Holiday in the Highlands! Part 1 - Glen Coe

This is going to be a pretty massive story so I'll probably split it into a couple of posts so I don't overdo it on the photo front! I've been meaning to post this for months but it took forever to sort out the photos and then I went on another holiday and took even more, so it wasn't exactly a priority, lol.

Despite having been born and bred in Scotland, I'd never managed to make it over to the picturesque west coast of the Highlands, though it had always been one of my most coveted holiday destinations. This year we decided that our September week's holiday should be spent up north rather than our usual jaunt in Dumfries and Galloway and wow, was it worth it!

(Apologies in advance for all the instagram spam - I took a LOT of pics this time round and most via that, haha! If you'd like to look at the photos without my commentary, they can all be found here!)

An attempt at an interesting walk.

Emphasis on the 'attempt' part.

Years and years and years ago, my dad and I visited a nearby abandoned quarry in search of fossils. I literally tripped over our first find, a nice bit of fossilized fern, and he later found a rather nice shark's tooth embedded in a bit of shale. I've always longed to go back, but with one thing or another we've never managed it, and today...we didn't manage it either, instead, heading for a little known rock formation just a little up the hill from the quarry on Craigmaddie Muir.

'The Auld Wives Lift.' -link- -link-

This glacial erratic, placed here rather artistically by a receding glacier during the ice age, has a lot of local folklore associated with it, and the name comes from its so called origin, where three 'old wives' - or witches, depending on where you read it - challenged each other to throw a stone the furthest, and, carrying the stones in their aprons to the moor, duly chucked them, with one landing atop the others. There's a gap between them which you're supposed to climb through if you don't want to end up childless! (something I think I'll pass on, though clambering through the rocks sounds fun!)
They have faces carved into the rock (some folk attribute them to ancient celts, but they're probably much later) and there are some cup and ring marked stones nearby as well as a few chambered cairns. I've always been fascinated by prehistory, especially Scottish prehistory, and as it was so local and my dad had been a few years before, it sounded like the perfect place to go for an afternoon's walk. The quarry was just a short walk from where we'd park the car so we planned to walk to the stones and have a rumamge in the quarry when we got back.

Oh how optimistic we were!

Stornoway, Kelpies and Excessive Precipitation

I rarely get the chance to meet up with other hobbyists so this weekend has been something of an unexpected bonus!

My friend Viki, who some may know as THS on the forums, contacted me a while ago about going to a gig in Glasgow together - I'd never really heard of the band, Stornoway, so was a little hesitant, but she talked me into it eventually and I'm very glad she did as they were brilliant!
 (here's their latest album if anyone needs convincing!)

(Part of) The West Highland Way!

Don't get too excited, I didn't make it all the 90 odd miles to Fort William! XD

I went out yesterday with my friends Cat and Motunrayo along the West Highland Way; the starting point of which is in my village. We originally intended to go to Mugdock Country Park, which can be accessed along the same route but changed our minds half an hour in. The whole WHW takes days if you walk it and none of us were in any shape to attempt very much more than a few hours!





The route was really quite flat with a couple of minor hills along the way, and although it wasn't perhaps the most sunny of days, it was lovely and cool to walk and I got some nice photographs as I went along.





We thought we'd only manage about four miles and then turn back, but when we got to one particular spot, Mo wanted to go on a little so we could see the hills, so we did...then just kept on going. XD





The Campsie Fells are a range of hills nearby, named after the Gaelic name of one of the hills, that translates to "crooked fairy hill" which is rather sweet. It's most striking feature is Dumgoyne, a volcanic plug that sits right at the end of the range. It was really interesting to see how it changed as we passed it and the distinctive silhouette became more unfamiliar as we went along.







 





After several long hours we finally made it to our destination - The Beech Tree Inn.



We couldn't stay however, as Mo had to be at a show in an hour's time so we called a taxi to take us back to the start. XD

I am woefully unfit and need to lose about 100lb but I'm pleased to say that I only started to struggle along the last quarter of a mile and even then it was just being footsore rather than out of breath or exhausted. We're hoping to make this a fairly regular walk which would be fantastic if we could keep it up because I for one could certainly do with the exercise!

The three of us (I'm not the most photogenic of people, haha!)

A walk to the Whangie!

On one of the warmest days of the year so far, I went for a bit of a hillwalk yesterday. XD

I'm tremendously unfit and would normally never agree to do such a thing but the Whangie is somewhere that I've wanted to visit for ages so I caved and joined two of my friends, Catriona and Claire for a nice morning wander up to Queen's View in the Kilpatrick Hills. They had already planned on going but asked me if I fancied it the day before, after we saw Monster's University at the cinema. (which, incidentally, is one of those rare sequels that actually surpasses the original - I'd HIGHLY recommend it!) Normally I'd refuse on the grounds that I'm terribly unfit (true) the weather's awful (also true) etc etc but as it was decided that we'd be going there at about 8:30 in the morning when it would still be cool, I thought I'd give it a go and I'm so glad I did.


...and just what is the Whangie, I hear you cry? Well, it's a very interesting area of geology! (and is pronounced 'wang-ee' if you were unsure) I'll go into more detail when we get there. :P