Ironing a few things out.

Here at Snail Towers we love a bit of history - and we particularly love the older stuff - the Mesolithic through to the Iron Age. One of the first things we did on arriving in South Wales was head off to discover what the area had to offer. There was a pretty obvious first port of call - the famed Pentre Ifan burial chamber which sits atop a hill in the heart of the Pembrokeshire National Park. Of course, we did have to find it first - and that was not an entirely stright forward proposition.  

You see, our Neolithic ancestors were pretty sophisticated whne it came to balancing rocks on top of each other - as anyone who has ever seen Stone Henge will happily attest. They were, however, less than thoughtful in their choice of location for their stone circles and burial chambers. For every Stonehenge and Silbury Hill (handily located by the side of the A303 and A4 respectively) there's a Twelve Apostles, a hefty walk from the road across Ilkley Moor, or Pentre Ifan - which is, I grant you, only a very short walk from the road, but finding the right bit of the road or even finding right road, well. That was more difficult...

I'm sure there is a perfectly straightforward route from the main road, through the series of single track lanes that take you up to the top of the hill to the monument. It's probably beautifully signposted.

All I'm saying is that we didn't find it - and I have to say we weren't the only ones. Having failed to find a brown sign pointing us off the main road, we struck off in what we hoped was the right direction armed with a map and Mrs Snail's famed sense of direction. On reflection, the map was a mistake. Mrs Snail's sense of direction is legendary - which is a good job, because I could get lost in my own living room. She can direct us to a place we've never been before without ever looking at a map - honestly, it's practically a super-power.

On reflection therefore, letting her have the map might have been a mistake. Mrs Snail is not good with maps.

I have to say, the fashion in Wales  - which is also big in the West Country - for having twisty turny single track roads with mahoosive hedges towering up on either side preventing you from getting your bearings doesn't help much. Frankly it's a pain in the arse, and it makes it really really hard to get your bearings.

As a result we found ourselves driving along seemingly endless corridors of green leaved walls with almost no reference points.

Eventually we came to a "T" junction. There were no signs to tell us which way to go but Mrs Snail had put down the map and was reasonably sure that we needed to go left. Just as we were about to another car approached from the right and screeched to a halt in the middle of the road. They paused for a moment looking at their map, and when we pulled out to the left, they followed us.

Eventually, after a couple of miles we finally hit on the smallest brown tourist sign we have ever seen which pointed us to the monument. Picking our way down the single track road, cautiously overtaking the horses from the stealth riding school that almost literally appeared from nowhere* until we reached a bit of road where an assortment of cars and camper vans had pulled into the narrow strip of verge that serves as the Pentre Ifan parking area.

Our ancestors just loved stacking rocks on rocks...

At first glance, Pentre Ifan looks like a strange sort of burial chamber. Mostly because it's clearly not a chamber at all, but a large slab of rock supported on three rough stone uprights, with a couple more slabs of rock sort of loitering around.

The truth is that Pentre Ifan is a mere skeleton of its former self. Back in the day there would have been more massive stones involved in this structure, and the whole thing would have been turfed over, making the structure effectively subterrainian. Over the years the turfs have eroded away and stones have been taken by local people with enough sense to realise that nicking stones that somebody has thoughtfully stacked up near where you want them is a damn sight easier than digging a quarry.

What you see is what remains, and it's still pretty spectacular. From the site there is a beautiful view down to the coast, which may have been a factor - the chamber's builders may have wanted their dead to have a decent view. Mind you, if that's the case they fluffed it slightly because the door of the chamber would have been facing inland, not out to the sea...

After spending some time exploring the site (this doesn't take long - everything there is to see is in these pictures), soak in the atmosphere (not quite as ethereal as Stonehenge, but you do get a sense of history and age) and admire the view we headed back down the hill to the coast road.

Not far from Pentre Ifan along that road is the Iron Age Hill Fort known as Castell Henllys. It's not the biggest Iron Age Hill Fort you'll ever see - you'd lose it at one end of Dorset's Maiden Castle, for example, but size isn't everything, and Castell Henllys is probably the most interesting hill fort in the British Isles.

You see they've been excavating this site since the early eighties, and at some point early in the history of that excavation somebody had a stroke of genius. (Bear with me, there's a longish explanation coming up - if you want to skip past it, just scroll down to the paragraph that starts with "Oi!").

The thing about archaeology is that it's pretty much a destructive process. You find your site, you dig it up and expose stuff which was previously buried. This is good, because it means we learn about the past, but it is also bad, because being buried is what protected the site from the elements. Now, if you have a big stone building you can leave it exposed and maintain it. If you're only left with fancy mosaic floors and whatnot you can either re-bury them or put a roof over the top.

But if you're digging the Iron Age, what you basically find is evidence of things that aren't there any more and so cannot be preserved. Iron age villages were made of wood. So what you find is evidence of where the wooden posts that supported the round houses were, the "drip circles" caused by rain dripping off the roof, evidence of burning where the hearth was and, depending on the geology of the site, possibly the ditch dug beneath the floor so that it didn't get damp (in the way there's usually a gap beneath the foolrboards of a modern house.

Once you've dug those out all you're left with is the site map you made to record where things were. Because you have to backfill the holes, or people fall down them and sue your university. Besides, if you leave a bunch of holes in a field they'll eventually end up collapsing and filling in by themselves, and what use is a bunch of holes anyway?

And that's where the stroke of genius comes in. Oh, hang on, well get the skippers back first, shall we?

Oi! If you skipped the expanitary bit you can come back now! "Hang on," said somebody, "let's re-create the place as it would have been, to better understand Iron Age life and put theories about how our Iron Age ancestors did things to the test!"

I may not be quoting directly, but you get the general idea...

And that, basically is what they did.  Beginning with the rather unromantically named "Roundhouse One" in 1982, archaeologists have painstakingly reconstructed three roundhouses, including the blacksmith's forge, and a raised grain store. Unlike other "Iron Age Villages" dotted around Britain, Castell Henllys's houses are built exactly on the sites of the originals. Rather than backfilling post holes with soil, they back filled them with, well, posts. These are buildings that have, genuinely been rebuilt.

The roped off areas of posts are where other houses would have stood.

We arrived in the visitor centre car park in the mid afternoon of a bleak, rain sodden August day. This should come as no surprise, the summer of 2015 was, after all, relentlessly wet.

Shrouded in Gore-Tex we squelched our way across muddy car park - Mrs Snail wisely chose to don her wellies, I stuck with my sandals on the grounds that they'd dry quick and my feet couldn't get any wetter - and into the attactive wooden building that houses the cafe, museum, gift shop and ticket office.

As you might expect on a day like this, the place was crowded with people who were less than keen to venture out in the rain. For this reason, I could forgive the lady behind the ticket counter for being a little flustered. However, I always find it very difficult to forgive customer facing staff in any business - but especially one that exists to serve tourists - where staff are straighforwardly rude and/or inattentive. This staff member was both.

There was no queue when we arrived at the desk, but we still stood, unacknowledged for several minutes while the woman faffed about writing something in a book. It might well have been important, and honestly I wouldn't have minded waiting if she'd just given us a brief smile and a "Be with you in a tick." but now. She just ignored us with the self satisfied air of somebody who is secure in the knowledge that whatever they're doing is far more important than you are. When she eventually deigned to recognise our presence she sold us our tickets** as though she were doing us a favour with an expression that made it abundently clear that we were lower than something she might have stepped in in a cow field.

I confess, I was tempted to explain, loudly and at length, exactly how unsatisfactory her level of service was, but then thought, "we're on holiday - I'm not wasting time on negativity". So I took the proffered tickets and we ventured out into the rain and began to climb the hill that put the hill in "hill fort".

If you're not good with walking, or very, very unfit, there's no disguising the fact that it's a bit of a trek to the top. There are, I am told, numerous woodland walks and trails. However, as the rain continued to plummet from a sky as grey as Gandalf's hat we paid them no mind and chose to head directly up the wide path which spirals around the hill to the little settlement.

As we approached the entrance we were struck by the earthwork defences that surrounded the fort. I confess that me and Mrs Snail are not the fittest specimens of humanity, but we were more than a little out of breath merely from a leisurely stroll up the hill. If we'd had to do it at a run, carrying an iron sword, and then had to negotiate the eathern ramparts while people behind a wooden stockade were firing arrows and chucking rocks at us?

Not an enticing prospect.

Fortunately, these days the locals are friendly***.

The Chief's House.

We made our way through the gates to the settlement  - past the rather imposing wicker man guarding the right hand side of the entrance and made our way to the closest Round House (don't call them huts), ducking in through the surprisingly low entrance of the "Chief's House". It was truly a revelation, and it made me glad for the deluvian weather.

You see, had we visited on a warm, sunny day, we would probably have had a look around the thatched round house with its low walls of mud, straw, horse hair and dung and thought something along the lines of "well, it seems comfy enough but I wouldn't want to be here when the weather was manky". Visiting on a day of such damp and chilly weather we got a real sense of how effective the round house design actually was - they might look primitive, but they're not.

That squat little doorway was like a portal between the world of cold and wet and the world of the warm and dry. In my ignorance I had always assumed that your average round house was a damp little place. The Chief's house was anything but. Although the walls themselves were low, the conical roof gave the space a real sense of height and space.

Following the standard round house format the centre of the space held the hearth - literally the heart of the house - providing heating, cooking and a little light, although not much, because embers, not flames were the order of the day. Around the fire four low benches carved from whole logs were arranged to allow people to sit around the glowing coals. The woodsmoke from the fire scented the air and rose up into the thatch. Roundhouses have no chimney, the smoke simply rises up throug hthe pourous thatching of the roof, helping to keep the thick layer of straw vermin free.

At the back (if a round building can be said to have a "back" - it was opposite the doorway. You know what I mean) there were a few private "rooms" separated from the main space by textile hangings and animal hides which would have served as sleeping quarters for the Chief and his family. To the left hand side of the doorway was a low table affair, at which crouched a woman in iron-age dress teaching three small tourist children how to make bread iron-age style.

"Now," she said, as she handed them wooden bowls of dough, "you've seen how I kneeded it. The bad news is you have to do that two thousand times..." She went to tend the fire, blowing the embers up into a low flame, while the children kneeded, counting "1,2,3,80,200,500,1500,2000 - 'scuse me, I've finished!"

With a wry grin which most definately said "Kids today, what can you do eh?" the iron age lady collected up the barely kneeded dough and took it to the fire, placing it on a hot slab of rock to cook. Mrs Snail and I ventured off to the next hut, smaller than the Chief's hut, but build to essentially the same design. This time there was a full ring of log seating around the hearth and these were full of people listening to stories around the fire.

The final of the three roundhouses was smaller still. In this one the hearth was slightly off centre, and there was no log benching or curtained off private space, just a low plank bed. By the fire sat a man in iron-age dress who ushered us in and bid us sit at the back of the roundhouse.

Proudly he showed us a pair of smith's tongs that had been made in that very smithy - for this roundhouse was endeed built on the site of the settlement's original smithy and forge. They had been made, he explained, by a graduate student from the University of Aberystwyth who had spent some months working at the forge working out some of the secrets of iron-age metal working.The student had also begun work on a sword, which I held in my hand. It was horribly unbalanced, and cracked down the middle but it may have been representetive of the kind of weapon your average iron-age foot soldier might have wielded.

Back in the Chief's house there was a much finer sword which I was also privillaged to hold (in that I regard holding it as a privillage - they'll let anyone have a go with it). This was shiney and balanced and pretty damn sharp. When you consider that most people in the iron-age didn't know the secret of working metal, those men that did, who could turn black, soft raw iron into hard, deadly, shiney blades must have seemed like wizards. Given the variable quality of swords you can see why the good ones, the ones that caught the sunlight, didn't bend and kept an edge, must have seemed magical. The origins of stories about legendary weapons like Excalibur are all too easy to see.

By now the weather was closing in, and closing time was approaching. Iron-age residents of the settlement were beginning to pack things away, squelching across the muddy grass in animal hide sandals which somehow seemed far more efficient on the slippery surface than my own twentyfirst century "all-terrain" pair. Had the weather been less driech we might perhaps have explored the woodland walks and herb gardens.

But we didn't. Because we were wet enough already.

Time then to head back to modern Wales, which I'll tell you about next time.


*Seriously, nothing for ages, and then suddenly horses all over the place...

** Summer prices:
Adult £5.00
Child £3.50
Concession £4.25
Family £13.50
Young Archaeologist Club members go free when accompanied by a paying adult.

***If you discount the unrepresentetive misery on the ticket desk - and who knows, when you visit she might be in a better mood - or even on her day off!

Things to do in New Quay when it's raining.

The rain was relentless - fine, even gentle, but utterly unstoppable. A never ending cascade from a sullen battleship sky devoid of all mirth, all hope and any prospect of ever changing. 

And yet we were not alone as we stood, huddled in sodden waterproofs on the rain slicked stones at the end of the harbour wall. There must have been what? Forty? Maybe fifty of us all staring fixedly out over the churning unkempt waves. Someone pointed out over the water and a score of camera lenses and binoculars swiveled to follow their finger. Sure enough, maybe a hundred yards from the harbour mouth there was a splash that had nothing to do with wind or wave - the briefest glimpse of a fluked tail and a rakish dorsal fin sliding gracefully beneath the brine revealed the splash to be the work of a bottle nosed dolphin, a member of Cardigan Bay's resident community - one of only two permanent communities of bottle nosed dolphins in the UK.* 

Somewhere in this picture there is a dolphin. Trust me.

"There's another one!" We turn, the air vibrating with the clicking of cameras and the delighted gasps of the crowd as the dorsal finned back of another dolphin slides gracefully above the surface for the briefest of moments and then slips silently into the depths once more. They were clearly having a camera-shy day, because the shot above is the best image I managed to capture.

There is just something about dolphins. Perhaps it's the fact that they always seem so cheerful. Perphaps it's just that they seem to like us that makes them so attractive. Who knows? Whatever magic they weave around us it is, I can attest, powerful enough to make a large numbers of people stand in the rain at the end of a harbour wall in a tiny seaside town in South Wales at the southern end of Cardigan Bay.

We were in New Quay. Note the space, it's quite important. As we did our research in preparation for this trip entering "New Quay" into Google elicited the inquiry "Did you mean Newquay?" along with a couple of million hits for the larger but similarly named seaside town in Cornwall.

This New Quay is smaller. Much smaller. But while it's also not as good for surfing (although you can catch the odd wave there) it most certainly is a better place to see dolphins. Indeed, between June and October they can be seen pretty much every day from the harbour wall - which is why the marine biologists who study them carry out their surveys from there. At the landward end of the harbour wall there's even a little office which keeps a record of how many dolphins, porpoises etc have been seen that day, and keeps a selection of telescopes of binoculars by the windows to help you get a close up view - and the views are clearly there to be had.

Take a stroll around the gift shops in the town and you'll see any number of framed photos showing these magnificent mammals leaping from azure waters mere inches from the stone of the harbour wall, their silver grey bodies glistening in the summer sun beneath saphire skies.

If you go and visit New Quay - and you really should - those pictures were not taken on the day we were there. We got nothing more than the odd dorsal fin and splash from a tail. Personally I reckon the beasts had seen the weather and decided they'd be drier beneath the waves...

On a nice day the harbour is lovely...

In the sunshine, as we were to discover later in the week, the place is as pretty as a picture of a really pretty thing. In the pouring rain under clouds as grey as an accountants suit? Not so much. When the dolphins eventually decided that human watching was getting boring and swam away to deeper water, we decided to head off in search of lunch.

In a place this small you wouldn't imagine finding a half way decent eaterie would be difficult. To be fair, there would be no reason for it to be - we just managed to make it so.

New Quay's "tourist quarter" is essentially a horseshoe shaped road which loops from the main road at the top of the hill, down to the sea and then back up the hill again. Starting as we were in the harbour at the bottom of the loop, we headed off along the seafront checking out the various cafes and restaurants that the little town has to offer.

As regular readers will know, we take lunch very seriously so we weren't about to just go for the first place we saw. So we trekked off, along the front and up the hill, dilligently reading menus and peeking through windows to check whether places "looked right". And all the time, the rain kept falling. Our gore-tex jackets clung to us, waterlogged and clammy. Every place we looked at we thought "Hmmmm' looks OK, but what else is there? Is there somewhere even better up the hill?"

Turned out there was a limited time we could stand to squelch through the rain sodden steets before our patience ran out. By the time we were completing the circle and trudging back down the hill towards the harbour again we'd had enough. Looking into  a bar/restaurant with an old fashioned exterior, but with a cool, contemporary interior decor and a simple but appetizing menu we considered our wet feet and calculated how far back we'd have to walk to get to some of the other places we'd liked and thought "Sod it. This'll do."

We were greeted by a very nice chap who turned out to be the co-owner. He sat us down and  talked us through the menu, brought us drinks  and was, essentially, the perfect host. He took our order of a cheese burger (me) and pate and toast (Mrs Snail) and then vanished, presumably to do the cooking, because we didn't see him again.

He was replaced, however, by his wife and co-owner, who as also lovely, chatting cheerfully about where she was from, how the business was new but beginning to take off, how proud she was of her staff, how much she loved New Quay. about our holiday and our plans for the rest of our time in Wales - we could not have asked for a bettr host or for better service. We were impressed. We really, really liked the place.

And yet I haven't given you the name of this wonderful establishment, nor the names of the wonderful proprietors. 

Well, there's a reason for that.

Because then the "food" arrived.

Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

"Bad" doesn't even begin to cover it. 

Mrs Snail's pate was clearly the cheapest of the cheap shop bought offerings. It had an unpleasant waxy yet grainy consistency, as though it were made of crayola. I'll happily take the menu's word that chicken livers were involved in its creation, but it was nothing like any chicken liver pate I've ever eaten before. The toast was definitely toasted bread, but it too was nothing to write home about - just two slices of cheap white "Mother's Pride" style white sliced.

My cheese burger was no better. The bun was fine, what back in Yorkshire I'd have called a "bap" - squishy, moist and airy. Browned on top with  light dusting of flour. So far, so good. The chips were OK - no more than that, but fair enough. They were perfectly inoffensive.**

It was very much all downhill from there.

The meal was accompanied by peas - which has a bit of the ring of the children's menu about it now I think about it, which would have been bad enough. These peas however were not the bright, vibrant green of fresh (or frozen) garden peas. No. These peas wore the grim khaki of the tin.

Now. I quite like tinned peas. 

But I do not expect to be served them when I'm in an establisment that bills itself as a "Restaurant and Bar". For a start, they go cold very quickly and by the time they reached our table they were already approaching tepid. And then there was the beef patty itself. It was not good. At all.

In all fairness it was not the worst beef burger I've ever been served. That distinction belongs to a lunch in a hotel-that-shall-not-be-named*** in Scotland, where I actually saw them take the burger out of a can. This was not that bad. It was however, the next best (or worst, I suppose) thing.

The exterior of the patty looked OK - it was the appropriaqte shade of charred dark brown you'd expect. For a moment, in spite of the khaki peas, I allowed myself to hope. This was a mistake, because I was disappointed.

The interior of the patty was an odd shade of reddish pink - not the pink of the "meduim rare" that is so popular in restaurant burgers these days, but the sort of unnatural "whatever this is it only has a tangential relationship with actual meat" pink you get in the cheapest of processed foods. It certainly didn't taste of beef.  It was unpleasant. We were in an establishment that claimed to be a reastaurant. McDonalds would have been 1000% better. I have no criticism more damning.

And yet, I have not named this eaterie. I have avoided holding it up for riducule and approbation.

Why? 

Because we really liked the place. I really don't want to give the owners and their restaurant a bad review. When we ate there they'd been open a month. They had clearly put a lot of thought into the decor - lots of clean white walls with pebble grey wood panneling and the legend "Life is better when you're laughing" emblazoned on the wall in cursive script. The service was attentive, friendly and personable - I have never felt more welcome anywhere. Every single thing about the place was perfect, if you ignore the fact that the food was terrible. Now I grant you, having terrible food is a bit of a drawback for a retaurant, but I really really want this place to succeed. If this place finds a decent chef who cares about ingredients it will rise to astonishing heights. I hope it does. If it doesn't, I can't imagine it will survive all that long. But if it dies, I won't contrubute to its destruction by writing a bad review.

What can I say? I like to support new enterprise. Also - and rather terrfyingly - this wasn't even the worst meal we ate while we were in South Wales.

Next time, we'll have a look at something better...

*The other is in Moray.

**And when "inoffensive" is the best thing you can say about any aspect of a meal you know there's a problem.

***At least not for now. The hotel in question has changed hands since we ate there. At some point we'll go back and try it again - there may be a report at that point...

Having a Wales of a time!

Wales is a nation that, until now, has avoided the attentions of the Road Snail. A visit to the valleys was clearly long overdue - not least because my mother* lives in Cardigan. In the long, wet August of twenty fifteen we decided to rectify the situation and set out to explore the southern end of Cardigan Bay.

It's an area with no shortage of places to park your 'van, with caravan parks pretty much everywhere you look along the coast. And what a coast! High, rockey cliffs plummeting down to blue-green seas. Sandy beaches, brightly painted seaside houses in picturesque little harbour centric villages and more birdlife than you can shake a stick at. As we drove along the coast road in the general direction of Cardigan we were joined, at car window height by a magnificent Red Kite which soared alongside us for a good quarter mile. Snail Towers is located in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, where we have no shortage of Red Kites ourselves. Never seen one this close though. We were on the road, it was out over the cliff, but no more than twenty feet away at any time - it was just glorious!

After a good deal of reasearch Mrs Snail selected Rhrydhalen Farm, a beautifully secluded Caravan Club Certificated Location just outside the pretty little seaside town of New Quay**, about which more later. Have I sung the praises of CLs in the blog yet? They really are excellent - and we've yet to visit a bad one. Limited to five units and generally offering a lower level of facilities than full blown Club sites*** they are generally little oases of peace. Rhrydhalen Farm was no exception. 

Baasically you follow the coast road south towards Cardigan until you get to the village of Synod Inn. Then you take the right hand turn, drive two miles down the road, past the sign for the Honey Farm and keep going until you gget to the equally little village of Cross Inn. Turn right at the shop and then after about two hundred yards take a left into the site's field. Stop the car, get out, take a deep breath and immediately feel relaxed. It's the sort of place that has that kind of effect on the soul.

Barney the Pony

 The neatly kept field of bright green grass takes up up three quarters of an acre of a larger field, the rest of which is fenced off and used for grazing. When we were there the asole occupant of the grazing section was an immensely friendly chestnut pony called Barney, who belonged to the site owner's grandson and was just visiting, so however adorable he is, there's no point booking in just to see him. He is adorable though...

The caravans all lined up neatly alongside the tall leafy hedge that separates the site from the quiet single track road that provides an alternative route into the pretty little seaside village of New Quay.

Our quiet little pitch.

It was an incredibly tranquil spot, ideally suited as a base either for exploring the surrounding area or just heading down to the beach every day.

We opted for the former - about which, more next time...

*A woman I might possibly dub "Grandma Snail" were it not for the terrifying look she gave me when I jokingly described her and her partner as "elderly people". Had we not been in a restaurant at the time I honestly believe she might have stabbed me...

**Not to be confused with the surfing haven of Newquay in Cornwall.

***Although every single CL we've stayed at has offered at least one flush toilet, as well as water, electric hook-ups and chemical waste disposal points. This makes them all better equipped than our beloved Grummore, which is a fully fledged site but has no toilets and is only half elctrified...

The Road goes Ever On

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."

J. R. R. TOLKIEN (As Bilbo Baggins), The Fellowship of the Ring

For the first time in many years we are remaining at Snail Towers and not venturing forth with the Snail at the beginning of June. It feels strange, but you know how it is, there's stuff that needs doing at home and so here we are, still here.

We're feeling the pull of the road though, which put me in mind of the above quotation - roads are seductive things. In The Fellowship of The Ring Bilbo goes on to observe that the same little road that goes past Bag End in Hobbiton is the same road that, eventually leads through Mirkwood to the Lonely Mountain where the Dragon Smaug once kept his hoard and ravaged the town of Dale.

In other words, roads lead to adventure!

It's a trope that has persisted throughout the twentieth century and into the twentyfirst, through all forms of fiction from Jack Kerouac to Mad Max -via the Blues Brothers and who knows what else? What are the delightfully silly and insanely popular Fast and Furious movies about if not the love of the road?*

And so, sitting here in Snail Towers, I find myself reflecting on old Bilbo's words. Just as the road outside Bag End led ultimately to the Lonely Mountain, and as young Frodo would later discover, also through Rohan, and Moria, and Minas Tirith to the heart of Mordor, the road outside Snail Towers will lead us along an unbroken ribbon of asphalt to Bunree and Altnaharra, to Leek and Buxton, to Minehead and Hastings - to wherever we want to go.

The lure of the road is pretty well irresistable - as I've always said, one of the joys of the caravan lifestyle is the getting to the destination, not just the destination itself.

It's fair to say though, that not all roads are created equal.

If you read the post I wrote about The Long, High Road way back in November 2012, and the four sequel posts that made up High Road North Series in August the following year then you'll already know some of my favourites.

The A66 between Scotch Corner and Penrith, for example, sports a tank base (although we've never actually seen a tank there we continue to live in hope), castles, and some breathtaking scenery as you descend from the heights of the Pennines into the lowlands of Cumbria, and then on towards the hills of the Lake District - taking you, at least in part along the old Roman Road which gives you at least a little bit of a sense of history.

Then there's the A82, across the splendour of Rannoch Moor, through Glencoe and along the Great Glen. The magnivicent twenty odd miles of desolation between Lairg and Altnaharra, the A836 which runs almost the entire length of Scotland from Durness in the West to John O' Groats in the East, and provides some astonishing views of the coast and sea lochs of the far, far north. Mind you, John O'Groats is a massively disappointing place, so you probably don't want to go all the way to the end...

There are of course many other roads that are far less attractive. Not a big fan of the A9 south of Inverness, for example. There are few roads in the country more desperate to become dual carriageways! In our pre-caravan days the A9 was our original route to Inverness on the way up to Assynt. I don't think we ever drove that route - in either direction - without getting stuck for miles and miles behind a succession of slow moving lorries and tractors. And for the record - I have no memories of ever getting stuck behind a caravan.

It was frustration with driving in long, bad tempered convoys that made us switch from the East Coast route north to the West Coast route north which we now know as "the long  high road".

Not that the long high road is totally perfect. The stretch of the A74/M74 between the boarders and Glasgow is pretty featureless for a start, and although the A82 features many fine views, like the A9 is suffers badly from being not really big enough to take the volume of traffic it now has to accomodate. As you drive towards Fort William there are many signs demanding an upgrade  - and I have to say that if the A82 was in the South East of England it would probably be at least a dual carriageway and maybe even a motorway by now.

The same can be said of the A1 as it runs through Northumberland. A lot of money and effort has gone into the upgrading of this historic arterial route though Yorkshire (which of course is only fitting - Yorkshire deserves nothing but the best) so that it's a three lane motorway all the way though England's greatest county. But once you hit Northumberland it's not only not motorway, most of it is not even dual carriageway! Given that the road doesn't much less busy through the far north east of England than it is through Yorkshire this seems more than a little unfair. 

And of course, there is the abomination that is the M25. There's a joke in the book Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman that a demon altered the course of London's "orbital motorway" so that it forms "the sigil *odegra* in the language of the Black Priesthood of Ancient Mu, and means 'Hail the Great Beast, Devourer of Worlds'." Well, people say it was a joke. Having driven along it with a caravan on the back personally I can believe that this is true.

I mean, intellectually I know it's just a very big ring road. But seriously, if you're looking for the most benighted stretch of tarmac in the world, you don't need to look much further. The surface is frequently terrible, the traffic is awful - I got the impression that every single other motor vehicle was deliberately trying to kill everybody else and if you find yourself on the eastern half you have to contend with the Dartford Crossing.

Yikes.

We took the Snail to Essex once (a much maligned county which we found to be beautiful) and had to brave the Dartford Crossing. You'd think it would be easy. It's a road that goes over a bridge. How hard can that be?

Well, somebody seems to have engineered the whole thing so that you can't avoid getting into the wrong lane at the toll booths, and at the same time devised a method of forcing you to join the traffic from the other toll booths at such an angle that you can't quite see what's coming. I mean, if they'd done that on purpose it would be a work of genius! As it is, well, let's just say we really enjoyed our trip to Essex, but we've not been back...

These are all details though. There is more to the idea of "the road" than mere geography and civil engineering.

The Road (and it deserves the capitalisation) is freedom. It can take you away from where you are to where you want to be. You might be driving to work in the morning. You might not be looking forward to the day. But you can take comfort in the fact that if you turn left instead of right at that junction the road doesn't have to take you to work, it can take you quite literally anywhere. You won't, of course, but you can. And if you've got a caravan on the back you can go as far as you like.





As Tolkien put it:



Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on,
Under cloud and under star.
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen,
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green,
And trees and hills they long have known.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

The Road goes ever on and on
Out from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone.
Let others follow, if they can!
Let them a journey new begin.
But I at last with weary feet
Will turn towards the lighted inn,
My evening-rest and sleep to meet.

Still 'round the corner there may wait
A new road or secret gate;
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.



*And I bet that's the first time anyone's ever referenced that paeon of praise to the petrolhead in a blog about caravans...

Gathering again in Glencoe.

Here at Snail Towers we have mixed feelings about Glencoe.

It is, as anyone who has hiked, cycled or driven through it (or seen Skyfall) will know, breathtakingly, jaw droppingly, heart breakingly beautiful. It doesn't matter what time of year you go there, there is always something to delight the eye and thrill the senses. It's a magical location - indeed I've gone on about how brilliant it is at some length in the past.

So why the mixed feelings?

Well, Glencoe is a few miles south of the Caravan Club site at Bunree, and Bunree is our usual stop-over spot on the way south after a visit to Strathnaver. On our way north we tend not to hang around, which means that leisurely visits to Glencoe almost always mean we're on our way home and they can sometimes be tinged with a touch of "end of holiday blues".

So it was on this occasion. We were heading hoime from our blissful break at Grummore in the far north, and had paused for two nights at Bunree, figuring a day off from driving might make us less zombified on our return, as well as giving us a chance to spend some time taking in the aforementioned magnificence of Glencoe.

So, our one full day at Bunree began with a lazy start, a full "caravan breakfast" of bacon, eggs, fried bread and coffee, before we set out to take in the beauty of the glen. The cloud was low on this late spring day, and there was more than a hint of drizzle in the air. It didn't matter.

The heads of the hills on either side of the glen were visible, and they towered over us as we made our way from the sea level northern end of the glen, along the A82, climbing up towards the southern exit of the glen on Rannoch Moor.

If you're coming from the north, the first thing you see as you enter the glen is Loch Achtriochtan. As lochs go it's pretty tiny - you'd lose it a thousand times over in Loch Naver or Loch Shin, but as I've been insisting for most of my life, size isn't everything. This roundish sheet of water often acts as a perfect mirror, and it offers any number of perfect photo opportunities on a bright clear day as the hills and the sky are reflected in its surface. It can be heartbreakingly lovely.

This day, however, was not such a day.

The sky was grey. The clouds were low, the sky was grey and the loch was rippled by a steady breeze, so reflections were out of the question. Glencoe, like so many other stunning locations in Scotland is in no way dependent on the weather for its beauty. We drove on, up the glen, the mountains on either side of us brooding beneath leaden skies, the grey asphalt ribbon of the A82 led us up and on to the northern edge of Rannoch Moor.

Where we promptly turned around and headed back down through the glen.

You see, Glencoe is always a spectacle, but it's far more spectacular when approached from the south. Approaching from the heights of Rannoch Moor, suddenly deep grey craggy rocks rise up on either side of you as the road sweeps you around to the right, over a gorge cut by one of the branches of the rive coe with a huge waterfall on your left.

In the heat of the summer this waterfall, which drops the river coe about forty feet into the gorge, is little more than a plucky trickle. But in the spring, when the rain that Scotland is so famous for joins forces with the snow melting on the peaks of the mountains it transforms into an angry, roaring, frothing cascade. It can be truly breathtaking. The road then carries you on, through a gap cut through a towering wall of (I think) granite to form a door like entrance into the glen itself. 

And then, there you are. Coming from the south the road snakes you to the right and along the right hand side of the glen. But now, instead of climbing up a hill, you're starting high and the whole glen (one of the best exposed examples of what my geologist friends refer to as "cauldron subsidence" - I have no idea what that means, but it sure sounds impressive) is laid out before you, and it's astounding.

This view is widely acknowledged to be one of the most spectacular in Scotland, which to our way of thinking makes it one of the most spectacular in the world. There are two main parking areasto the left of the A82 where you can stop and soak it all in, or start any kind of walk from a gentle amble along the valley floor to a more ambitious attempt on the peaks.

Whatever you do though, DON'T stop in either of the main parking spots if you want to sit in your car and gaze at the view in peace, because the chances are you won't get any. It's inevitable that a place of such beauty will attract people who want to enjoy that beauty - we can hardly complain, we're tourists too! However, if you stay with your car you will be permenantly surrounded by scores of people who have been given five minutes to get off their tour coach, get a picture and get back back on the bus. Let's just say they don't add to the air of tranquility and leave it at that.

And then there's the piper. There's almost always a bloody piper.

Now. I love the pipes. I've always loved them. As a kid my Grandma brought me back a "scottish piper" doll from a trip to Edinburgh, and for a very long time I was determined to learn to play the bagpipes like the kilted military men I saw on the White Heather Club at New Years*. Looking bakcm this was a desire my family paid keen lipservice to, but somehow they never managed to find me a set of pipes to play.**

I have to be honest, I can't say I blame them.

But I do love the pipes. Both the traditional styles of the Massed Pipes and Drums and folk hero stalwarts such as Norman MacLean, and the more modern high octane "BagRock" offerings of the likes of the excellent Red Hot Chilli Pipers. There is something ethereal about a well played set of pipes, and you'd imagine that to hear the strains of traditional bagpipes in the heart of Glencoe would be a truly soulful experience.

Sorry. You'd be wrong.

I should be clear. At no point have we ever stopped in Glencoe and been afflicted by the sound of a bad piper. (Which is a mercy, because bad pipe playing is even more offensive to the ear than the wail of a badly played violin.) It's just that there, in the heart of the most spectacular landscape feature Lochaber has to offer***, I want to listen to the wind, to the rain, to the birdsong. Not to another rendition of "Scotland the Brave" or "Highland Cathedral".

It's really intrusive too. You can escape the crowds by getting out of the car and walking for a bit. The drone of the pipes can be heard from one end of the glen to the other if the wind is right.

Anyway.

The grey snake of the A82 drags you northwards around the side of the glen, back past Loch Achtriochtan, out of the glen and on to the village of Glencoe, a couple of miles to the north, nestling on the shores of Loch Leven.

Glencoe isn't a big place, but it's the biggest place within an hour's drive that isn't Fort William and it boasts all the amenities that you might need. There's a garage, a couple of gorcery stores - including a new and rather well appointed Co-op - a couple of hotels, the local Mountain Rescue Station and a fair number of BnBs. And attached to one of the hotels by the side of the A82 is the duck egg blue brilliance of The Glencoe Gathering.

We've eaten here a few times, but I've only written about it once before, on our first visit when the place was pretty new. On that visit we had an unfortunate incident with a garlicky chicken skewer. The fact that on one occasion we were served under-done chicken and yet we still went back tells you how good this place is.

And it really is that good. And I should stress that the bad chicken skewer incident was a true one off that was dealt with at the time and we've never ever had a problem like that since.

We pulled into the gravelled car park and made our way around the side of the wooden building to the front "Muddy Boots" entrance which leads you into the bar area. The rear door, labeled "fancy shoes" takes you into the restairant area - but both parts of the establishment serve the same menu and the view from the bar is better.

We took our seats, ordered drinks, and settled down to admire the view with menus in hand. Mrs Snail immediately went for the garlicky chicken skewers, while I eschewed the regular menu and ordered the Montreal Steak from the specials board. Then we sat back and took in our surroundings.

The bar area is a relaxed and informal space with wooden floors and either white painted or bare brick walls which are decorated with photographs of people climbing in the ice and snow of the winter Nevis Range. There's an acoustic guitar on a guitar stand in one corner bearing many signatures I didn't recognise, and the bar itself in another little niche.

The waitress who served us was clearly new to the job, and monumentally nervous (she eventually confided that it was her first day), but she was charming and, given it was her first day, rather good at it. The softly spoken bearded gentleman behind the bar who was clearly in charge provided her with gentle and relaxed instruction and all was well.

All was ever weller**** when the food arrived.

Those garlic skewers.. ooooooooh

Mrs Snail opted to give the Garlicky Chicken Skewers another try, and they were very, very good indeed. I mean, obviously if you don't like garlic you'd want to steer clear, but everyone else? Oh, you are just going to want to dig in. The garlic isn't overpowering, but it's strong enough that you're getting that hard alium hit. Married up with the onions and peppers with the slightly bitter earthy background from the chargrill the whole thing balances to create perfect harmony in your mouth.

Not the biggest steak in the world, but oh myyyyyyy, the FLAVOUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'd raided the specials board and plumped for the Montreal Steak. Now, I claim to be a foodie, and I love a good steak, but I'd never heard of a Montreal Steak until I visited the Gathering. Wikipedia however tells me that this is, in face, a thing. Whatever, it was a taste explosion on my tongue with the heat of Cayenne, the flavours of garlic and pepper and I know not what else. Even better, beneath the seasoning was the flavour of really good meaty char-grilled beef. It was juicy. It was tender. It was sublime.

Both meals came with fairly chunky chips (and they were listed as chips on the menu - none of your "fries" nonsense here) that were pale gold, crispy on the outside nad fluffy on the inside, and packed full of potato flavour and the speciality of the house - the salt and pepper salad.

This was something that impressed us on our first visit to The Gathering, and it continues to do so. It's one of those things - now I know about it? It seems like the most obvious thing in the world, but I'd never have thought of it in a million years.

Rocket is a famously peppery salad leaf. Samphire is a famously salty coastal vegetable. Salt and pepper is perhaps the most basic of flavour combinations, so Rocket and Samphire salad is a no-brainer - but have you ever seen it before? Because I haven't.

In short, lunch was amazing!

Everyone should visit Glencoe at least once in thier lives. That means you should visit Glencoe, if you haven't already had that privillage. While you're there, you're going to need to eat. You should eat at the Glencoe Gathering. To do anything else would be a wasted opportunity!





*And yes. I am aware that this dates me.

**Although I noticed with some amusement recently that they were selling them in Lidl, of all places. I was sorely tempted, but resisited becasue I like being married...

***No small claim for a district that also boasts Ben Nevis.

****What? It's a word. I just wrote it!

Our Deer friends, and other animals.

I'm probably going to talk about birds again this week, but not just birds.

You see, one of the many, many things about the northern highlands is the sheer amount of wildlife you can see without making any real effort. A Grummore story I think I've told before on the blog is the time a fellow caravanner we christened "Pink Trousers" because that was all he seemed to wear enquired "Do you ever see Red Deer here?" At the moment he asked the question there were about a dozen of the beasts grazing on the hill behind him.

Like these ladies, looking down on the site from above.

As a kid growing up in the Doncaster of the nineteen seventies and eighties I never really believed I'd ever get to see wild red deer, or birds of prey, or any large wild animal up close. Driving around Sutherland they are, frankly, pretty difficult to avoid. Take these chaps, for example:

Do we have two heads, or are you really bad at photographic composition?

These two were part of a large-ish group of young stags on the road between Syre and Kinbrace. We had to stop the car because several of them were standing inthe middle of the road, while others were perfectly happy just to stand and pose. Like this handsome chap:

You lookin' at me?

Now, I grant you that the road between Syre (which is about half way up Strathnaver, and therefore somewhat off the beaten track) and Kinbrace (which is a tiny rail station in pretty much the middle of nowhere) is not exactly on the high street - you do have to make a bit of an effort to get there. You can get very close to these magnificent creatures without going very far off the main road at all.

Take this guy:

Do you mind? I'm on my lunch break!

 This mature stag (he was massive) was calmly mowing the lawn in one of the gardens in Kylesku the first time we were there. The very nice gentlemen working on the rennovations of the Kylesku Hotel
told us that he was a regular visitor, and that earlier he'd been strutting his stuff up and down the pavement in front of the houses.

Red Deer are the largest wild land animals we have on these islands. An adult stag can weigh the better part of forty stones and stand more than two metres tall. They are very, very impressive creatures to look at and exude a sense of superior disdain that any prey species with no surviving predators might well adopt. Once red deer in the highlands were predated by Lynx and Wolves. These days maybe a hungry fox might have a go at a fawn, but beyond that the only threat they face is humans with rifles - although they are now so numerous in the highlands that there are movements afoot to re-introduce both the Wolf and the Lynx.

Personally, given the dependence of the highland economy on sheep, I think any such reintroduction is unlikely - were I a wolf or a lynx and I had the choice between taking down a sheep or a stag with it's very, very pointy hat, I'd go for the sheep every time, and I really can't see the shepherds being OK with that.

We talked about birds of prey last week, so I won't go into them again. But there is any amount of other birdlife to see in the highlands.

We're the national bird of Finland. Did you know that?

Heading back to Grummore from the east coast we passed a lochan just above Syre and came across this pair of Whooper Swans and their three cygnets.

We'll be the national bird of Finland when we grow up.

They weren't particularly keen on hanging around to say "hello", and cruised off towards the opposite bank as soon as we saw them - in that "we were going over here anyway, it's got nothing to do with you" way that swans have.

Far less shy were the Mute Swans who hang around the Bunree Caravan Club site just south of Fort William. bunree has long been our staging point on the way to the far north, and there's been a family of mute swans there for as long as we've been visiting.

Hello, I'm a mute swan. You will never be this awesome.

Obviously it's easiest to spot the wildlife that just comes to you - like the red deer at Grummore and the mute swans at Bunree. The fact that the wildlife is there though - well that doesn't guarantee it'll actually show itself.

The warden's office at Grummore proudly displays a picture of an Osprey catching a huge trout from the loch just opposite the site - we've never seen ospreys there. The office also displays a picture of a Pine Marten sitting on the bird table that is positioned next to our favourite pitch on the site. We occupoed that pitch for two weeks on our last visit to Strathnacer. We baited the bird table with peanut butter (a pine marten favourite, apparently) every single night. did we see a pine marten?

No. We did not.

That, of course, is the nature of wildlife. It's wild. You can't make it turn up when you want it to.

Which is why we were so thrilled on a trip to Dornoch on the east coast when we pulled into what we think of as the "seal spotting laybay" on the single track road that leads you into Dornoch along the edge of Loch Fleet. There were seals - so-called "Common Seals" or, in my preferred nomenchlature "Harbour Seals", because I refuse to call these glorious amphibious mammals "common".

There's a lot of us, but we're actually very sophisticated.

I've talked about this seal colony before - and they are endlessly entertaining. At low tide you can sit and watch them basking on sandbanks, like decadant Romans lounging on chaise longe.

At high tide you can watch them swimming around, sticking their heads playfully above the water, and generally being happy seals.

I confess, I have a very soft spot for seals. I've spent hours watching them over the years, in the harbour at Lochinver, or the harbour at Stornoway. From a boat off Northumbeerland's Farne Islands to Poole Harbour inDorset.

People make a big thing about swimming with Dolphins, and I acknowledge that  communing with such creatures in their element must be an amazing experience. But frankly, I'd rather swim with seals. They really are engaging creatures with obvious personalities. But on this particular trip it wasn't the seals that impressed us - it was this guy:

You thought that swan was impressive? Well, look at ME!

We pulled into one of the laybys created for wildlife spotting hoping to see seals, and we did - but far more inpressive was this stately heron who was stalking the shoreline looking for food. He strutted and preened, and we watched in fascination.

A lifetime ago, my eight or nine year old self went on a school trip to Doncaster Museum. There I saw a heron that was pickled in a display case. I have no idea why it made such an impact on me, but I remember it to this day.

I never expected to see a real live heron.

The world has changed since I was a kid. These days you can see a heron flap lazily over your head in Doncaster's town centre, and in Harrogate, where I now live. But this heron, on the shores of Loch Fleet was so close I could almost have reached out and touched it.

And THIS is what makes this part of Scotland so special. Wherever you look there are creatures to see that you might never glimpse elsewhere - and if you could see them elsewhere, yu'd never see them so close.

But don't take my word for it. Go and see.

Bird Brained.

One of the things that peiople ask us when we tell them we're intending to spend two weeks by the side of a loch three and a half miles from the nearest street lamp and twenty miles from the nearest shop with no internet and no TV signal is "What on Earth are you going to do?"

For the most part, I have to say that the honest answer is "We'll spend a lot of time looking at the view." Because, seriously, LOOK AT IT!!!!!!!!

We woke up to this every day for a fortnight. What more do you need?

I'll acknowledge that even we don't spend all day everyday gazing at the horizon though. As you already know if you've been reading this blog for any time at all, you'll know that we go out and eat a lot of lunch, and we visit a fair few museums and castles and such.

But not when we're at Grummore. Grummore is a place for taking it easy. For sitting around. So, what do we do?

Well, a lot of people spend time fishing. I'm not a fisherman myself, but I've seen enough fish caught there to understand that there's some good fishing to be had on Loch Naver. To fish away from the site you need to get a permit from the Strathnaver Fisheries, but you can fish from the shore of the site as much as you like.

But as I said, we don't do that.

What we do is watch the birds.

Strathnaver is a magnet for our avian friends. As I've mentioned before, all you have to do is put a bit of seed out to attract every chaffich for miles around.

And they just kept getting fatter...

The loch is also home to rarer species. We've been privillaged to see pairs of Black Throated Divers cruising along the water in early spring. These sleek aquatic birds are summer visitors, migrating in

Yes, I know. It's a terrible photo. What can I say? The little bugger wouldn't stay still!

from wintering grounds around the Mediterranian. You're unlikely to see them on land - they're perfectly adapted to swimming, but their legs are so far back on their bodies they really struggle to walk.

They can be difficult to spot on the water too. They sit very low on the surface, so if there's any swell at all they just disappear behind the waves. Combine that with the fact that they also spend a lot of their time below the waves (they're not called "divers" for nothing!) spotting them can be a bit of a "blink and you'll miss it" experience.

Of course, the Black Throated Diver wasn't the least cooperative photographic subject...

The same is true of their red throated cousins (sort of pictured above). They're not as rare as the black throats, but they're still not common and we've seen a pair at Grummore every year we've been - except this year when the solitary chap pictured above spent a couple of days mooching around on his own before moving on.

We chose to believe that he'd simply arrived earlier than his mate - or perhaps if he really was male, slightly later because he refused to stop for directions and ended up coming the long way 'round - rather than accepting the more probable scenario of his companion not having survived the trip. I would like to pretend that this is because we're inherently optimistic but I suspect the truth is that we're just painfully sentimental.

Russ, the ever helpful site warden, tells us that a pair of Great Northern Divers can also be seen on Loch Naver, but we've never been lucky enough to catch a glimpse. We've similarly struck out catching sight of the White Tailed Sea Eagle which we are assured often makes it's way down the strath from the coast.

We were luckier with the Golden Eagle which is also resident in Strathnaver. We've been keen to see it for as long as we've been visiting but until this latest trip we'd been unsuccessful.

Eagle spotting in the Highlands can get frustrating. Everywhere you go they seem to have seen one "last week" or "yesterday" or even "just this morning", but never "oh yes, it's behind you!". Add to that the fact that buzzards, which are superficially similar in outline, although about half the size, are almost literally ten a penny and you have a recipe for spending whole days staring at the sky, occasionally getting excited before realising "nah, it's just a buzzard".

And I thought Red Throated Divers were elusive...

To be honest, eagle spotting is a lot like watching golf - hours and hours of staring at empty sky looking in vain for a little black dot that always turns out to be where you're not actually looking at the time.

In the end, we were actually standing lochside with a couple of fellow caravanners bemoaning the fact that we had never managed to see so much as an eagle feather, let alone the whole bird, when one soared lazily over our heads, and then on down the loch and over the horizon.


It's funny. Often when you build something up into a real quest when you finally achieve your goal it can feel a little anti climactic.

Not this.

This was every bit as magnificent as I'd imagined. The wingspan of an adult golden eagle can be over seven feet - more than two feet wider than I am tall* and I'd be prepared to bet that from splayed wingtip to splayed wingtip this example was at the larger end of the spectrum. It was like watching a house door glide effortlessly above us, silent as a trappist grave. One this is certain - having seen the real thing there is no way we'll ever look at a buzzard and wonder if it's an eagle.

Sadly, however stately its flight appeared to be, actually getting it into the field of view of the camera proved impossible - the picture above is the best shot we got, and as you can see, the eagle is not in it so you'll have to take our word that it was there. Don't be too hard on our photographic failure though - when they're not in a rush golden eagles soar at about thirty miles per hour, which made this a rapidly moving target against an almost featureless sky.

We'll do better next time I promise.

The golden eagle was pretty much the ornathological highlight of the trip. In the warden's office there is a fabulous photograph of an osprey catching a trout in the loch opposite the site which was taken last year, but we were a bit early of ospreys when we were there - maybe next time...

We don't just  watch birds, but they don't half make the view more interesting. And we're still holding out for the White Tailed Sea Eagle. Come back next week for more info on things to do in the highlands without electronic gadgets!







*Yes, I'm five foot six. Yes, I'm a shortarse.