Laxay River - 25/05/05

Not one of my better days. The scanner in the library didn't work to start with. Went down to Balallan at 12.30, and alighted at the east end of the village, for a walk east and north. My original intention was to reach Keose junction or even Cameron Terrace. But like last week, it all went to pot. First of all, my plan to walk via Valtos House in order to gain a footbridge across the Laxay River was fatally flawed, because there was no footbridge at the location indicated on Explorer 457. Not the first error on that mapsheet. After crossing fields and a forestry plantation, I duly arrived at the river, but as indicated, there was no bridge. A dam and a weir might have been used, but I'm not happy hopping across an 8 foot gap over swirling water, onto sloping concrete or rough boulders. When I took a teabreak, my flask had gone walkabout, god knows where to. Don't know what happened. Inconvenient if anything. Retraced my steps all the way back to the main road. Cut across Aird na Ba to Laxay Bridge, then across more rought ground to the kirk and the manse. Walked up the peattrack as far as Loch na Criadhna, then back down to the main road at the Kinloch Historical Society building. In the steady drizzle that had furtively crept up from Harris, I waited for the slightly delayed 4.46 bus to town. Came across a lamb with a curious 6 inch black band around its body. Quite cute watching all those ewes with their lambs, almost like a gaggle of mums with their toddlers. Once back with mrs B, I was thanked for the travel advice. Had a game of Scrabble last thing, and beat the other two competitors by scoring more than their combined totals.