|
Stone Row / Alignment
|
|
|
A disappointing - and only partially successful visit, this.... since I was expecting a lot having noted Greywether's comments and images. Quite excited, in fact. Steady on, old chap. However I, er, sort of assumed that the alignment - information boards 'n' all - would be easy to find without a 1:25 OS map. And I certainly didn't expect the area to be almost totally over-run by head high vegetation ... including the infamous rhododendron... and a plantation apparently set-up in 2005 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. I'd rather they hadn't, but there you are.
I approached via the Minard Castle B&B turning from the A83, taking the first left forestry track. Logging operations ensured this was strictly on foot, although personally I'd walk anyway (note the possibility of closure if making a special trip). The track forks right and soon enough arrives at a heavily overgrown hilltop surrounded by an unclimbable deer fence. I first follow this to the left toward the shore of wonderful Loch Fyne, but see nothing. So, to the right, then. Sure enough, a standing stone pokes its head up through the greenery. But how to get to it? Further along a gate in the deer fence offers promise... only to meander down hill toward the loch. Backtracking, I try to penetrate the screen of vegetation, cursing the brambles, getting increasingly more disorientated and pissed off with bloody 'Trafalgar Wood'. I try again, but eventually have to admit defeat. Sometimes Nature just will not be bargained with, you know? So, onto the beautiful shore of Loch Fyne, trending left and then right. I see nothing, although the fact that such a wondrous 'watery vista' is not enough in itself is, in retrospect, frankly ludicrous. It is frustrating, the feeling that the stones are just 'around there' no doubt well known to all who search out such things in the field. But it is not to be, not today.
Time is running out if I want to reach my Tinto nightly stop-over by dark. Then I suddenly notice that someone has actually made an unobtrusive hole in the fence below the aforementioned standing stone seen at the start. I crawl through to find the monolith is indeed a handsome monument. But what's this? There's more, in the form of two(?) further stones which lie broken in apparent shattered alignment before it, heading uphill. A stone row? Looks like it, but aligned upon what? Too much vegetation to tell. Unfortunately I must leave it there. Perhaps a lochside approach from Minard would be more revealing. But at least I managed to glimpse something of why the ancients came to view the greatest of our stars here. I shall return, better prepared, if I can some day.
|
Posted by GLADMAN
24th June 2012ce
Edited 24th June 2012ce
|
|
Log in |
Register
Top of page