October sunshine

We've just had a lovely week based in Glen Coe. I'll post more later but, for now, here are a few photos from the trip.



Sea eagles

I've just heard that 19 Norwegian sea eagles have been released into the wild from a secret location in Fife. This is wonderful news and I wish them well in Scotland. This is the third phase of the reintroduction of these birds by East Scotland Sea Eagles, a partnership between RSPB Scotland, the Forestry Commission and Scottish Natural Heritage. The programme commenced in 1975 on Rum.

Gold Mine at Cononish

The Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority have, thankfully, refused an application by Scotgold Resources to redevelop a gold mine at Cononish, near Tyndrum.

Nevis Partnership

Anyone wishing to find out about the work of the above can visit their site at http://www.nevispartnership.co.uk/

£1.00 to climb Ben Nevis

The Nevis Partnertship is calling for every person who climbs Ben Nevis to contribute £1.00 to the cost of maintaining the access track. Approximately 160,000 people climb the Ben every year.

Any views on this?

Dragonfly

There were many dragonflies on our walk along Loch Morar.

Midges

For anyone worrying about midges on their next backpacking trip to Scotland, but not too worried about weight, here's the very thing seen by Loch Morar:

Scottish Event for Lynne's Book

Reading at the launch in Ambleside

It looks like a Scottish Event to 'launch' Lynne's book will take place, appropriately, in Birnam near Dunkeld in late October.

Rum was not to be

We arrived on the west coast on a Saturday in glorious, if very windy, weather. Hopes were high for a trip to Rum. But.....sacks were packed the next day under dull and unpromising skies and a walk down to the beach revealed Rum (or rather didn't reveal Rum) in thick cloud. Our plan was to catch the first ferry on Monday, camp by Loch Scresort, enjoy a leisurely afternoon around Kinloch, traverse the Rum Cuillin the following day and sail back via Eigg on the third. It was obvious, however, that if the weather forecast were correct, as it had been for that day, we would spend much time on the ridge in thick cloud and sail back in mist and rain.

Of course we could have done all this but we wanted really clear weather to experience these wonderful hills on what might be our one and only visit.

Plans shelved, we were compensated by a wonderful sunset on the longest day and......

...there were other compensations in the form of cool beer outside 'van! 

 Some days later we had an interesting walk along the north shore of Loch Morar stopping to explore the ruin of The Chapel of Inverbeg - and out to the west, the Rum Cuillin were clear.............

                                     Chapel of Inverbeg ruins

A plaque tells that it was built by the people of Morar in 1780 following the return of the priest Ranald MacDonell from the Scots college in Spain.

                             Near Bracara on Loch Morar

We may not have gone to Rum, but it'll be there for another time. And we were heading north west.

Lynne's new book

We have just returned from the Lake District where Lynne appeared at the Beatrix Potter Society's International Study Conference and launched her book 'Beatrix Potter's Scotland - Her Perthshire Inspiration' published by Luath Press, Edinburgh. Available at all good book shops and online at Amazon and others.


An event in Scotland will probably be arranged in the next few months. More later on this and our abortive attempt to get to Rum in June!