Celebrating the Wild Festival

The weekend saw the great success of celebrating the Wild Festival on Saturday 29 September, despite the undeterred rain.

In the final year of the Heritage Lottery Funded programme, we wanted to celebrate everything that has been accomplished over the last four years with the great support of our partners, volunteers, and other members of the community.

A range of activities provided hours of entertainment for the children, from clay moulding with John Muir Trust, bat crafts with the Highlife Highland countryside rangers, to a treasure trail and stone jewellery making with Friends of Nevis. Local musician Cormac Dolan joined the festivities in the afternoon to strum a few tunes then joined conservation officer Rowan Doff and a couple of our previous trainee volunteer rangers for some tree planting in an exclosure near Polldubh. The face painting tent, a staple part of any festival, was also a great hit.

Of great excitement to many of all ages was the Tyrolean traverse which was run by Mike Pescod of Abacus Mountain Guides and Hannah from Inside Out Climbing Club over the Lower Falls. Kids, teenagers and adults all enjoyed being roped over the rushing falls in a harness and luckily no one lost their welly boots. Further up the river, the Fisheries Trust were running a water sampling activity, getting kids to identify aquatic beasties from tadpoles to a small trout fish. There was also a foraged and wild foods workshop led by Outdoor Environmental educator Roisin Lyle – Collins which was run in partnership with Lochaber Environment Group. Lochaber Rotary Club also lent a hand by providing two gazebos for the day and a little gas stove to heat up water for coffee and tea for all those helping.
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Overall the festival was a great success and was enjoyed by everyone. We would like to thank all those who helped put the event together and everyone who showed up to enjoy the all the wild things that the Nevis landscape has to offer.