This walk had caught my attention previously because of the Wishing Tree and today was an ideal time to do it. The views over the Sound of Seil and the islands of Luing and Shuna, and Loch Melfort as I tramped up and down the Bealach Gaothe were beautiful. The grassland and moorland is a mass of ferns, irises, reeds, bog cotton and bog asphodel.
The Bealach Gaothe acts as a funnel for the wind and this I’m sure must have played a part in toppling the Wishing Tree which has been ring fenced in a wee enclosure to protect it. You can still see hundreds of coppers pushed into the trunk and branches. The Wishing Tree is a hawthorn and in Celtic culture hawthorn is sacred. Looking at the numbers of new coins hammered into the bark it still retains its magical powers. The tradition is that for each coin you embed you get a wish which is an offering to fairies or spirits. I made several offerings to the fairies.
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