Having been on the phone early for work and the weather looking wet and grey, I decided to walk the local paths around Lauder.
Eventually the rain sent me back for coffee and then back to the campsite.
A damp tent
The San Francisco 49ers on a wet Monday afternoon
Inverness
River Ness
Forres in Bloom
…and cake
Aviemore
Loch Morlich and the Cairngorm Mountains
Heather
Loch Morlich and the Glenmore Forest
Logie Steading and River Findhorn
Scottish thistle
Knock Farril
Cromarty Firth from Knock Farril
Glenurquhart Forest
By chance we parked right by the cache
Loch Ness
Yachts in the Caledonian Canal Locks
Just opening the gates
Inverness
It rained hard and then turned into a great summer day!
Beauly Firth
The view at lunch time
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The Kessock Bridge
River Cannich
Corrimony Cairn
Black Rock Gorge
Evanton Wood and the River Glass
Thunder storm at Dingwall Campsite
The view from in the car
Invergodon
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Invergodon looking away from the docks
John o’ Groats and Ness of Duncansby
Orkney
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Dingwall Campsite
We had been camped here for eight nights – so we left our marks! A couple of days of sun and rain should fix it.
The MX-5 is not big enough for two to go camping, so we need some extra luggage room. The boot bag fits securely and adds 50l of extra space.
More photos from the trip to Scotland Read More »
We headed north today – all the way north.
John o’ Groats
John o’ Groats harbour
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We walked out along the coast, leaving the tourist area behind. There were even two caches along our route – the most northerly mainland caches.
Ness of Duncansby
Duncansby Head
John o’ Groats from Ness of Duncansby
Wick
We stopped here mainly to eat, but we also visited the “shortest street”
Ebenezer Place was built in 1883 and measures only 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m) long. It has only one address: No 1.
It was also the location of our last geocache of this holiday.
John o’ Groats and Wick Read More »
We went first to Evanton to walk in the Community Wood there and to look at Black Rock Gorge. Along the way we picked up geocaches.
Black Rock Gorge
Looking down into the deep gorge from one of the foot bridges across it.
The river at the bottom is the River Glass which passes out of the gorge into Evanton Wood.
Evanton Wood and the River Glass
Alness
We found a cache here
We were doing well picking up caches in Alness, when we dropped into the Alness Heritage Centre. The next couple of hours was spent, very enjoyably, being shown around by Jim, one of the volunteers. He was an excellent guide, he showed us and told us about dozens of exhibits we would never had seen or understood. We also got tea there and homemade shortbread.
This is an iron, that is heated using pressurised paraffin, made by the Tilley company who still make Tilley lamps today. Tilley lamps make good flame throwers if the pressurised paraffin is released before the lamp is fully primed! Not the safest way to put creases in your clothes, especially if you are left handed, as the emergency pressure release valve is clearly visible in the photo.
Evanton and Alness Read More »
We made a plan over a late breakfast to go walking for the day in a nearby forest, but we took the wrong turning and just kept going. It was sunny, we had the roof down on the car and the scenery was great. A check of the geocache map showed there were plenty ahead of us.
We stopped in Cannich for coffee and cake at the Bog Cotton Cafe and then onto geocaching and walking.
River Cannich
Corrimony Cairn
Corrimony Cairn is an ancient burial mound, built about 4000 years ago.
River Enrick
Milton
Geocache 300
VR
When we got back to the campsite having had a great day out in glorious weather with the roof down, we discovered the site was flooded in places. The heavy rain started at Dingwall at about 11am and went on and on for four hours!
So for a day that started by taking a wrong turning, it turned out alright for us.
These are the locks leading to the Loch.
It was a walking trip around Inverness today, looking for geocaches. We found one that we had searched for with no success last year – it was a camouflaged cache, actually in plain sight.
Today’s picnic
Yachts in the Caledonian Canal Locks Read More »
We drove to Glenurquhart Forest using the A833, rather than via Inverness, as the day was good enough to get the hood down on the MX-5 and it is a much more exciting drive.
Once there it was a great place to walk, have our lunch, brew some tea and we scored several caches as well.
We did drive back along Loch Ness.
Forest walking and geocaching Read More »