Northern Lights in Tromso

Lights over Grotfjord

We did two northern lights tours whilst we were in Tromso, well actually three if you include our night dog sledding adventure. But the actual night tours were all about seeing the lights, no distractions, with the dogs you barely had time to look at the sky! The company we went with, I'm not sure if I would recommend them, were all about guaranteeing northern lights viewing, which is good. But it does mean if most of Norway is under cloud then you are driving to Finland, which is a 2 hour drive away. The tour then ends up being 11 hours long, which is not really what I expected. We got to bed at 4:30am!

The frozen lake - not many lights

The thing is we had great light shows within the first 2 hours of the tour, then the next 9 hours are spent driving around, getting colder and colder. Other companies will give you the option of cancelling or rescheduling your tour, if there is very little chance of seeing the northern lights, which I think is a better option than who we went with.

We did learn a lot from this first, arduous, tour though, so we were definitely prepared next time round. The trick is, at the first stop, change your boots, get on their arctic suit, and get some heat packs. The second time round we were also luckier though, in that it was a crystal clear night, so we only had to drive enough to get away from the Tromso lights.

This spot was amazing, and the lights were incredible

I'm not sure what skills you needed to be a northern lights guide, it's not quite what I expected. It seemed more that you had to be unfailingly upbeat, able to withstand immense cold, and good at night photography. When we drove to Finland it was -14 degrees, that was cooooold! And yet our guide seemed to only have 3 layers on. We were all in these incredible Arctic suits that could handle temperatures of -40.

We even got some purple

It kind of made me want to get into night photography, I do need a better lens though. The guide had a camera with a lowest aperture of 1.4, my lowest was 3.5. His pictures were amazing. It's also actually kind of hard to figure out if you are in focus, since it's pitch black, and your photos are not very bright. Thankfully I took a lot of photos, so at least some turned out ok. But that's definitely something for me to figure out, how to tell at night, whether the photo is perfectly in focus.

Can't get enough of this fjord

The lights themselves were amazing, mainly green, though when you see them with the naked eye they look almost colourless. The amazing photos you see are not what you will see with your eyes, they just aren't sensitive enough. We did manage to see some purples and reds though, so that was kind of cool. The lights were really going crazy on the second tour, dancing all over the skies, and coming down in sheets, it was really quite special.

The effect of clouds on the light visibility

The guides did know how to pick some pretty spots, so even if there were no lights, you were going to get some nice landscape photos. The first tour we stopped at this frozen lake. We weren't allowed to wander off though, as they weren't sure how thick the ice was in the middle. We saw some lights there, but you could see the effect of low cloud. As soon as there is low cloud you can't see anything.

Surrounded by mountains

The next tour was to the next island over from Tromso, Kvaloya, we ended up visiting this island 5 times whilst we were in Tromso. This spot was amazing though, right at the end of a fjord, with a little town right at the other end, surrounded by mountains.

Just a great spot

Polar Nights in Norway

Looking across to the mainland, and the Arctic Cathedral

We are just back from a week in Tromso, which is a town in northern Norway, about 350km north of the Arctic Circle. Which means the sun doesn't rise throughout winter. It's not a pitch-black day though, there are about 3 hours of twilight, and the rest of the time, because of all the snow, there is still a lot of light around. A night in Tromso feels a lot brighter than a night in London.

I think it was a pretty good time to visit, though perhaps even later in winter is better because you are probably guaranteed snow and no rain. You don't want to visit Tromso when it's still raining. It's definitely set up for snow, not ice. Our main purpose for the visit was to see the northern lights, and yet there is so much other stuff to do, it turned out that the northern lights tours were probably our least favourite out of all the activities we did.

Another status of Amundsen - 11am in Tromso

Tromso centre, the pile of snow is from the roads

Norway is definitely an awesome country, out of everywhere I have visited it's one of the only places I have thought I could actually live in. Even given the cold temperatures and lack of sunlight. The infrastructure is great, everyone seems really fit and intelligent, the scenery is stunning, and they are set up for outdoor pursuits. Plus they just seem harder than other nationalities.

Tromso was definitely a tourist town, every evening when we came out of our hotel there would always be a bunch of people standing around waiting for various tours, often we were also waiting. Everyone in Tromso also speaks English, and I mean perfect English. It's the tour guides who aren't Norwegian who don't speak such great English. It makes being a tourist there super easy, and enjoyable. One thing we noticed is that not many Norwegians were tour guides, especially not for the northern lights tours, they were always foreigners. I'm not sure why that is, perhaps the lights tours are the worst, you are basically working the night shift for months on end. 

There is also a surprising amount to see in Tromso itself, and it has some pretty great restaurants. We ate so well the whole time we were there, and yes there was a lot of fish. I even had prawns when I was there, I think the last time I had prawns I enjoyed was in Australia. In the UK we just get these prawns from Thailand, that taste of iodine. And, I recently learned, are prepared by slaves. So no more prawns for me whilst I'm in the UK.

The pretty Tromso harbour

Back to the stuff to do in Tromso, obviously it is expected that you are there to do various tours and activities. But we couldn't do something every minute of the day, so there were some free hours to see the local museums and art galleries. We went to the Polaria first, cool building, it looks like a bunch of ice blocks that have toppled over. There we learnt about the aurora, which was going to hold us in good stead over the next week. They also had 4 seals there, which was kind of cool, I was hoping for a polar bear, but I guess that is a bit harder to keep in captivity. There were a lot of fish and sea creatures at this museum, it was kind of cool to see all these types of creatures that you don't normally see. Normally aquariums go overboard with the tropical fish, but this was all cold-water stuff.

Clubbing baby seals

We also went to the Tromso museum, this was a bit out of the city centre, so we had to catch a bus to get there. And again Norway just does it better. When you got on the bus, the driver would actually wait for you to take a seat before driving off, are you listening London bus drivers! This museum was more of a natural history museum, so stuffed animals from the surrounding environment. They also had a bog person, I love bog people, but it seemed the body wasn't that well-preserved, so it was just their clothes. There was quite a lot on the Sami people, who are a race of people who live through northern Norway, Sweden and Finland, and have their own language and culture. Unfortunately this section was all in Norwegian, so we couldn't learn a lot about them.

A polar bear with trap, about to shoot itself with a gun inside the box

The final museum we visited was the Polar museum, different from the Polaria. This was more about Norwegian explorers and history in the Arctic. There were a loooot of stuffed animals. And a lot about all the seal clubbing, whaling and polar bear hunting they used to do in the Arctic. There was a lot about Amundsen, as you would expect. I never knew that he carried on adventuring after the South pole, and disappeared whilst trying to rescue some other expedition. 

York

Castle Howard - pretty grand

We re-visited York, about a year after we had first been there. It's a really cool city, in a great part of the country. I think I will have to visit this area a bit more. There's just so many places to go, and so many things to see!

We were here for another 10km race, really we treat these races as an excuse to travel somewhere we may not normally go. It was in Dalby forest and I would definitely go back for this race. It's by far the toughest 10km I've ever done. It was insane. It was about 500m long, which is already pretty tough, but it was all on either single-track, or up dry creek beds, or across churned up mud bogs. It was crazy, and never flat. You were either slogging it up a steep hill, or worried you were about to seriously twist your ankle coming down. It was really awesome!

Castle Howard across the lake

Roses in the walled garden

But as well as that excursion into the forest we also did a bit of sight-seeing further afield. Since we had a car this time, we could check out a bit of Yorkshire. There is a lot to see in this area, and we didn't even see either the moors or the dales.

We visited Castle Howard, definitely worth a visit if you are in this area. It's massive, both the house and the grounds. And they have certainly spent some money keeping it looking nice. They are an off-shoot from the Howards of Anne Boleyn's times, the Duke of Norfolk who was always causing trouble is a distant relation of the current Howards. Though they don't seem to make much of that family connection, perhaps they didn't like Wolf Hall.

Another view

Temple of the four winds in the distance

I wouldn't really call it a castle, perhaps more of a palace, it looks a bit like a shrunken version of Buckingham. What's even cooler is that it was designed by Vanbrugh, and we live on a road named after him in London. I always thought Wren was the English architect everyone loves, but this Vanbrugh guy is all over the place. Even better is that he had no formal training in it, so it's impressive that all these Earls got him to design stuff for him. Castle Howard was the first thing he built, and he didn't do too bad a job with it. It looks pretty impressive, and the gardens are really nice too.

The temple up close - love that honey coloured stone

I usually like the gardens in these places the most, so long as it's not raining when I visit. They love creating these vistas and they'll often build these things which you can't use, you can't go inside, just for the effect they create. So there was this temple of the four winds right on the boundary of the gardens, and walking up to it had this nice effect, with this bridge in the foreground. You couldn't actually cross the bridge though, or go in the temple. But they did look very pretty.

And then there always has to be a good flower garden. I am really starting to appreciate the flowers living here. They do a good flower. In Australia the flowers never seemed that impressive, or perhaps it was more the oppressive heat that detracted from the admiration. Or maybe it was that they seemed really hard to grow, here it seems you stick anything in the ground and it will flower. So of course there was a walled garden, again with gates you couldn't open, and little buildings that seemed to serve no purpose, but all very nice.

Useless gate in the walled garden

Distant view of the puffins

But it wasn't all impressive palaces around York. I think the place I enjoyed the most were the Bempton cliffs. It's this bird sanctuary consisting of 6kms of cliffs. But what's best is that they have puffins there, and it was breeding season! We didn't even realise we could see puffins when we were heading there. And it was a bit of a drive, just to maybe see some birds. It could certainly be better sign posted. So there were moments when we are thinking, should we really bother. But I am so glad we did. 

The cliffs at Bempton - the white dots are birds

We get there and the volunteers have set up telescopes focused on the puffins nesting on the cliffs. It was crazy how many birds were there, not just puffins, but gannets, which are massive, like 1.8m wingspan, kittiwakes, guillemots and razorbills, to name a few. Even if you aren't really into birds it's definitely worth a visit, though beware of the stench. That was the first time I had seen puffins, and they are much smaller than what I thought they would be. But you could really see their orange bill. The cliffs themselves are also pretty impressive. They are something like 100m high, and stretch along the coast for around 10km. I imagine it's a bit like what the white cliffs of Dover look like.

The final stop on our York tour was Kirkham Priory. Another monastery set in a really pretty location, those monks really had an eye for beauty.


Next time back I'll have to investigate these dales and moors. There must be some good hard walks somewhere.

View from the priory

Bournemouth

The English at play

We have been a bit remiss in visiting the English coastline, in fact I'm not sure we have been to even one famous English beachside town. We have been to a few in Wales, which has a fantastic coastline. But I think places like Bournemouth and Bristol are probably more famous than Tenby. We finally got on a tiny little train down to Bournemouth. It was only 4 carriages so I was glad not to be travelling Friday night, that could have been messy.

It was quite hot, England was having a summer to speak of for once. I thought I might have even gone for a swim. But I hadn't checked the water temperatures before I left London, the average in July is something like 15 degrees. For comparison I grew up in the tropics where the summer sea temperature was 31 degrees, and it would drop to a chilly 25 in winter. That's when people didn't swim as much. Lets just say I was not prepared for 15 degrees, next time I am definitely taking my wetsuit. Or maybe I'll go to the Canary Islands, where even in December the water is still 20 degrees.

Cool stained glass at Russell-Cotes Museum

The English are definitely different from the Aussies in how they approach the beach. For them it seems more like a carnival, so they have permanent rides set up, a roller coaster and that sort of thing, as well as this long pier with cafes, that you have to pay to walk along. There is also a busy road running right up against the beach, so you can literally park and from the boot of your car throw your stuff onto the sand. I wasn't expecting that. It didn't feel very natural for me, it felt a bit as if maybe the sand was imported. I don't think it was, it's just the sense of unreality I had there meant I wouldn't have been surprised if it was. So we didn't spend a lot of time on the beach, we went for a run along it, which was nice. And had some great sea food.

Apart from the proximity to cars, and the weird roller coasters, the beach was pretty nice. It's certainly massive. It's something like 10km long I think. Most people seem to cluster together around the roller coasters. But if you walked a bit further down you would definitely have a nice patch of beach all to yourself.

We also visited the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum. It's this old house on the cliffs above the beach that the owners donated to the city. It's a really cool building and it's just full of stuff. This is definitely worth a visit, if only to warm up after a dip in the freezing water.

Wye Valley - Wales vs England

The super pretty ruins of Tintern Abbey

We visited the Wye valley, mainly to run in the Forest of Dean 10km race. The Forest of Dean runs along the very southern border of Wales and England. We drove there from Bristol, so over the Severn bridge. There are two of them, we went over the first, which has Grade I listing and is 1.6km long. I had no idea it was there, or was that impressive. You see it in the distance as you drive along, and you're thinking, what the hell is that. And then you realise it's a bridge. 

But apart from the bridge, the Wye valley is actually beautiful in it's own right. We didn't really know what to expect visiting the area. English forests are generally pretty tame, not much undergrowth, and have obviously been felled throughout their life. But this area was really thick and quite large. True it still had a bunch of villages and roads throughout it. But it also had the ruined Tintern Abbey. That was really pretty, and in such a great location. Surrounded by forests and on the banks of the Wye river. It was huge too, again I did not expect something that large.

How many stories is that?

What I found most strange about this area is that it rivalled the Cotswolds in terms of natural beauty. And all along the English side there would be these charming little villages, just really pretty and quaint. Then the road would cross into the Welsh side, and the same villages would be super ugly. You would have the foot on the accelerator to get through as fast as you could. What have the English done to the Welsh, you really have to wonder. Why would two sides of the same river be so different. There were no tourists on the Welsh side, there was nothing for them there, no cafes, no forest parks or anything. It was really weird. Because there were obviously a lot of tourists around, and a lot of money, but it just wasn't going to be spent in Wales.

Hungry caterpillar at a pretty old mill

Anyway the race was pretty good, I took it easy, and felt really good at the end. Poor Dave got massive blisters on his feet, which was weird. We had to plead with one of the tourist sites to get some bandaids for him. Not sure I'd go back for the race, but I think I would definitely investigate that area of Wales more.

Madrid

On our running tour

Aaaaah how I do like Spain, so warm, and the people are so great. If only it was a financial hub I would be set. Perhaps the only bright light with Britain steering towards exiting the EU will be if the financial capital moved to Spain. Unlikely I know (it'll probably end up in Dublin), but how good would that be. Living somewhere with great nature, great food and great weather. I think it's the only positive from a Brexit.

There must be something about Spain, it's the country I've visited most whilst I've been in London (after Scotland, but that's the same country). You seem to be guaranteed good weather, which you definitely can't say about Scotland. The people are more friendly than in France, and there seem to be fewer tourists, at least where we go.

I was pleasantly surprised by Madrid, I'm not sure why I hadn't visited earlier. I think I thought it was just a big city, with nothing to see or do. With nothing really going for it. Perhaps Barcelona just has much better PR, but after this visit I am definitely going to try and see more of southern/central Spain. For too long I have restricted myself to the north of the country.

Our impression of ABBA

After a long, cold London winter, there is nothing like 4 days of total warmth, with no clouds in the sky. It was Rosè time for sure. The first morning we were there it was up early for a running tour. I think these rival walking tours for me, they are generally a bit smaller and you get to see so much of the city. We basically covered everything, and it set us up for the weekend. Suddenly you feel like you know the city, we got a bit of everything with this tour, history, sights, and parks.

I wasn't aware that Madrid has this great city park right in the middle of it. It's definitely something pretty special. I also wasn't expecting all the great buildings either, there is a bit of a fascist twinge to them, you could definitely imagine Gotham city here.

It was interesting to hear the guide's view on Franco. He was the dictator up until 1975 when he died, and I always found it interesting that when he died it was as if Spain kind of shrugged it's shoulders and went, hmmm glad that's over. They then just transitioned to democracy and re-introduced a whole bunch of laws. There was no blood-letting or civil war, it kind of just seemed to go back to what it was before he was in power.

The royal palace

The beautiful botanic gardens. Nice and cool

I think I may prefer Madrid to Barcelona, Barcelona is way too full of tourists, and you always feel like you have to watch out for scammers there. Here they just seem to love food, there aren't that many people around, but since it's the capital there are heaps of things to see. We saw a few of the sights, but really I think you could easily spend a weekend just admiring the buildings and eating.

The ticketing hall at Kilburn underground station - captures the
mood of the underground perfectly

One thing I noticed was how it didn't feel like a city in a country with such a high unemployment rate as Spain is meant to have.  They could really do with hiring a lot more people everywhere we went. You go into a cafe and it would be packed, but there would be one server. There would be one person selling tickets at museums, that sort of thing. Everywhere you went you had to wait because there just weren't enough people employed. They could easily drop their unemployment rate a few percentage points by employing people where they are most obviously needed.

We spent a lot of time in the parks, mainly because we happened to be there on a holiday again. In England they have the early May bank holiday, which I think is the first Monday of May. This is going to occur around the 1st of May for some of the time. And you forget, living in the capitalist UK, that the 1st of May in the rest of Europe is Labour day, and is a super important holiday. So we always forget that everything elsewhere is going to be closed on the 1st. And end up wandering around these foreign cities going why is everything shut, this is so weird. Until you remember where you are and what the date is.

Fascist buildings everywhere

Luckily there were some great places to walk around in Madrid. The city park, which has a full on boating lake in the middle of it. The main street, which is just full of these grandiose buildings, the botanic gardens, which were so cool after the heat of the streets.

We also did the three main museums; Prado, Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Reina Sofia. The Prado is kind of like the Louvre or the National Gallery, the main museum with the older style paintings. It's not as big as the other national museums, but still has 2 large floors, with paintings from 1100 through to 1800. This is definitely the museum of the tour buses, so either go early or order your tickets online, since the lines stretch round the building.

The Thyssen-Bornemisza was my favourite museum I think. Probably because it was both quiet, you can just turn up here and buy a ticket, and has slightly more modern paintings. It also has a great terrace, so kind of a cafe, but way more relaxed and attractive. I would visit just to have drinks here, which you can't say for many museum cafes. Finally there was the Reina Sofia, which was definitely the weirdest of the museums we visited. This is the modern art museum of the city. And even the visit was very modern, in that there were these big floors, but it was kind of hard to work out where the art might be. There were strange corridors, and empty rooms.

We had some great food there too, I'm never very good at finding restaurants in foreign cities, I never book anything, and so I just end up wandering around for ages until hunger forces my hand. Luckily the people of Madrid seem to really like their food, so even the obviously touristy places were tasty. We went to one place which did this super slow cooked lamb, oh that was so good, it just fell off the bone. I think it's really a town of tapas though, I've never seen so many tapas bars. And the thing to do, apparently, is they each do one specialty, so if you want mushrooms you go to one place, if you want prawns you go somewhere else. And you can spit your olive pits on the ground. That seems to be why they are so open, for ease of cleaning out the pits at the end of a night.

Aonach Mor

Ben Nevis is the biggest one

This was our last walk of the week, and we definitely saved the best for last. It's a 1200m mountain, but the best thing is you can get a gondola up the first 600m. Now that's the way to climb a hill. The climb pretty much starts from sea level, so even with that head start you still have another 600m to go, but at least you can avoid some of the slog.

This was a great little spot, you are walking up the mountain that is right next to Ben Nevis, so you actually get the views with Ben Nevis in it, which you could argue is better than the view when you are on Ben Nevis. And we chose a perfect day for it too, or rather Scotland finally blessed us with some sun. Well maybe not sun, but at least there was no hail or mist, which in Scotland is a perfect spring day.

The flat plateau of Aonach Mor

The snowless slopes at the start, this wasn't to last long

Even the gondola ride up and down was pretty cool. I really like gondolas, so much more secure than a little chair lift. Probably not really, but I like to think that they are. That wasn't the really cool thing about the ride though, apparently the World Mountain Bike championships were going to be held on the slopes the next week. So there were heaps of bikers there trying out the course, which goes right under the gondola.

It's a pretty good idea, during winter you have all the skiers going up and during the summer you have heaps of bikers. Year-round use of the gondola. The bikers would slot their bikes where you would normally expect the skis to go. It's funny that more ski areas don't turn their parks into multi-use facilities. The other great thing about the gondola was at the top there was a cafe serving macaroni cheese. Just what you need before starting a munro ascent!

Starting to get into the snow - an impressive ridgeline alongside

So I took a lot with Ben Nevis

The walk up the mountain was great, no path, you just walk out of the cafe and start heading up. Even in very late spring there was heaps of snow about. So much snow that there were still people skiing on the main slope. No chair lifts were running, that would have made the climb even easier. I guess they slogged their way up carrying their skis, in ski boots too, now that is the sign of true addiction.

This has got to be one of the easiest munros, which are Scottish hills over 3,000 feet, you only have to climb 600m, there is no scrambling along exposed ridges, you don't have to rope up or abseil down anything. Overall a very pleasant walk, a little steep, but then the top is quite a broad plateau, so you can really enjoy the views.

Surrounded by great ridges - with a view towards Aonach Beag

The plateau at the top.

Most of the walk was covered in snow. So it got a little bit scary on the very steepest part of the hill. It was always going to be ok, it was just that it was a bit more slippery than what is comfortable. But after a nut bar break I felt like I could tackle it. The very steep bit only lasted for another 50m or so up, and then it flattened out again. So I'm really glad I carried on.

The "walk" back down - so nice on the knees

I really like the valleys too.

The walk down was the best too, it was more like a run down. Rather than gingerly kicking steps down the ridgeline we had walked up we decided to "walk" down the bowl of the main ski field. Which was still covered in snow for the whole 600m elevation descent. It wasn't really a walk though, we could run down through the snow. With a few butt slides thrown in, it was the best way to descend a mountain. It had taken us about an hour or so to walk up, and we were back at the cafe in about 15 minutes. Really go climb this mountain, it's easy, and the view to effort ratio has to be the one of the highest I've ever done. Now to fill your screen with photos.

Starting to really get into the snow now

Yet another of Ben Nevis

Just such great views all round

Satisfaction

You know, I don't think there's anything quite as satisfying as going at an over-grown garden with a pair of shears. There is something about the mindless destruction that I really enjoy. The raking up of the carnage at the end is another matter.

We had our first trip to Ikea yesterday, somehow we have managed to get through multiple rental properties without ever succumbing to that blue and yellow lure. The visit wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, and actually I think if I ever return, I could do that visit in 30 minutes. Research online, forget the showroom, go straight to the self-service area and you are going home a winner.

Glencoe and Surrounds

The mountains around Kinlochleven

I have only visited Glencoe once before, which was just on a tour bus, so no walking involved. But I knew at the time I would have to be back, and it's finally happened. After 3 days in the Cairngorms we drove over to Glencoe area. This region is also fantastic, definitely some visits back here are required as well! This is a lot more dramatic than the Cairngorms, with really sharp peaks and long ridge lines. We were staying in Kinlochleven, which is really a great place to be based for walking. It's actually on the West Highland Way, I think it's the last night of the walk, the following day you would make your way into Fort William and the end of the route. So the whole town seems really suited to walkers, there are 3 pubs in town, all of which cater purely to walkers. And there are multiple routes (not just the West Highland Way) that start right from town. The weird thing is it used to be an aluminium smelter and yet it's surrounded by these beautiful mountains. It must have been a very different town 30 odd years ago.

Hints of the mountain tops

The weather wasn't great the whole time we were there. We had one rest day where we sat inside and just played cards all day, never done that before, just straight through, the whole day, card game after card game. It was a good day to spend inside though, the wind was howling, and when it wasn't hailing it was raining. So pretty glad not to be up a mountain on that day.

My one shot of the West Highland Way

We did part of the West Highland way, just because we thought we should. I had actually been kind of keen to do this at some point, but I am a little off it now having done part of it. The thing with these long distance paths is that they have to be doable even in really bad weather. People have hotels booked along the way, so they can't really spend an extra evening holed up somewhere waiting for the weather to clear. This means that the paths generally have to go through the less interesting part of the countryside, meaning the valleys. And the paths are always super-wide, almost fire trails. In fact some of the walk we did was on logging roads, so you also had big trucks full of tree trunks driving passed. Not the most conducive to appreciating nature. There are also a lot of people doing the walk, you are always passing people, or seeing people up ahead. It was good to experience this, since now I don't have to use a whole holiday to realise it's not what I want to do.

Stunning scenery - those mountains!

Bluebells near Kinlochleven

The weather that day was also the worst of the whole trip, which probably added to the less than positive reaction to this walk. We did a little side-trip up to an iron age fort, this was the one point at which we got out of the valleys for a bit, and man was it windy up there! Smart move walk constructors, keeping people protected. I'm sure I saw some people doing the walk in jeans, so really you can't make the route too arduous.

We had two other great walks whilst we were staying in Kinlochleven. The first was a super long walk, it must have been 20 odd kilometres, with maybe a third of that completely pathless, and with some elevation gain. You start off in the town and follow the river out and up. Through this great mossy forest. There was so much water around. It's such a a pleasure not having to carry much water on your back, because you know there will always be another creek to fill up from. It did mean a few river crossings, some were better than others. At one, there was a log placed across the stream that you could kind of balance on. It wasn't deep, or wide, but it was fast flowing and did flow straight off the cliff. What was really off-putting was the deer skeleton that had caught in the log and who's spine was flapping in the current. Another bridge was completely rusted through so had to be skirted. That wasn't so bad though, given the lack of decomposing animals.

Is this New Zealand or Scotland?

The washed away bridge

As we got higher the views got more and more stunning. It reminded me of walking in the Swiss alps, there were these rings of snow-capped peaks all around you. And the best thing was not another person in sight. We lunched at this beautiful mountain hut by a lake. It must have taken some serious work to construct this thing, solid walls, fireplace, multi-levels. I guess the stones would have been helicoptered in, but just putting it together would have been an undertaking and a half. It was ever so slightly spoiled by the two rotting sheep carcasses right outside the door. They were the only sheep we saw all day, and it was unfortunate they had to be stinking up the lunch spot.

After lunch we left the paths behind and struck out up the nearest hill. Our goal was to go up and over two ridge lines before dropping down to a saddle and another lake and then following a different river back into town.

The second ridge line was a bit of an undertaking. It was almost like climbing a wall, and there was still snow at the top, quite amazing for late May. But the views were incredible. You could not see a single sign of human habitation from the top, no villages, no roads, no people. That is actually kind of rare in the UK (you are probably not surprised to discover), so to be able to get to a spot like that, on a day walk, is what Scotland is all about for me.

Can't get enough of these views

It was a bit of a forced march after cresting the final hill. The day was getting on and we knew the kitchens didn't stay open that late. No way was I missing my dinner that day!

And now this post has gone on for longer than expected, so I will have to display the last great Kinlochleven walk we did in a different post.

The view from the final mountain. I wish I was back there

Dave and the Mamores, have to be back to tackle these

Almost home, the final descent to Kinlochleven