Early Morning visit to Glen Nevis and The Nevis Gorge

I paid an early morning final visit to Glen Nevis before heading back to Cumbria. The light was amazing and it was so calm. I drove up to the parking area for The Nevis Gorge and had a short walk from there. I didn't completely go through the gorge as I only had trainers on and the ground was quite rocky but what I walked, I enjoyed. There was some lovely waterfalls lower down from the car park which just cried out to be photographed.

I eventually dragged myself away and set off back. On the way down I called in at The Glencoe Visitor Centre for a coffee and a bit of lunch and also stopped off at Loch Lubhair where I took some photos of the amazing reflections in the still loch.

I'd had a great few days away but the journey back was marred by the worry of what lay in store on my return. As it turned out the tests on my prostate had come out positive but on a positive note, the cancer hadn't spread to any onther parts of my body. 

Writing this blog two months after the diagnosis, I am now having hormone therepy which I will have for the next three years, plus I will be going through a course of radiotherepy sometime over the coming months. The side effects of the therepy have knocked me for six a bit. I get tired so easy and have lost a lot of muscle power but apart from that, I don't feel poorly in anyway, shape or form. 

My side effects do seem to be slowly easing and I have been on a few walks in the past week so there are positive signs. I have also been on a two week holiday to Somerset which I will blog later and also been up to my caravan in The Lakes where I have recieved incredible support from my friends. So I'm feeling pretty positive and will hopefully be blogging for many years to come.

Glen Nevis

Glen Nevis

Glen Nevis

Glen Nevis

Glen Nevis

Glen Nevis

Glen Nevis

Glen Nevis

Lower Falls

Nevis Gorge

Nevis Gorge

Nevis Gorge

Waterfall, Nevis Gorge

Waterfall, Nevis Gorge

Waterfall, Nevis Gorge

Waterfall, Nevis Gorge

Loch Lobhair

Loch Lobhair

Loch Lobhair

Loch Lobhair

Back Up To Wester Ross

A journey of three parts. The first was Bradford to my caravan near Penrith, the next up to Stirling and the final one up to Badachro near Gairloch. 

The first photo is of Doune Castle which is near Stirling where we spent our first night. Sal wanted to go there as she is a fan of The Outlander, which uses it as Castle Leoch. Unfortunately the castle was in the process of undergoing a structural survey so there was fencing all around the base and no admission was allowed. The Castle was also featured in Monty Python And The Holy Grail.

We had a quiet night at the hotel and next morning, after a breakfast sandwich at the local Dobbies, began our long journey up to Wester Ross. It is a very tedious trip up the A9 to Inverness and the miles seem very long. We did have a stop at Carrbridge which is on the edge of The Caingorm National Park, just to stretch our legs and hopefully have a coffee. Unfortunately the cafe we called in the previous year had now been turned in to a pizza and burger takeaway so we had to do without. 

Inverness was reached during rush hour so the traffic build up quite considerable but once through, we headed across country and soon the hills of Torridon and The Great Wilderness were in sight. We made our final stop on the shores of Loch Maree where we were greeted by our first rainbow. At this time of year they are a frequent occurrence and we were treated to some belters over the coming week.

Half an hour later, and we were unlocking the door to Blacksmith\"s Cottage in Badachro. Cases were taken upstairs, food put away and drinks cracked open. It was quite mild so we sat outside, taking in the view across the loch to distant Gairloch and relaxing after our journey.

All year I had been fearing that our holiday would be cancelled due to the pandemic, so it was such a relief to finally get there.

Our next day was a quiet, local one, just visiting The Bookstore Cafe in Strath, going for a stroll along the beach and visiting Gairloch Harbour with its locally built and financed Sitooterie. It as amazing that such a simple idea coming from local folk can give so much pleasure, not only to locals but to the wider visiting population. 

Doune Castle

Harvest Time, Doune

River Teith in Doune

River Teith in Doune

Rainbow on Loch Maree

Badachro

Badachro

Badachro

Badachro

Badachro

Badachro

Badachro

Badachro

Rainbow over Gairloch

Strath Beach

Strath Beach

Strath Beach

Strath Beach

Gairloch

Strath Beach

Baosbheinn above Gairloch

 

The Sitooterie

Sal sitting oot at The Sitooterie

The Sitooterie

The Boatooterie

The Kelpies and Falkirk Wheel

We were both really glad that we had broken our journey back to the Lakes with an overnight stay in Sterling as the journey down from Badachro had been a torturous one. The A9 from Inverness to Sterling doesn't have much going for it, it is just mile after mile of endless traffic. Pitlochry is quite a scenic area but I find The Cairgorms so dull. The only saving grace of the trip down was calling in at a lovely village called Carrbridge where we found a local cafe and had a coffee and and a bite to eat. The sign for Sterling was a very welcoming one and thankfully our hotel was just off the M90 junction. We popped in to Sterling in the evening but it was raining and a Saturday night so I think it's safe to say that we didn't see it at its best.

As we were in the area, it would have been criminal of us not to go and visit The Kelpies and The Falkirk Wheel as they were only a few miles off our intended route back to Cumbria. The Kelpies are 30-metre-high horse-head sculptures depicting kelpies (shape-shifting water spirits), located in Grangemouth, near Falkirk. They stand next to a new extension to the Forth and Clyde Canal, and near to the River Carron, in The Helix which is a new parkland project built to connect 16 communities in the Falkirk Council Area. 

They were designed by sculptor Andy Scott and were completed in October 2013. The sculptures form a gateway at the eastern entrance to the Forth and Clyde canal, and the new canal extension built as part of The Helix land transformation project. They are a monument to horse-powered heritage across Scotland. Built of structural steel with a stainless steel cladding, they are 30 metres high and weigh 300 tonnes each and were opened to the public in April 2014 in a ceremony which attracted 20,000 people.

 Unfortunately the weather wasn't too kind to us and the main Visitor Centre and cafe were closed but there was a kiosk where we both had a coffee to warm us up. They are by far the most impressive sculptures I've come across and you really need to get close up to them to appreciate both their size and construction.They are also illuminated at night so a nighttime visit has been put on my bucket list.

A few miles away and many roundabouts later lies The Falkirk Wheel which is a rotating boat lift, connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. The wheel raises boats by 24 metres (79 ft), but the Union Canal is still 11 metres (36 ft) higher than the aqueduct which meets the wheel so boats must also pass through a pair of locks between the top of the wheel and the Union Canal. 

In March 1999 Donald Dewar, the Secretary of State for Scotland, cut the first sod of turf to begin work at lock 31 on the Forth and Clyde Canal and the wheel was opened on the 24th May 2002 by Queen Elizabeth II. Over 1000 people were involved in its construction. 

One interesting fact is that the wheel was fully constructed and assembled at the Butterley Engineering plant in Ripley, Derbyshire. The structure was then dismantled in the summer of 2001, and transported on 35 lorry loads to Falkirk, before being reassembled into five sections on the ground and lifted into place. The wheel replaced a flight of 11 locks.

We were fortunate in arriving just as they were getting ready to raise the first boat of the day and it really is an amazing sight to behold. The final photos of the blog show you how it raises and lowers the long boats better than any description I could give. 

The day had been an interesting and educational way to end our holiday and a complete contrast to the previous 10. I always find it hard to readjust when I've been away, especially when I've been up to The Highlands and I think Sal was the same. We were glad we stopped off in Falkirk but we were damned glad to get out of the place again and have a couple more quiet days in The Lakes.

 

The Kelpies

The Kelpies

The Kelpies

The Kelpies

The Kelpies

The Kelpies

The Kelpies

The Falkirk Wheel

The Falkirk Wheel

The Falkirk Wheel

The Falkirk Wheel

The Falkirk Wheel

The Falkirk Wheel

The Falkirk Wheel

The Falkirk Wheel