Cairngorms - Day 2

We walked from the site in the morning to climb Morrone (859m), the hill to the south of Braemar. We'd done it before in 2017 so decided to do it in the reverse direction this time, first walking about 3 miles up the Old Military Road which is parallel to Clunie Water and goes past the golf course.

Eventually we turned and started walking the track up the hill. It's got a large radio mast on the top.

From the top there were great views all round, down to Braemar and across to the Cairngorms.

On the way down we stopped at the Duck Pond for some lunch.

We then carried on walking down to the River Dee and along its bank for a bit.

The final part was up through Braemar where we stopped for a lovely and welcome ice cream.

Later we had chilli and rice for dinner.

Cairngorms - Day 1

We left home in the morning, and drove straight to Braemar caravan site and set up. On checking in we were told we weren't allowed to use the shower, toilet and washing-up facilities because of Covid-19, which we thought was a bit of an over-reaction because lots of other sites had been using theirs for weeks.

It's a nice site though, 10 minutes walk from the village and near a little stream.

We went for a walk into Braemar, and had a pint at the Invercauld Hotel. Though it was very sunny we had to sit inside because they were restricting numbers on outside tables. Oscar behaved himself though.

We walked back the long way round through the woods, and saw a couple of roe deer.

On returning to the site we sat outside the van for a while as it was sunny and warm.

Later we had tuna, pesto and new potatoes for dinner.

We also had a walk up the road and down the river (Clunie Water) to the village again.

Scottish Highlands - Day 11

The weather/visibility wasn't great, and since our Cape Wrath plans had been cancelled, we decided to head for home a day earlier than we originally planned.

Oscar was absolutely great when travelling, he slept all the way to Alness where we parked and went for a riverside walk. It started to rain quite heavily but we did about a three mile walk.

We then went to a Morrisons supermarket café for a late breakfast, leaving Oscar in the van.

After this we drove all the way home, getting there about 5pm. Again, Oscar slept all the way!

Scottish Highlands - Day 10

Things didn't quite go to plan today. We phoned the ferry man to confirm the times, to be told that there was no ferry because to a military exercise going on at Cape Wrath. But in any case the minibus wasn't running, and hadn't been since the pandemic. The ferry is only used by people with bikes to get to the Cape.

So we replanned, and decided to go for a walk at Faraid Head, a peninsula just west of Durness. It has very nice sand dunes which are protected. It has a military lookout post at the very tip, and we met some army vehicles coming down across the sand.

We were hoping we might see some of the bombardment from ships to shore at Cape Wrath, but visibility was very poor. We don't even know if it went ahead.

We then drove to Smoo Cave, one of the largest sea caves in Britain. It has a waterfall inside it.

We still had plenty of time so we drove about 30 miles on single track roads to Tongue, and went for a walk to Castle Varrich.

Inside the castle is a staircase and platform to the top, for the views.

For dinner later the campsite restaurant were doing takeaways, so we both had the Gourmet Burger. It was very good!

Scottish Highlands - Day 9

We packed up and left the site this morning. We were heading for the north coast, and stopped on the way at Blairmore. From there we walked the four miles to the famous, spectacular Sandwood Bay. This is a one mile long sandy beach, with a sea stack to the south and a freshwater loch just inland.

The pictures possibly don't do it justice as at wasn't very sunny.

After returning to the van we carried on to Durness on the north coast and Sango Sands campsite. This has a spectacular location on a clifftop behind a beach.

The plan for tomorrow is to catch the ferry and bus to Cape Wrath. We checked the noticeboard for the ferry and it seems like the first sailing is at 10am.

After setting up we had chilli and rice for dinner.

Scottish Highlands - Day 8

We drove north up the coast a few miles and parked at Stoer lighthouse.

We walked up the coast along the cliff tops, to the sea stack known as Old Man of Stoer.

There are ropes attached to the top for climbers.

On the way back we went over a hilltop.

There was still time left in the day, so we drove back south, past the campsite and through Lochinver to Inverkirkaig. We walked up the River Kirkaig.

There were views over to Stac Pollaidh, which we'd climbed about seven years ago.

Eventually we had a steep climb down to a viewpoint at the Falls of Kirkaig.

We drove back to the campsite. Later we went for a walk round the local beaches to Clachtoll Broch, which is thought to be around 2000 years old.

Later for dinner we had beefburgers with fried potatoes and beans.

Scottish Highlands - Day 7

Today we did a walk suggested by the owner of the campsite. Leaving from the site we walked up the road then inland on a track across moorland with lots of little lochs.

We saw a large bird that we thought might be a golden eagle, but actually now think it was just a big buzzard.

At the end of the track we climbed a hill to get better views.

We had to cut across the moor and lochs to get to our return path. We had a bit of trouble finding the marked route, but got it eventually. It led to a rocky causeway across a loch.

On the way back we went through the hamlet of Stoer, where we'd been led to believe there was a shop, but we didn't find anything. We saw a stoat running across a field.

We stopped at Flossie's shack to by some provisions. We took Oscar down to the beach for a run about before the rain came on.

He was pretty tired when we got back to the van.

Later we had pasta with smoked salmon and pesto.