I'd like to share some pictures with me of a little 11 hour hike I did with my dog. It was 16 miles but it covered some pretty rough ground and it involved a lot of fly fishing too
(and an aweful lot of serious painkillers and plenty rest stops!)
Enjoy. Please don't ask me where it is, some things are best kept for folk to find themselves, if you recognise it then fair do's but keep it special.
This is roughly at the 3 mile mark looking back towards my start point on the horizon.
This is looking forward to my destination, a wee lochan which in gaelic translates as
"the gentle or tranquil small loch".
But before then Broch and I had to walk past a larger loch which is quite famous among some wilderness fly fishers.
It was once described as the most picturesque loch in Scotland. I like it but if I see another person on it I feel claustrophobic. I like my space so I moved on... After all there is nicer...
this is looking back down the track to the big loch from where I had walked...
At this point I was knackered but after fording a river where the bridge had washed away, then climbing a 6ft deer fence (work out how Broch got across...) and then crossing a wire suspension bridge, a large floating bog and then back onto a track. Quite an adventure but by no means taxing for all you healthier folk out there.
Then up to the saddle where you can see the lochan on the right hand side in this picture...awesome place. Country of the gods, or more correctly; country of the "Cailleach". It is not that far from here where she lived with the "Bodach" and their children. For she is one of the old gods who survives through the old names of the land that was once and probably is still hers.
And Broch (short for Brochlach), looked like he had come home. Hhhmm maybe a bit of projection on my part lol.
Then down and across another bog riddled slope to the tranquil lochan.
And the name does really suit this place.
The rings are the fish rising and after an hour lying on the beach I caught some. On every single cast of the fly in fact and that my friends is no exageration. I stopped counting at 60. I put them all back bar one which I ate like sushi and lovely it was too.
Where the peat was exposed, bits of trees peaked out and had dried in the wind. I don't know how many hundreds of years old they were but they were under many feet of peat. I scraped the damp stuff back and it burned like fat pine and I reckon that was what it was, ancient scots pine buried under peat hags. The smell was something else...beautiful like islay whisky.
Today I could hardly walk far less straighten up due to the pain and wee Broch has just lay there conked out for most of the day after being sick most of the night probably due to munching on an old deer skeleton before I could chase him off it and eating grass and heather behind my back! But here he is again in his element. And that is as good as any to end this wee picture tour of a relatively hidden part of Scotland.
(and an aweful lot of serious painkillers and plenty rest stops!)Enjoy. Please don't ask me where it is, some things are best kept for folk to find themselves, if you recognise it then fair do's but keep it special.
This is roughly at the 3 mile mark looking back towards my start point on the horizon.
This is looking forward to my destination, a wee lochan which in gaelic translates as
"the gentle or tranquil small loch".
But before then Broch and I had to walk past a larger loch which is quite famous among some wilderness fly fishers.
It was once described as the most picturesque loch in Scotland. I like it but if I see another person on it I feel claustrophobic. I like my space so I moved on...
After all there is nicer... this is looking back down the track to the big loch from where I had walked...
At this point I was knackered but after fording a river where the bridge had washed away, then climbing a 6ft deer fence (work out how Broch got across...) and then crossing a wire suspension bridge, a large floating bog and then back onto a track. Quite an adventure but by no means taxing for all you healthier folk out there.
Then up to the saddle where you can see the lochan on the right hand side in this picture...awesome place. Country of the gods, or more correctly; country of the "Cailleach". It is not that far from here where she lived with the "Bodach" and their children. For she is one of the old gods who survives through the old names of the land that was once and probably is still hers.
And Broch (short for Brochlach), looked like he had come home. Hhhmm maybe a bit of projection on my part lol.
Then down and across another bog riddled slope to the tranquil lochan.
And the name does really suit this place.
The rings are the fish rising and after an hour lying on the beach I caught some. On every single cast of the fly in fact and that my friends is no exageration. I stopped counting at 60. I put them all back bar one which I ate like sushi and lovely it was too.
Where the peat was exposed, bits of trees peaked out and had dried in the wind. I don't know how many hundreds of years old they were but they were under many feet of peat. I scraped the damp stuff back and it burned like fat pine and I reckon that was what it was, ancient scots pine buried under peat hags. The smell was something else...beautiful like islay whisky.
Today I could hardly walk far less straighten up due to the pain and wee Broch has just lay there conked out for most of the day after being sick most of the night probably due to munching on an old deer skeleton before I could chase him off it and eating grass and heather behind my back! But here he is again in his element. And that is as good as any to end this wee picture tour of a relatively hidden part of Scotland.
