A late start but there was still plenty of parking space in Kenmore at the entrance to Taymouth Castle or, as a German motorcyclist parked beside us said, 'Taymooth Chateau'!
At Remony we left the south Loch Tay road for the path to Balmacnaughton and gave a wave to a chap relaxing by his summer house where woodcarvings of rabbits adorned the decking. Beyond the stone circle was a stand of beautiful Scots pines, the sound of the wind blowing through them reminding me of the Cairngorms. 'If I close my eyes we could be at.." But I didn't get to finish the sentence. "Derry Lodge", said Lynne. Exactly so. This spot was a haven in what was now fairly bleak country, though I suspect in brighter weather, which seemed to be everywhere but here, it would be pleasant enough. Not often I feel like this about hill country.
Our plan had been to follow the track until it crossed the Acharn Burn and then decide what to do at the small wooden hut, visible from the track. However, neither of us was particularly enjoying the walking so after a bit of indecision we abandoned the route and retraced our steps to find a spot in the sun for tea and biscuits, just beyond the bridge over the Remony Burn.
Descending by the way we'd come would have meant too short a day so back over the bridge we went to take the lovely route to the Acharn Falls and so to the road. Signs proclaim speed limits (40mph mostly, in places 20mph) and the road is 'walker and cycle friendly' but, as usual, only the odd driver pays much attention to it.
We stopped on the beach at the head of the loch , finished our tea and watched the boats bobbing about on the choppy water, trying to remember the name of the nearby island. I've brought 'Swallows and Amazons' with me to re-read and the scene put me in just the right mood for it.
Note: The island has several alternative names: Spry Island, Spries Island, Spray Island and Spar Island.
Sent from my iPhone
Just had a look at the map - there are quite lot of interesting looking tracks in that area to lead one into the hills. Nowadays I find even more new ones as the shooting brigade continue to expand their activities. I have just come from watching a programme on BBC 4 tracing and describing the River Tay. They suggested that there is not a great abundance of life in Loch Tay - the river just flows through there being more productice upstream and downstream - that sounded a bit strange to me.
ReplyDeleteSir Hugh - the tracks on the south side of Loch Tay provide lots of interest and several fine hills can be accessed from them. Most of the tracks are worth walking in their own right too.
ReplyDeleteWe don’t get wi-fi on the site so are careful with our 4G data so didn’t watch the programme the River Tay programme on iPlayer. I can’t throw any light on the subject of abundance or otherwise of life in Loch Tay and I assume from your comment that no explanation was offered. That sounds just sound lazy. ‘On nobody’s word’ comes to mind.
“That just sounds lazy”. I’m going to get Lynne to proof read everything I post!
ReplyDeleteHello Gibson, I've just enjoyed catching up with your postings (and trying to identify the orchid). I hope you are enjoying composing your blog entries. I wonder how you are getting on with Flickr, and whether you've any inclination to adjust your image sizes after mobile postings with the iphone. (I've worked out how to do that if you are interested.)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, best wishes from sunny Timperley for the rest of the summer.
Hello Martin, I am enjoying posting again although I seem to have to compose entries bit by bit as other things interfere. I usually transfer photos taken by camera onto the iPhone for attachments and that takes time too. Rushing to get what would have been my final post completed before coming home, resulted in it vanishing which was irritating. I'm trying to re-do.
DeleteI probably won't continue with Flickr given that I have a SmugMug account for storage and don't want to pay for Flickr after 1000 photos, so I'll use Google and share a link if the pics are worthy.
Best wishes to you and Sue for a great summer in Timperley - it must feel strange not being away!
Sorry Martin, I meant to thanks you for your offer re adjusting image size. If I change my mind on Flickr I'll get back to you if I may.
ReplyDeleteIt's not difficult once you get used to doing it. Go into your Blogger dashboard and select Posts. I have to do this by clicking on 'Design', then 'Posts'
ReplyDeleteClick 'edit' for the relevant posting.
Click on the images, one by one, changing the size to 'X-large'.
This may be sufficient if your blog defaults to 640. I think it does, so all you need to do is click 'Update' at the top right.
If you need to reduce the size:
Click on 'HTML' next to Compose, top left
You'll see for each image the code: width="640"
before that there will be a height coding, eg height="480"
For portrait images it's the other way around.
I have to change the width to 550, so I simply change 640 to 550 and change the height to the same scale, in this case from 480 to 412. Then click 'Update'
Thanks Martin. I actually know that method but for some reason I thought you had found an even simpler way. I sometimes go into Blogger Dashboard to edit an entry posted via email but scrolling is limited.
ReplyDeleteWhen using your method on blogger, I find it changes the position of the photograph to the left even if I try to centre it or move it right, so don’t bother now. Thanks for going to the trouble of commenting again. Appreciate it.
Teaching granny to suck eggs!
ReplyDeleteWhen drafting in Blogger I select all images and align them to the left before messing with sizing. Perhaps I don't need to do that. I think insertion of captions may affect the positioning.
Ah, but I didn’t know about the sizing option so I did learn something Martin. I use BT email to post and after pressing ‘send’, a total file size option appears and I usually choose medium which almost always works using 4G. If I’m using a weak W-Fi signal and the file is too large, at least the text still goes. Using Gmail the whole lot would vanish in these circumstances.
ReplyDelete