My blue heaven
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BEFORE I’d even started this route I knew luck was going to be on my side. With the freezing fog still thick in the city, I decided to head out to Loch Duntelchaig high above Loch Ness and take a run round this little circuit which touches three of the South Loch Ness lochs.
On my journey up the hill through Essich I could sense the brightness of the sun and suddenly all around me was blue sky and glorious sunshine. Having gone out expecting to see nothing, it looked like I was going to enjoy all of the delights this route has to offer.
It’s a fine circuit which, despite the few miles on road, makes a lovely walk or trail run. It always surprises me how this area isn’t more popular, being so close to Inverness and offering the perfect escape from the daily hassles of life.
When I arrived at the small layby just east of Loch Duntelchaig on the road from the Loch Ashie crossroads to Dunlichity there was nobody else around. In fact, the only people I saw on the whole route were a crofter with his two collies and a tractor driver on one of the road stretches.
I started off heading back along the road the way I’d come, following the shore of Loch Duntelchaig, the largest loch in the area, with views across the perfectly still water towards the Great Glen. There are some twisty bends in the narrow road here so you have to take care, but traffic is generally light.
As the road heads away from the loch and up the hill, look out for a track off to the right and follow the rights of way sign up it towards Bunachton. A footpath sign directs you left immediately before the first house and you go through a couple of gates and past a ruin to join a beautiful path through birch woods.
The winter sun was shimmering through the trees as I gradually climbed over the low pass to Bunachton, doing my best to avoid some of the worst boggy sections by climbing to a low ridge on the left here and there.
Soon the path drops past another ruin and emerges on the Essich to Dunlichity road, where I turned left for another stretch on a quiet road. There are views down to the next loch on the circuit from up here, Loch Bunachton, which you reach by continuing on the road past Mains of Bunachton then forking right onto a rough track shortly before the next forest plantation.
The track cuts diagonally down across the fields to the corner of the trees, where you go through a gate to keep left and follow the grassy but uneven surface along the edge of the forest. Watch out for an electric fence which sometimes cuts across the track. It can be opened using the plastic handles to allow access. It wasn’t connected on my run so I was able to continue running down to another gate just before the loch. There’s a short but stunning open stretch alongside the water’s edge at this tranquil location, so I stopped for a while to enjoy it before continuing along the track into the trees and up a gentle rise that passes over the Gask Burn.
At a junction in the forest take a right turn to climb to meet another track, where you keep right to drop down the hill to reach the road again. Turn left onto the road for a fabulous descent to arrive at a T-junction. Go right then straight on past the historic Dunlichity Church and burial ground, where it’s worth pausing to wander in amongst the headstones and look at this 18th century building, with some much earlier walls still in place. On some of these walls you can see grooves cut into the stone where swords or arrows were sharpened by Jacobite soldiers ahead of the Battle of Culloden, if rumours are to be believed.
The rest of the route follows the road past the third and final loch on the circuit, Loch a’ Chlachain, but it’s still a delightful part of the trail as it hugs the shore, particularly around one quiet little bay, before bending right to return to the starting point.
Having enjoyed such a wonderful run in these delightful surroundings, it came as a bit of a shock on the drive home to re-enter the fog which was still stubbornly clinging on in the depths of the Great Glen right up to Inverness, but I was content in my experience of escaping the gloom for a truly memorable outing.
