Scotland Week 3

Monday morning we made the planned pitch move to a front line Loch side one, lovely view albeit mostly too chilly to sit outside for too long. It’s still enjoyable though to sit in the van with the “woosh bang” door open for our early doors beers watching the activity on the water, including a cruise ship floating by one day. In the afternoon we did a fairly lame nearby forest walk, but again with some super views and a nice waterfall. It was a warm sunny few hours, and we’d over dressed; baking after 30 minutes. Daisy has a new game of running through the culvert pipes of streams crossing the forest tracks; one occasion she misjudged the drop & fell a good height to retrieve a stone thrown. Walked with a pleasant couple from Yorkshire for a little while, enjoyed a chat.

Tuesday we’d planned to either tackle Ben Nevis or a walk at Glencoe, but woke to a mist that meant we couldn’t even see the water 20’ in front of us. It cleared though and we had a lovely day out, took a walk toward Glen Etive (abandoned though due to a river crossing) followed by a reminiscing trip on the cable car up Glencoe. Mrs H was last here when she was an 8 year old apparently and the chap giving tickets out was bemused to hear that she predates the current chairlift, which was replaced 32 years ago. I confess to not being particularly happy hanging from a wire in a chair carried up 2200 feet, but Mrs H seemed to love it particularly when the feckin thing stopped halfway down due to some inept Chinese tourists failing to disembark properly causing an emergency stop which left us swinging for while.

Fabulous day on the Wednesday, stuck with our plans to walk up Ben Nevis despite the signs not looking good, low cloud and rain threatening. We very

nearly made it to the summit though, got to just over 3,000 feet(of 4,413) before calling it in due to visibility reducing and descending walkers saying how challenging the snow on top was for the last few hundred metres. That said we really enjoyed it, and we were blessed with fine views for the majority of the climb. Contrasts with Snowdonia, I think it edges it in scenery and path; I’m sure we’ll try again in better conditions. Mrs H did well, and Daisy could have happily done it twice!

We were both on a bit of a downer on Thursday as the weather was shite, grey and wet. We ruefully looked at the sunshine in Milford on Sea (our usual go to choice) and forecasts over the short term to be truthful making us regret our decision to head north for a moment. Day was filled with shopping in Fort William (a little like Ilkeston on Sea) and a very wet short walk late in the day. Promised ourselves to stick with it, despite missing our sitting out in the

evenings etc, Scotland is wet! At least the waterfalls are more spectacular now! Perhaps this a little unfair as we’ve certainly had a few blue skies since we left and I do wish we could see past poor weather a little better, as the beauty of the country is no less and in some ways the low mist adds something to the look of the hills. Moving on to Morvich tomorrow, looking forward to it.

As we climbed the hill north of Fort William by the Commando Memorial we got a warning light appear telling us to check engine and stop. Whilst sat in a lay-by awaiting recovery the weather took the piss again and the sun came out, as cars and lorries thundered by on this busy main road & early midges swarmed.

Once we got moving again we rounded the weekend of Week 3 off at our 7th site in glorious weather with sunshine and Simpson skies. The site is

surrounded by mountains and idyllic scenery, with the 12 mile walk to the dramatic Falls of Glomach starting from the entrance. Mrs H did struggle on though as we tackled this on the Saturday, determined as she was struggling post climbing Ben Nevis 2 days earlier, but nearly snapping on the final piss taking steep climb and descent (declaring indignation at Mother Natures lack of consideration!) to see the of the highest (113m) and most isolated waterfalls in Britain. To be fair it was well worth the challenging but fabulous paths to get here, and it’ll long stay with me as one of the best walks we’ve done so far.

Sunday we did bugger all, other sit in the sun, drink beer and dig out 16 ticks from poor Daisy who also randomly had a bird shit on her back. She’s not having a good day!

Week 4 beckons…