Coral Beaches
August 15, 2007
Today we walked to the “Coral Beaches”, a beach on the opposite side of the loch a couple of miles past Dunvegan Castle. It’s roughly a 4 km walk from the car park to the beach, which was quite good enough as the weather was a bit unpredictable today. We had walked this before during holidays on Skye, so we’re familiar with it. It’s a lovely spot, with loads of wind that keep the midges away which are quite numerous this during this month.
The beach is not actually consisting of coral but calcareous alga (see below for an explanation). Nevertheless, the beaches make a very pretty sight with spectacular colors: white sands, scattered black stones and green weeds. As it was low tide, we also had an opportunity to walk to a small island, close the beach called “Lampay”. It’s really small and no longer inhabited, although there were the remnants of an old house.
The dazzling creamy-white beaches known locally as coral sands are created by the calcareous alga Lithothamnion, which has a remarkable resemblance to branching coral and which flourishes in sheltered bays around the west coast. Broken fragments are continuously washed up and these unusual sands were used locally to ‘lime’ acid, peaty soils.
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Hi Roger and Clair,
Leuk om jullie belevenissen digitaal mee te maken, mooie foto’s ook !
groetjes Loebes
Leuk ook mijn hand in beeld he??