It is no more than a thirty-minute drive from where I live to the Clava Cairns. Or if, like me, you have no car, it is half an hour on foot into town, followed by another half hour on a bus, then a near-hour long walk on side roads and through wooded glades, to reach the Cairns. If you are busy, then this seems like a total waste of time. But if you are looking to imbue the spirit of the area, to savour the approach and drink in the atmosphere of the Cairns, then the bus-and-walk option is the one for you. A visit to Clava Cairns becomes less of a hit-and-run on the ancient, and instead takes on the flavour of a pilgrimage.

Inverness extends eastwards along the coast through a ribbon of settlements, the last of which is our destination, Balloch. Like the other suburban satellites hereabouts, it is built on the hillslopes which stretch inland from the Moray Firth, and in places offers magnificent views across the waters to the Black Isle and Ben Wyvis, the closest mountain to Inverness.

We issue out of the bus at its terminal stop straight onto the little pathway which wends its way through the forest adjacent to the roadside. Under the rail bridge and onto the other side of the road our route takes us, and along another little path heading towards the forestry buildings of the university.

Now we are back on the road, and climbing steadily. It is mid-May, the spring sun is warm for once, and the world here seems at peace. We top out on a ridge of sorts, before continuing southwards and down, at first past homes for the affluent, before they give way to trees in translucent fresh green, with the accompanying sound of the trickling stream below to our right.

I have visited Clava Cairns twice before; once in the snow, and once on a neither-here-nor-there day - which is to say that I recall little of that trip. Besides, both times were at least a decade ago. 

I remember the place as bleak, and for sure it can be that way. Today, however, under the calm and the springtime sun, it appears enchanted, blessed. Everything - the blossoms, the newborn leaves, the stones themselves -, all appear luminous, and as if radiating a magical energy. 

Visitors come in cars and minibuses, offered purpose-designed visits by men in kilts, but the to-ing and fro-ing is calm and relaxed, and fails to destroy the atmosphere pervading the place.

I am accustomed to stone circles and the like to be located on ridges, with wide views of open spaces, but Clava Cairns have been constructed in a valley. On my first visit, I found the setting strange, a bit claustrophobic even. Not today.

For most of their life, the Cairns have been surrounded by open land - initially crops and then animal farming. But then during Victorian times a landowner came up with the bright idea of transforming it into a place more akin to a Druidic grove. So he planted trees around, and converted it into its present evocative state. There seems to have been a typical kind of Victorian mentality, which was simultaneously practical and romantic, which was at work here. As well as creating the Druid-like grove, the landowner shifted lots of the stones from the Cairns and erected a stone wall from them. That's the practical bit....

Burial chambers, we are told; three burial chambers. I sense the likelihood that these were not originally monuments for the dead at all, but served a purpose or purposes that were, to us, esoteric in the extreme. It was only later peoples who took them over as suitable places for burials. But who is to know, really?

The three circular chambers of Clava Cairns are surrounded by standing stones, a couple of which are incongruously located on the other side of the road which has been built close by. According to Gary Biltcliffe and Caroline Hoare in 'The Spine of Albion', the female and male currents of the Belinus ley line intersect at the Cairns, forming what they call a Node. It is at such points that the Earth energy of the leys is at a maximum, and where the veil between different dimensions of existence can be most easily pierced. The force at these Nodes has been harnessed for good and for bad over the centuries by those who know about such things.

A ten minute walk is all that it takes to arrive at Milton of Clava which, in unusual proximity, is another Node point with the meeting of the two currents. No minibuses here, no great chambers, no Druidic groves. All that remains is a solitary standing stone and the foundational ruins of an old chapel. There is a positive energy about this site, and lingering in this treeless place is an enriching experience.

The chapel was apparently dedicated to St. Bridget, who was the early Christian successor to Bride, a Celtic goddess, and better known as Brigid in Ireland. Many early Christian places of worship were built on former Druidic and Celtic sites, which were frequently on ley lines and node points wherever possible.

And that was it. Now for the walk back to Balloch, and the bus. Well, in this case 'the bus' didn't turn up, so it was 'the later bus'. On a warm Saturday evening, walking while waiting was no hardship..... 

Photos: My own. 1-3: Clava Cairns.  4: Milton of Clava