Day Forty Seven

After breakfast we walking into town to have a look at the rapids.
They’re quite spectacular and the recent rain has added to the
effect. The rapids are crossed by an ancient stone bridge, against
which is an ancestral burial ground. The photos don’t really do the
rapids justice so I take a few videos.
One the way back we spot wild raspberries growing, these ones are
ripe. They grow every here, like blackberries back home used to
before councils started spraying them. I miss the days when you
could eat blackberries straight off the bush, warm from the sun. The
jut don’t taste the same once they’ve been chilled.
On the road again, heading towards the west coast of Scotland, to
Fort William.
We end up spending most of the day in the Southern Highlands,
near Glencoe. The highlands, simply, are stunning. Raw and rugged
in the extreme, the mountains are breathtaking. The journey
through them follows the glacial path established millions of years
ago , so even though we are amongst mountains it’s a relatively
easy journey. There are lots of stop off points to marvel and
photograph, but the landscape is so vast that it’s hard to capture it
effectively and do justice.
We stop at the Glencoe information centre which details the
timeline of creation of the mountains, volcanic at one stage, the
glacier, and in more recent times, the bloody history of the area. It
also has a large display of the conservation efforts for the area,
explaining in some detail the habitats and challenges faced by the
red deer, red squirrels, otters, mountain hares (sometimes called
blue hares) and Scottish wildcats. Needless to say I would make a
decent trade of most things I have to spot all of these. Luckily,they
are all now protected and their numbers are slowly building after
being decimated. I settle instead for taking photos of each animal’s
display while Chris tries to drag me away. Blue hares! Imagine that!
He’s quite cute too. Big black eye and a bluey white black spotted
coat. Very
The mountains are very well visited by hikers…and these guys are
seriously equipped. No quick trot up the mountain for these
adventure seekers. They carry large packs and are dressed head to
toe in full weatherproof gear. Kind of takes the fun out of a good
walk, until you see the sobering warnings from the mountain rescue
team as to what can, and does, go wrong.
After our visit we contemplate staying in the highlands to takes it all
in, but we are only a few miles from our final destination of Onich,
so we keep going. Just as well, we get a spot right on the shore of
Loch Linnhe with mountain ranges across the Loch. Spectacular.