Loch a' Phearcail

View from summit of Mullach na Reidheachd looking towards the moorland of Lewis.

Having paddled about 6km up Loch Reasort (from where it got too shallow for the MV Cuma) in fibreglass sea kayaks, any significant whitewater descent in a river this rocky would have been foolish (even by my standards - I did run just the last 50 metres) but I could not resist wandering up to get a look at what a descent might be like with even more water. Looks fun, but hardly worth the walk in to this remote spot. Somewhere back there lost in the cloud is Strone Ulladale - one of the remotest serious rock climbs in the UK. Any walk in with a plastic river boat would be an equally long undertaking, and the exit from where the river ends even longer on foot, or getting on for ten miles on the sea to Huisnis. Quite possibly a first descent looking for a taker?

Loch Reasort is long and shallow, so its head can only be reached in shallow draught boats. This seems to include the occasional R.I.B. as well as sea kayaks, which is how we got here. Over our lunch stop, we walked up the stream a bit to prospect for a whitewater descent - too rocky to play on any but the very last bit in fibreglass boats, and hardly an enticing prospect given the remoteness and difficulty of getting in and out of the area with plastic river boats in the sort of weather (much wetter than seen here) needed for such an undertaking.

It's rough walking on the slopes above the Abhainn Mhor Ceann Reasoirt as a shower moves across the photo.

In the distance can be seen the steep crag of Sron Scourst.

The river meanders through the peat moorland on its way to the sea at Ceann Loch Resort.

A return visit after 47 years. In 1964 NB1017 : Kinlochresort - 1964 both the foreground house Kinresort Cottage and the cottage across the two rivers in Harris were occupied. Today Kinresort Cottage is boarded up and a salmon bailiff uses the well-preserved house opposite. A close comparison of the two images shows many changes to the buildings at Kinlochresort.

I stayed here in 1964 NB1017 : Kinresort Cottage - 1964. The slate roof has gone as have the windows and front door. The adjacent barn has lost its corrugated roof and the walls are now lower. The chimney pots are unchanged and surprisingly the staining on the end wall has hardly changed in the intervening 47 years. A history of this house and the community that lived along the shore of Loch Resort is available in a pamphlet costing £2 from The Islands Book Trust.

Just 30 minutes fast driving by modern inflatable craft from Huisinis - and a world apart - and with squalls of rain, rather exciting!

Whilst we were there a person one took for a ghillie emerged from the house and with dog at heel and rod in arm took silently to the hills in the direction of Loch Bhoisimid.

A walk along the water line from a temporary harbour for the Seatrek RIB brought one closer to the settlement at Kinlochresort. The cottage over the water in Lewis was all boarded up whilst the cottage owned by the North Harris Trust on the south side of the water was occupied at the time of our visit.

Such a surprise to find so well a renovated house at Kinlochresort. Congratulations to the North Harris Trust.

A view across the shallow end of Loch Resort to include the Gamekeepers Cottage at Luachair with the higher hills behind. We then began looking for a suitable landing spot for the RIB tender to land so that we could climb Benisval.

The Abhainn Thabhsaigh drains Glen Ulladale and the view upstream is dominated by the overhanging face of Sron Ulladale.

Captain Alan Holmes has landed after a RIB trip up Loch Resort and is ready to climb Benisival. The RIB was driven by Neil James Macaulay from Islands of Adventure, Great Bernera.

The path from Direascal to Kinlochresort was an ambitious undertaking that had not been completed when they had to abandon Direascal in 1900. When they started building the path, workers from Luachair and Direascal met at the halfway point, and each group started building a path back to their respective villages. By the time they left in 1900, the Direascal men had made good progress; the path ended on the hillside, 200 yards east of the village. But work stopped on the other section a half mile from Luachair.

In 1964 a gamekeeper and a housekeeper,employed by the Morsgail estate,lived in the houses over the bridge. The nearer house, Kinresort Cottage, was privately owned and was used for holidays.

This house was used regularly by Reverend Robert Dodson for holidays with his family in the 1950s and 1960s.