Following the Diabaig Coast Path

New Year's Eve in Wester Ross is a time when old songs are sung, whisky is drunk (not all of it approved by the exciseman either) and tales are told in both English and Gaelic. Over the years these stories mature and grow, and also change location, so that the tailor who lost his hump to the fairies lived not only in Scotland, but in Ireland and even Italy.

Fairy tales and ghosts

Many of the tales told in Alligin take place in the knolly, magical ground on the way to Diabaig. One story concerns two villagers who were bringing whisky for the New Year from Gairloch by way of the coast path. They heard wonderful music and came upon a cave in the hill where the fairy people had started their Hogmanay celebrations a few hours early. Fascinated, the man with the keg crept closer and closer until he was actually inside, whereupon the cave closed up and disappeared. A year later the other man came back, found the cave open and dragged his friend out across the threshold. The friend thought he'd been in there only a few minutes, but of the whisky he carried there was no trace.

At the top of the hill road is tiny Lochan Dearg, and here there is a ghost that appears only to people bearing his own name, Murdo Mackenzie. The kilted spirit, one of the Mackenzies of Gairloch, was slain by a Torridon MacDonald and buried somewhere near by.

Horse tales and fairy folk

Loch Diabaigas Airde (Point 3) is haunted by the water spirit called the kelpie. This appears as a magnificent white horse, but if you mount it, the horse gallops rapidly into the loch and you're never seen again. That is, unless you just happen to have a bridle that's made of pure silver to tame it. Another kelpie lives in the Lochan Toll nam Biast, the Lochan of the Beast Hole, at the back of Beinn Alligin.

Fairy music has been heard above the gorge of the Alligin burn. So, to protect yourself from the Duine Sithe, be polite, but don't accept food from them. At best it'll be cow dung, at worst it'll enslave you for ever. Carry iron, oatmeal or a groundsel root for protection, and a cry of 'am monadh oirbh, a' bheistein' ('back to the hill, you wee beastie') is effective. Approaching Wester Alligin, walk carefully past Cnoc nan Sithe, the Fairy Knoll, so as not to disurb them.

From the parking place, follow the road over the Abhainn Alligin river. A path leads along the shoreline for 100yds (91m) and then makes its way up right among sandstone outcrops. Bear left underneath a power line to join the corner of a tarmac driveway. Keep ahead to reach Wester Alligin.

Turn right up the road and then left, on the road for Diabaig. The road steepens as you continue along the road (although you can take a path to the right of power lines), across a high pass, with superb views (Bealach na Gaoithe Viewpoint) and then down past two lochs – Loch Diabaigas Airde and Loch a’Mhullaich – which are linked.

Turn off left, crossing the outflow of Loch a’ Mhullaich on a footbridge. A clear path leads out along the high wall of a stream valley, then zig-zags down to a grey gate. Go down through woods to a white house, No 1 Diabaig. Turn right to reach the old stone pier.

Return up the path you just came down to pass a stone shed. Here a sign indicates a turn to the right, under an outcrop and between boulders. The path heads up to a small rock step with an arrow mark and a convenient tree root which you can use to hold on to. It then leads up to a gate in a fence and zig-zags into an open gully with a large crag on the right. At the top of this, it turns right along a shelf, with still more crag above. The path slants gently down along the foot of another crag, then up to a col.

From here the path is small but clear. It bends right to Loch a’ Bhealaich Mhoir and then turns left below it to Lochan Dubh. Cross its outbound flow and slant down left towards the cottage of Port Laire.

Pass above the house, then slant gradually up away from the sea. The path crosses the head of a bracken valley with a ruined croft house into a bleak knolly area out of sight of the sea. Cross two branches of a stream and go up to a cairn which marks where the path bears left up the spur. It now contours across a heathery meadow among the knolls, at the end of which it climbs pink rocks over a final spur. Just ahead is a gate in the deer fence.

The path leads along a level shelf with views to Liathach and the head of Loch Torridon, then it crosses a high, steep slope of heather. Near the end of this slope, the path forks. Take the upper branch, to go through a wide col. The rather boggy path heads down towards Wester Alligin. From a gate above the village, a faint path runs down in the direction of a distant green shed. It descends through a wood, then contours just above the village to reach the road above Point 2. Retrace your steps to the start of the walk.