunnel, Sue took her shoes off again and we went through again and walked back to the boat where I made a curry and Sue continued being wound up by cousins and the politics of an upcoming visit to Aunty Sue’s.

I then beat her at dominos before tea and bed.