Loch Turret Walk 29/11/20

Looking for a decent scenic walk not too far from home, we drove through Crieff past the Glenturret Distillery (shame it was closed) and up to the Loch Turret Reservoir. It was a stunning day with the fog covering then retreating back over the dam wall eventually completely covering the loch, the sun even brought a bit of warmth when it shone on us. This would a great longer route for Ben Chonzie or for accessing the Auchnafree and Choinneachean Hills. We seemed to have had the best weather as on the way home everywhere was covered in the fog and no sunshine.

Depth gauge building

North end of the Loch

The fog rolling along

Wee time-lapse

Beautiful colours and light

Heading back along the path as the fog reaches higher up the glen

Fog terraces

A shot of the near full moon in Methven

Sunday's walk in the Bluebell Woods near Murthly, no Bluebells strangely enough

Autumn colours

Fragile frosty spider's web

Mount Keen 25/10/20

On the last day of our holidays, we were invited by Evelyn to join her and some of her friends on a walk to Mount Keen, Scotland’s most easterly Munro. The winds were forecast to be gusting to 50mph or more, but for the most part they weren't too bad until we reached the summit. It was hard to keep from being blown over, and the temperature was supposed to be around minus 8. There was a surprising amount of folk at the top dressed like they were going for a wander in the town though. A great day out and a fine way to end our week off.

Gaining height with Glen Mark and the Queen's Well below

Still a bit to go but the summit's in sight

Me and Lesley hunkered down in the wind shelter

Walking route for the day

Assynt Holiday Wk/c 19/10/20

 As it was getting later in the year and we both had leave to take, we booked a self contained pod in Culkein. We had stayed in the Assynt area before and love it for the stunning mountain scenery. This time we were right at the end of a single track road which during this pandemic, meant we weren't putting ourselves or the local community at risk. Assynt is a beautiful area at any time of the year but I was blown away by it’s autumn colours.

Stunning view of Suilven from the Elphin Tearoom

Looking towards Quinag with Ardvreck Castle on the shore of Loch Assynt

A close up view of Quinag

The view over Culkein Bay from our pod

Our first days walk was a circular route from Stoer Lighthouse along the coast, past The Old Man of Stoer and returning inland over Sidhean Mor.

Stoer Lighthouse, constructed in 1870 and automated in 1978

The Old Man of Stoer, a 60m sea stack popular with climbers

Me and Lesley on Sidhean Mor

Sidhean Mor trigpoint

13 shot pano of the Assynt skyline

PeakFinder app photo of the Assynt mountains

Our walking route

The Wednesday was a bit wet and windy so we headed into Lochinver for our dinner and a look around.

Great view of Suilven from the Culkein to Lochinver road

After our dinner we went on a recce' to suss out the starting point of the walk we had planned for the next day.

Waterfalls across from Ardvreck Castle

Loch Assynt tree islands

Thankfully the weather had cleared for our mountain climbing day of Canisp at a height of 847m which would take us around 6 hours.

   

The start of our route

Over the footbridge into the boggy floodplain which, after the recent heavy rain, didn't make for good progress

The pathless route hand-railing the Alt Mhic Mhur chaidh Gheir burn, the going underfoot wasn't any easier than the pronunciation of said burn, at one point I had to run to get out of a near knee deep mud hole

Lesley leading the way as we headed up the steeper slopes

Away from the bog and onto the boulder field with great blue sky views of the Canisp summit

Climbing around the west flank to be met with this stunning view of Suilven, what a great feeling to be up here

Lesley in the summit windshelter

Me posing for the camera, shortly after this I realised I had left my dinner in the pod fridge

Great views of the Quinag mountain range

Our fantastic mountain day route

After leaving Assynt on the Friday, we drove to Cromarty for our pre-booked boat trip with Ecoventures, hoping we would be lucky enough to see some dolphins in the wild again.

 

Lesley and I were seated in front of the 400bhp engines

Our luck was in as the dolphins surfaced nearby

Some of them got pretty close

Dolphin acrobatics

We have been very fortunate both times we have been out with Ecoventures, it is an amazing experience to see dolphins in their natural habitat, well worth the trip.