Fitness regime and a long weekend.

Kintail

Started a new fitness regimen, also decided to learn more about navigating with map and compass after my experiences during the summer, bought a great little book called The Ultimate Hiking Skills Manual by Chris Bagshaw. full of info on both subjects. Anyway along with the terrain 5 geocaches I have in my sights I also plan to do a bit of Corbett and Munroe bagging.

A long weekend off so we went over to the west coast, taking the road along Loch ness which I had never driven so far. We stopped at the CC site at Morvich, a truly stunning location surrounded by Corbett’s and Munroe’s, teaming with bird life, think I caught a glimpse of a Peregrine at one point, we will certain visit this site again.

On the Saturday we went to the palindromic village of Glenelg, one of the remotest places on mainland Britain. Visited a couple of Pictish broch’s around 2000 years old before moving on to Glen Shiel. Weather for this time of year was very good, autumn wasn’t as far along as I thought it might be, there were still swallows around.

Sunday I took a walk to the Falls Of Glomach which is Britain's tallest waterfall at 370 feet high, they are rather isolated and is a 10 miles walk, climbing up to 1700ft and a 7 hour round trip. 

We bought a new car, well new to us, will get me out onto the hills a the Jeep was unreliable.

Hardraw force.

One of the best things we did was join the Caravan Club and we started our tour with a call off at there site in Edinburgh, its always nice to break up the journey down to Teesside. We had always been put off by a negative experience we had at one of their sites a couple of years ago, not the CC itself, but its snotty members. Anyway we have used a few of the sites and everything was great, most of the members and particularly the quality of the sites.
After a visit to see the kids and a night out glamping with the grandkids we went off to the Yorkshire Dales. Stopping at the CC site at Hawes we explored the area for a few days, I got to climb Inglebrough at 2373 ft / 723 m, one of the Dales three peaks, hope to do the others sometime as we both enjoyed the are and agreed it warranted more time, also neglected some of the pubs in Hawes.
We moved south to North Wales, stopped at a C&CC site near Bala, visiting places like Beddgelert and Betws-Y- Coed, we hadnt been here for about 20 years. I finally managed a climb high enough to warrant a recording in my Munro Magic page, the Glyders are 2 mountain tops with some fantastic terrain, there is also a few geocaches up there but due to the extremely poor visibility I was only able to find 2, the experience has also made me gain more navigation and pathfinding skills. I really want to return to this area sometime so I can get to see it properly.

Glyder Fawr

We then moved back north to the Lake District, near to Kendal, really would have liked to do a bit of exploring and geocaching in Kendal itself, but the day we went we spent nearly 2 hours trying to find a parking place before giving up. The CC&C site at Windermere, we didn't like it too much, they put us in the family camp area so lots of kids about, the only plus it that it has a bar on the site itself. I climbed Loughrigg fell.
After a few nights in the Lakes  we moved on to Garlieston, Dumfries and Galloway, a loverly quiet CC site on the edge of the village, pub was very close, should visit again.
We had hoped, a spur of the moment thing, to drop into Edinburgh for a couple of nights on the way home, but it was full due to the festival, no accommodation to be had so we went to Alva nr Alloa. This CC site has a fantasic view of the Ochil hills, we did a bit of geocaching in the area, I would have loved to explore the hills more and will its a good spot for stopping off on the way home.
Finally it was Gathering in the Glens, geocaching meet, we walked part of "Jocks road" .
I really must write these up at the end of a day, this has taken me weeks.