Loch Coruisk

The boat makes its way into the natural harbour, a refuge from the waves, hidden around a protective shoulder of rock. Spray wets our faces.

A colony of seals basking on a rocky outcrop, like sentries, ensuring our passage through their waters, welcoming us to their kingdom.

A waterfall cascades and cavorts its way down a cliff-face, before emptying into the sea.

The boat docks and we ascend the cold metal steps anchored securely into the rocks.

Apart from hiking, there’s no other way into this wild place. Remote. Cut off.

We pick our way along a well-worn path, curving through the boggy foreland, rising, twisting, leading us to Loch Coruisk….Coire Uisg…The Cauldron of Waters.

The jagged peaks of the Black Cuillens tower all around – Sgurr a Greadaidh, Sgurr a Mhadaidh, Blaven…an amphitheatre of black, grey granite.

Dominating, imposing, looming around and above, their rock-strewn slopes stretching downwards, cupping the loch protectively.

Water teams from the sodden hillside, too much for the earth to retain. The mountains press down, squeezing it, crystal-clear, from the ground…until it escapes…gurgling, glugging its way downward to the loch.

The dark, deep, mysterious waters of Loch Coruisk are blown to the north-west as the wind funnels in from the sea to the south.

A Sea Eagle soars, rising… sinking on the thermals.

A red fawn eats grass nervously, its eyes alert to danger.

And I sit on a flat expanse of hard stone.

I breathe in. Slowly. Allowing the air to fill my lungs.

I close my eyes and allow the cathedral of the Cuillens to cast their protective watch over me.

My soul is stirred.

No, my soul was stirred in increasing measure as the boat bobbed its ways across the bay to deliver us here. Now, as I sit, my soul is agitated…provoked…to praise…to worship.

This is holy ground. Sacred. The masterpiece of the Artist…the Architect.

Rugged in beauty. Unrefined. Pure. Powerful.

Who could conceive this raw beauty? Who could bring it into being? Who could command it?

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

I don’t want to go. I want to stay. I want my heart to be stirred some more. I want to drink it in…to soak in it.

But I can’t stay - the boat will soon leave.

Begrudgingly, I retrace my steps, and bid farewell Loch Coruisk.