Our plan was to park at the Kings House Hotel so Emma could see the deer. There are lots of tame deer which hang out outside the pub - either the pub must put food out for them or the tourists feed them. Either way it had Emma backing away from a stag as it tried to sniff her pack!
Deer excitement over we passed by the Westhighlandwayers all camped out by the hotel (I honestly don't know how people can camp so near to civilisation like that, even if I was doing the WHW I'd still want to head off into the hills and get away from everyone, each to their own though I guess!).
We were hoping to go up Beinn Na Chrulaiste (cliffs on the right hand side of this photo), but accepted that due to us approaching from the North/East side there would be significantly more snow/ice than we'd had previously. We decided to head up and see, and perhaps re-plan en route if it didn't look do-able. The route up is lovely, there's a good path which follows the Allt a Bhalach river all the way up.
Looking towards the ski centre. Our thoughts with the skier sadly killed in an avalanche a few days prior. It all seems so innocent in the sunshine and blue skies.
Looking down to Rannoch Moor
You can branch off from the river to head up the steep sides of the hill to the top and I think that would be the conventional route up, but we decided it was too steep for Emma without proper winter gear. We planned to head to the top of the Coirie and either head up Meall Bhalach instead or see if the route on was more do-able from that side. It got fairly boggy higher up and I got another boot full (not having much luck on this trip!) Sadly the thawing snow and sun also meant thawing bog. We chatted to a small group of lads who were following a guide book entitled 'Not the West Highland Way'. They headed off towards the steep route we had dismissed and we wondered how they'd get on without ice axes etc.
Once seeing how steep it was on the other side we decided for definite to head up the other hill Meall Bhalach. This was a good choice as it was easy going and covered in snow.
Ben Nevis again
As we headed up we got a bit worried as we thought we could hear a someone whistling for help. We were quite close to it and as we got nearer we realised it was a bird making the noise. Can anyone tell me what bird it was?
It was so sunny I ended up having to put my snow goggles on to stop myself being blinded by the glare. We quickly reached the first top (it is a twinned top mountain)
There was a short dip in the middle between the two tops, it was getting a bit of the wind but we managed to find a rock to shelter behind and sat on top of the orange survival bag to keep warm. It was actually very pleasant sat there in the sun - I could have stayed there all day looking at the view! We saw with relief that the chaps we'd seen earlier had made it to the top of their hill too. We waved even though there was no way they'd see us from there!
Great views of Buachaille Etive Mor
Relaxing on our second top
Someone needs to buy herself some sun glasses...
The views of Rannoch moor on this walk just kept getting better and better.
We pretty much headed straight off the hill to make a beeline for the hotel avoiding the partially frozen bogs as we went. You really wouldn't want to do this walk after lots of rain, it has the potential to be quite boggy! You can see the hotel in this photo. We even had time for a swift half in the sun after. I'd like to come back and have some food in the climbers bar sometime as it really was a nice place to be.
We'd seen a sign for a seafood shop on our way to our walk so with langoustines on our mind we headed to the Lochleven Seafood cafe. As well as being a cafe they also sell fresh local sea food from the loch we presumed. We got a bag full of mussels and langoustines for just over £8 which seemed like good value. Emma declared we were having a 'feast' when we saw what we have prepared and loved every bit of it. What a day!
As we'd eaten so early we still had plenty of daylight to head back to our local beach Cull Bay. The weather had clouded over in the afternoon but we were treated with moody skies and the sun soon popped back up for us. The beach is ideal for building sandcastles as there are lots of bits and pieces washed up on the shore side to use to decorate, and we did out bit afterwards by binning all the bits of rope etc to keep the beach tidy. It's a lovely spot to sit and while away the time, so peaceful and so sad it was our last evening in Scotland.
No comments:
Post a Comment