Liz and Frank: Ah - the Cairngorms

Well I am slowly moving on with this Blog - still in the Black Isle in Scotland, and this particular day we took off to the Cairngorm National Park.

I really wanted to do this, as nearly 4 decades ago, I spent some time over the Christmas holidays, skiing in the Cairngorms, thoroughly enjoying it - staying at Grantown-on-Spey I believe.

Our first stop en route was Carr-bridge - a village about 10 miles north of Cairngorm's best known ski town - Aviemore - Carr-bridge actually forms a gateway to the Cairngorms National Park. There seems to be some variation of the spelling, sometimes it does not have the hyphen, other times it does - I've gone with the hyphen as per the map above!!!

Carr-bridge's most famous landmark is the old packhorse bridge, from which the village is named.

The bridge built in 1717, is the eldest stone bridge in the Highlands. It was severely damaged in the "buckle spate" of 1829 which left it in the condition it is in today.

The very clear River Dulnain flows through Carrbridge

This village hosts two popular annual competitions - "The Golden Spurtle World Porridge Making Championship" in early October - sounds a tad different, and the "Carve Carrbridge" Scottish Open Chainsaw Carving Competition. Probably the reason why we saw some works of carved wooden art around the village.

There were a couple of great shops here, Margaret and I just had to wander through, bought some lovely cards, and I think she also found a great locally made pottery vase.

Couldn't help but stop here - Loch Morlich

How beautiful was this Loch and it's reflections

We were met by an over friendly "mother duck and her large crew"

It is a freshwater Loch

near Aviemore

Long stretches of its shoreline are formed of sandy beaches.

This Loch is home to a watersports center with kayaking, sailing and windsurfing.

There is a yacht club

and cycling routes around the Loch.

In the 2nd World War the area around Loch Morlich was used as a commando school.

In particular it was used as a training area for the Kompani Linge (the Norwegian Independent (army) Company, trained by the British Special Operations Executive,

because of the close resemblance of the area, both in landscape and climate, to Norway.

We left Loch Morlich (far right on the map below),

and headed for Cairn Gorm (centre of the map above)

We planned to take the UK's highest funicular railway

which runs from the Base Station at 2083 ft to the Ptarmigan Top Station at 3598 ft above sea level

a most comfortable 2km journey to just below the summit of Cairn Gorm at 4085 ft

Britain's 6th highest mountain.

Looks like it was definitely a "4 layer" day for moi.

The Cairngorm National Park is the U.K's largest at 1400 square miles

It is the home to "46 Munros" (mountains over 3000 feet high)

The Cairngorms feature the highest, coldest and snowiest plateaux in the British Isles and are home to five of the six highest mountains in Scotland.

We were so lucky that it was surprisingly clear at the top

Someone's definitely in need of a hair cut - and looking forward to a steaming hot chocolate - inside.

How's this for a view over the Cairngorms - with a hot chocolate in hand???

*******

We obviously "funicularied" down to the base again

Next plan was to drive across to another part of the Cairngorm National Park - near Loch Garten (far right on map above)

and to do this we needed to pass Loch Morlich again

No, we definitely needed to stop

as it looked like there was some action happening

A small dinghy race was underway

The blue sails reflected on the Loch

Looked just stunning

The Cairngorm N.P area is home to a quarter of Scotland's native woodland with the biggest continuous stretches of near-natural vegetation in Britain. It is refuge for a host of rare plants and creatures, including 25% of the U.K.'s threatened species.

We had arrived at Abernethy Reserve, Loch Garten - it's wild landscape embraces three of the UK's highest peaks and the largest single trace of Caledonian pinewood - a remnant of the great forest that once covered much of highland Scotland.

This reserve is a natural refuge for Scotland's rarest and most Iconic birds. Snow buntings and ptarmigan can be see on its high plateau, capercaillie and crossbills in its forest.

However, we were here to hopefully see Loch Garten's Ospreys

and that we did from the Osprey Centre which provides fantastic views of these magnificent creatures - we saw Mr. Osprey deliver a fish to the nest, and Mrs Osprey, feeding one of her two hatchlings in the nest.

We could see what was going on in that nest first hand - thanks to close up views, via a non-invasive CCTV camera - just magic!!!

On our way out, we saw this little chap

he (not sure) and the little bird friend - both feeding together

As Australia has no squirrels - I tend to be very fond of these little chaps.

However I do know that the North American grey squirrel introduced to Britain and other parts of Europe during the 19th Century reportedly as a curiosity to satisfy the Victorian penchant for novelty, has shown how adaptable and hardy it is and has thrived in Britain's parks, gardens and woodlands, and now outnumbering the native red squirrel by 66 to one. The chart below shows how the red squirrels have retreated to the north - most UK reds are confined now to Scotland, Cumbria, the Isle of Wight and island in Poole Harbour. It seems that the two cannot co-exist in the same habitat.

The introduced grey squirrel is bigger and stronger than the UK's native red squirrel, and able to outcompete the red in almost every phase of their life history, and it is also thought that the grey is more resistant to disease than the red. The grey are also responsible for causing significant damage to woodland of both economic and amenity value and recent studies have reported that they are having a serious impact on Britain's already imperilled woodland birds. I have read where there is now an organised cull on the grey in the UK, and of course I have certainly heard of the garden and woodland damage they do to our friend's gardens in the USA - not so cute over there.

All that aside, I took numerous photos of this little critter, however, they were definitely outnumbered by Kevin's photographic efforts below.

A super day, glorious scenery, and again thanks to our "guides" and our "driver".

******

The weather was changeable - however we still attempted to photograph when the sky was a bit grim.

One morning we raced around after a "heron" - I missed any decent shots of that bird.

but managed some photos of the industry in the Cromarty Firth

Invergorden, across the Firth remains a major centre for the repair and refurbishment

of rigs for the North Sea and beyond.

Love this one of the moored yachts backdropped by the rigs.

******

Another afternoon after we had visited the super Tain Pottery just north of the Black Isle, followed by a great lunch at the Barn near the Cromarty Bridge - the heavens really opened up. On the way back, I think Kevin saw another heron - car came to a stop, he took off in the pouring rain, however, we 3 decided to stay within the car. Kevin came back with a pile of seal photos - apparently there were a whole group playing in that rain!

Love the one below - taken from some distance with a quite a bit of cropping to this size.

Another morning early Kevin decided to go down to the Lighthouse for some photographs.

I should have gone as well, but I was playing with the Mac and yesterday's photos

How wonderful does the Moray Firth look on a clear day

Clouds and all (over Fort George) below!

******

It was time to leave the Black Isle, M and K for Sheffield, and us for Whitby in Yorkshire.

En route we stopped at the charming town of Pitlochry

walked up one side of it

and down the other side - taking in most of the shops,

stopping for a super lunch, finishing up with a visit to their Heather gems factory - where they create jewellery from stems of heather -( the old stems are dried, shotblasted to remove the bark and dyed various colours using natural dyes) - just had to bring back a piece.

We had already decided to only drive halfway today, and had booked at the Hilton Hydro Hotel in Dunblane (below)

a lovely grand old place, very comfy newly renovated rooms as well.

We met for a drink and snack in the Hotel's Lounge Bar

and how lucky were we, tonight was the formal of a College near Dunblane

and we were sitting just where these young ones were gathering.

Kilts were certainly the favoured attire for the young men

Most of the gowns were lovely, however we did wonder about the comfort of some of those high "soled" extra high heels?

Then we saw this little character - how wise was she

sneakers with matching pink socks - so comfy for the night, in fact you could only see the sneakers when she pulled at her skirt to trot down some stairs.