Tuesday, 8 May 2018

Finding the whisky cave and the zigzag path

The Treshnish Headland walk is Farmer's office, so you may well meet him while you are walking! 

Guests often ask us how to find the 'whisky cave' and it can be quite difficult to describe where the gully is.  Several times over the years, Farmer has left a fishing buoy or a stick at the top of the gully to indicate where to climb down, only to find someone has picked up the buoy and brought it home or thrown the stick for their dog. 

Here are some photographs which might help you find the 'whisky cave', and having done that, then find the zigzag path up towards Crackaig. 

The walk down from beyond the Haunn Cottages is fairly straightforward.  When you get to the shore you keep left along the raised beach.  You will pass Port Haunn and keep on going.   This is round the corner and Port Haunn is out of shot beyond the cliffs in the top of the photograph. 

 

The gully you need to walk down is towards the bottom of this photograph.  The whisky cave is the next shadow. 

Here in a bit more detail - shows the gully, the beach with driftwood and the cave in shadow.  Farmer often mentions looking for the rocks round the edge of the cliff.  I usually say look for a place in the path where the cliff/hill is steep on your left and the gully drops away on your right.  It is usually quite wet and muddy there too. 


The gully again. 

Recent OS maps show the path as going up the side of a very steep burn when actually you need to jump the burn and continue on a little way before climbing up the zigzag path. 

This is the burn.  Cross it and continue on the raised beach for a way.  When you see the scrub woodland ahead of you you need to look for the zigzag path to the left of it, before the wood. 


Here you can see Crackaig up on the top of the cliffs and the flat raised beach below.



The drone tends to flatten the perspective so you cant really tell how steep this is.  But top left of the photograph is the top of the zigzag path. The building on the right is the ruin of the schoolhouse.  


Cross the burn and you have arrived at Crackaig. 





Look out for the carvings on the largest house in the settlement.