NOT THAT .LITTLEMILL, THIS LITTLEMILL

Happy New Year to all our readers!

It may be that another year has passed, but we are undimmed in our determination to try and keep walking. Our real problem is knowing where to walk. 

Jim and Jacque sent out the usual email telling us where and when to meet for our first walk of the New Year. The only problem is that the start of the walk was given as Littlemill. There's more than one of these!

However, we managed to get to the designated start way ahead of time - except for Agnes, who was exactly on time.

It was a pretty cold and icy day, which was quite appropriate given the sign at the start of the walk, warning us that we would all be frozen in time - and we were.

In truth, the sign was there to tell us all about the geomorphology of the area where we were about to walk. Talk about important! The Littlemill Eskers are reputed to be one of the best examples of subparallel esker ridges in the country. They were formed by melt water from the decay of a glacier from the last Ice Age about 13000 to 14000 years ago, just before Dave was born.

Of course, the glacier was still here and had spread down the car park and access road, leading to pretty scary conditions underfoot.

So much so, that we had to help some other visitors up the hill.

 We all know that Mac and Janet retired from the group at Christmas time. We took no time at all in finding a replacement in the form of Liz, who suddenly realised what she had got herself into, pulled up her collar to disguise herself and tried to slip off without anyone noticing. We soon dragged her back, so that she could share in the hardship.

You will enjoy it, Liz. 

It wasn't all serious. There was a happy little fellow with a frozen grin, smiling at us.

Once Agnes was ready, we set off up the hill onto the top of one of the subparallel esker ridges, which is just one aspect of an outstanding assemblage of fluvioglacial landforms.

Of course, what goes up, must come down, only more gingerly and with much slipping and sliding. These things seem to get worse as we get older.

 Once down from the ridge, we found ourselves at the shore of a lochan, which is not really a lochan, but is, more accurately a kettle hole.

Kettles are formed when large blocks of ice become separated from the main body of the glacier. They then get surrounded by the continuing washout of sands and gravel from the glacier. They then melt and the sand and gravel slumps into a depression (I know how it feels) and the depression fills with water to form the kettle.

They are relatively shallow and on a still day like today, they give you good reflections.

Onward we go through the glacial landscape, sometimes walking at a pace that could also be described as glacial.

Our propensity for bright jackets lets us string out like precious stones in the landscape.

A rainbow alliance of jackets.

Sharon is pleased to find there are three different kinds of sweetie on offer. She holds her mouth open in the hope that Maureen will throw another Jelly Baby in.

Meanwhile, Papa Smurf looks on, somewhat bemused.

The snow on the trees allow for a bit of anthropomorphism.

Robin's bear head looks longingly at Sue's bushy pom-pom.

 Looking back from the esker to the hills to the east of the A9. This, I think is Beinn a' Bheurlaich.

 Low temperatures, snow and ice always result in some nice sparkly photos, so here is a selection from the walk, in no particular order.

Some misty mountains.

Back to the walk.

Back to Charlie.

Our banter must have been quite good as it even made the rocks smile.

A group photo at a gate. Dave seems less than impressed that I had to shout at his wife to get her to look at the camera. 

He obviously felt that I was being quite brave and that when she did, indeed, look at the camera that I had won some kind of small victory. It certainly opened Agnes's eyes.

 I can't imagine why anyone would want to watch us.

It being a forest that we were walking in, there were stacks of trees.

After a bit of walking, we fell off the map onto an unmarked road, but luckily Jim and Jacque knew where we were going. 

Wouldn't this face not just fill you with confidence?

The road had been used by lots of forestry and construction traffic.

Is there anything sadder than dirty snow?

There were atmospheric views across to Ben Wyvis.

 There was also this. I was going to explain in detail that the glacier scratched and gouged into the bedrock as it moved slowly by. These scratches and gouges are known as glacial striae and they were only recognised as the work of glaciers in the late 18th Century in Switzerland. However, this is a close up of a tractor tyre, so I won't.

Perhaps uniquely, Jim and Jacque had laid on a proper toilet in the middle of a walk - a first for us, I think. A queue quickly formed, although the toilet was too small for the girls to all go into at once with their handbags.

Clearly lorry drivers had some kind of preferential access to the toilets if they sounded off.

A glimmer of light in the gloom.

Eventually, it was time for lunch and we were shown to the best available seats in the house.

There was even some blue sky.

They even all looked at the camera.

Even Agnes.

Meanwhile, a wee Robin looked at us.

Was this another Smurf behind the bales?

Well, no it was Sandra.

The shape of her hat was strangely prescient of the next point of interest. This was the cairn marking the location and the occasion of the Rout of Moy. 

There is a poster with details of the Rout beside the cairn.

Bonnie Prince Charlie stopped of at Moy Hall, a bit south and east of here. He had few men with him. Lord Louden of the Government forces in Inverness, heard of the Prince's proximity and he set off for Moy with a force of some 1500 men. Some say a serving girl from an Inn in the town got wind of the intended surprise attack and got word to the Prince. He fled into the countryside, while about a dozen men set about trying to forestall Lord Louden's men. They did a lot of shouting and running about as well as firing in unison to convince the advancing troops that there was a Jacobite army in place. It evidently worked and Lord Louden retreated. The next day Lord Louden retreated even further across to the Black Isle, which allowed the Prince to enter Inverness, where, after being shocked by the price of gin at Culloden House, he was defeated two months later 

at the Battle of Culloden.

While the running around and shouting might well have fooled Louden's men, perhaps of greater significance might have been the only fatality in the rout. That was Donald Ban MacCrimmon. He was the piper to the chief of Clan Macleod, who was a government supporter, rather than a Jacobite. Apparently he was killed instantly by a musket ball as he stood at the side of the Macleod. This would have been quite unnerving as MacCrimmon had written a pibroch which was thought to have predicted his own death.

He wrote this pipe tune, which is often called MacCrimmon's Lament, but is more accurately known as  Cha till, cha till, cha till, MacCruimein which literally means MacCrimmon will not, will not, will not return. OK, you say, but, even more remarkable is the fact that MacCrimmon had been captured by the Jacobite army in December 1745 at the Battle of Inverurie. However, the MacCrimmons were legendary pipers and they taught others to pipe at a "college" in Skye and so, were highly regarded among all clans.

After his capture, the Jacobite pipers went on strike and would not play as long as the king of pipers was held, so he was eventually released and his Lament was allegedly written. His death here would undoubtedly be seen as a very bad thing by his comrades and panic was likely to ensue meaning that the defeat of 1500 by a handful might not be so fanciful.

Just when you thought you had heard enough history for one day, we came upon this cross and post at the edge of the road and the wood. 

The cross (there is actually a small cairn nearby that we did not see) marks the Living Man's Grave - Uaigh an Duine Beo in Gaelic - which means just exactly the same thing. There is, of course, a tale to be told here as well, and a strange tale it is at that. 

The road we were walking along lies on the line of the old road which ran from Moy Hall to Inverness. At the end of the 17th Century there was adispute over boundaries between The Mackintosh of Moy and MacGillivray of Dunmaglass to the west. This dispute went to arbitration and the arbiter visited the disputed area along with representatives of both parties. He spoke to witnesses for both sides, one of which had walked much further into the Mackintosh lands than any other witness.

He swore that he was on Dunmaglass land "by the dead head under my bonnet, and by the earth under my feet, that the land where I stand belongs to Dunmaglass". Apparently the strangeness of the oath made the rest of the party wonder a little. So, they searched him and found the head of a dead cockerel under his bonnet and earth from the Dunmaglass Estate in his shoes. The Mackintosh side decided this was perjury of the worst kind and buried him alive on the very spot he had claimed belonged to Dunmaglass.

Now there's justice for you.

A sign for the Wade Bridge, which we did not see despite this being General Wade's military road that we were walking on.

However, here's two I made earlier.

As we wound our way downhill, the sun began to shine, which was a nice way to end the walk. We got to Jim and Jacque's car and Jim took the drivers back to the start to pick up their cars. We all came back, picked up the waiting passengers and then headed off to Simpson's for a well-earned cup of tea or coffee and a nice cake.

That was the end of the first walk of 2019.

Many thanks to Jimmy and Jacque for arranging a walk that allowed us to find out all sorts of geomorphological and historical information. Well done to Liz for sticking with us and actually enjoying it and even suggesting she will be back for more!
Thanks also to Charlie, Jim and Jacque for additional photos.