Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Higher than before - 707m

This must be one of the nicest reports ever. Thank you Lyn and Wendy

We had an amazing time, the weather was great the first day, then lots and lots of rain and snow!! Even the locals were very surprised. I loved the cottage as it reminded me of where i used to live and extremely well equipped. Sunday was spent walking in the Pass of Glencoe to get our legs used for walking in the area. We walked round the bottom of Buchaille, which has some of the most beautiful scenery we had every seen, Wendy had already taken a ton of photos already by this point. It was a wonderful day (the sun was shining) and we were already talking of not wanting to go back home. The best bit for Wendy was seeing lots and lots of deer and even a stag!
On Monday we headed for Ben Nevis but unfortunately should had done it yesterday as the top half was covered in snow. We are fairly new to high level walking and sat and talked about it before we started and decided that we would give it a go but as soon as we were unsure we would just come down - in our opinion every step was an achievement. We got to the half way point when we started passing people coming down saying that there was no visibility at the top and as we were new to this we thought this was not worth the risk and we were happy with getting as far as we did. Once we were down we decided to go up in the Gondolas on Aonach Mor which although not the same did show us just how bad Ben Nevis looked in the weather.
On Tuesday we popped into Fort William for a quick poke about before heading Glen Nevis to walk to An Steall waterfall. Wendy was unable to get over the first waterfall but I loved it and went on alone. Hands down in my opinion it was the best walk I did all week. It was hard and there was lots of climbing over rocks and if you don't like heights then its not the walk for you and please be careful when its been raining as it is very slippery. But oh my God! when you come round the last corner and walk into this huge valley with the waterfall at one end and Ben Nevis at the other you feel like you have stepped back in time. I kept expecting to see a dinosaur come walking round the corner. I never wanted to leave and to top it off the rain stopped and the sun came out, nothing could top that!
On Wednesday we drove to Skye and drove around the island for the day stopping off to walk through one of the many, many woods, again the rain stopped on the way home allowing us to see Skye at it best. Got fish and chips on the way home as we were home very late.
On Thursday we headed to The Pass of Glencoe to walk the Devils Staircase and then up to the summit of Stob Mhic Mhartthin, very, very muddy and boggy lots of rain and snow descended on us while we were up there, but we had a great time. We both felt sorry for all the people walking the West Highland Way as the weather had been erratic all week. We were both happy that we could head back to the cottage to get clean and dry.
On Friday (sob our last day!!) we finally got to Cuil bay we spent ages looking at the stones and even picked some to take home, we had to limit them as were are flying home. We then again headed to Glen Nevis and just walked along some of the paths there with no particular direction in mind. In the evening we wandered along to the beach on the other side of the loch and chilled.
As the weather was not at its best we had altered a lot of what we did and did not do a lot of the high level walking we had planned on doing, but if we had done that I would never had seen the An Steall waterfall and we would not have walked the Devils staircase. We had a wonderful week and the weather did not affect us badly at all. In fact we were both chuffed that we did any part of Ben Nevis and we still managed to walk slightly higher than we had before which in its self is an achievement (707m). We are totally planning on coming back and we will get our first Munro, but there is so much to do wherever you are a high level walker or not that it does not matter. We are two very happy campers thanks Lyn & Wendy

Monday, May 29, 2006

Lochaline-Fishnish ferry best


We have just arrived back from our week at Bayview.
We thought Scotland was wonderful and the area that the cottage is in was tremendous. We managed to do lots during the week - probably too much - and found your cottage information most useful. We took your advice in going to Mull, using the two shorter ferry crossings on the way there and the Oban ferry on the return, and had a great day.
Over the week we did plenty of walking and managed some biking on Lismore Island, which we thought was delightful.
From Tony and Jan.

People pile in to Oban to get the ferry to Mull. Wrong. The Oban ferry is very full, particularly the 10.00am and they are every two hours. From Glencoe to Mull by far the best way is to get the little Corran Ferry first, then over the lovely hills to Lochaline, wait there for the frequent ferry, no booking needed, and you arrive halfway towards Tobermory at Fishnish.
It is also by far the cheapest way to take the car to Mull.
 
Lochside cottage near Glencoe in the Highlands of Scotland
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