I am a member of The Scottish Wildlife Trust & today one of our committee members organised a small walk on the Limestone Pavement just East of Kinloch Rannoch. The weather was wet & windy, so please excuse the photos as conditions were not good.
The pavement is made up of Dalradian Limestone & is roughly 600 million years old, so old in fact that unlike other Limestone it does not contain any fossils. It is a SSSI site so it is very rare, it is said to be the best example in the whole of Scotland & drifted over to us from Norway in one of the ice ages.
In between the rocks are worn away sections that can go down 6 feet & are called grykes, while the higher areas are called clints. Because the grykes are small & fairly inaccessible to sheep & deer various plants can grow & not be eaten, these include Rock Rose, Thyme, Northern Felwort, Dog’s Mercury, Herb Robert & Herb Bernet, Wood Sorrel & best of all Wild Strawberries.
On the pavement are two big lumps of Schist that seem out of place amongst the Limestone, but these must have also drifted with the glazier, local folk law has a different tale & claims they are two witches turned to stone.
The talk & walk took about an hour & there was seven of us being shown around & it was of great interest, I had passed the area many times on the road some fifty yards below us & had never been aware of their existence.
I was about a mile away from one of my favourite fishing lochs so after the talk went & had a couple of hours fishing (with no success of course) in what can only be described as very brisk conditions, pretty near to blowing a gale, but good fun in such a cracking place.
The photos below were from this morning & in order are :-
1/ The view over to Kinloch Rannoch & Loch Rannoch.
2/ The Munro (mountain over 3000 ft) Schiehallion.
3/The witch rock.
4/ Strawberries in the grykes.
5/A rare wild Gentian.
6/ Loch Kinardochy where I fished.
