Summer without the Motorhome

The Old man of Storr.

Just as the summer started the van went and blew its cylinder head, the problem I had getting anything done was unbelievable. I am not going to bore anyone with the details but apparently they believe this had happened twice to this engine before our ownership. Long and short of this is its now 600 mile away getting a reconditioned engine put in and once thats done I will be down to pick it up and drive it back, looking forward to being able to use it again.
The start of my 6 weeks of Summer hols and I decided to bag a couple of Munros, Mayar and Driesh could be done together. I had a walk from the car park at Glen Doll, up through the Corrie Fee Nature reserve and onto Mayar. Whilst I was up there I was lucky enough to spot a couple of White tailed Eagles, playing with a stick, one had it and the other was trying to get it. I watched them play and followed them for a while, got a little turned around and started to descend into the wrong glen, having realised this I managed to get back on course, i lost a good bit of time so decided to give Driesh a miss, I will go back before winter.
So without the camper I went out and got me a tent, a little low laying 2 man'er  a blowup sleeping mat and a gas stove, I retrieved the electric hookup from the van and got a socket converter, glamping of a sort.
I was hoping to go to Kinlochewe but this Caravan club site wont have tents so I went to Poolewe instead, I'v stayed there often. I had couple of days of longer walks the most memorable one being on the Bienn Eighe National Nature Reserve and a day of driving round doing easy caches.

Bienn Eighe

I really like it over at Wester Ross, the weather was great and the Poolewe Hotel has good ale if not good food, pub grub and chips with everything.

Back to Aberdeen for a few days before retuning to the west coast, Kintail then Isle of Skye. Stopped at Morvich CC site, a great place to stay and I will visit whenever possible, I wanted to do a bit of Munro bagging so had a go at Bienn Fhada, I had previously gained permission to place a geocache in the Kintail area so put it on top of this mountain. Had a great walk but again took a lot of time out taking photographs and fail in bagging a second hill close by. Next day off to Skye, stopped off at Kyle of Lochalsh, had fish and chips in the sun, lovely.
Skye, camping at the C&CC site I usually stay at, alternative days, long hill walks, with driving around exploring the Isle as before, for its size Skye is so diverse and interesting especially in it geology.
Highlights of this trip was getting up The Storr and find the sweet spot for capturing The Old Man. A boat trip to Loch Coruisk, the world famous loch painted by Turner and

written about by Sir Walter Scott, “Rarely human eye has known A scene so stern as that dread lake, With its dark ledge of barren stone...”, that was something special.

And I finally got to the top of one of the Cullin hills, always looking at them and wondering, how on earth do you get up those thing? With difficulty its almost shale.

View of the Black Cullins from the sea.

Also climbed The Storr itself, again would have loved to gone further and taken in another hill but time flew as I explored different views of The Old Man, the weather throughout was great. I enjoyed myself so much, so much so I was met at the campsite gate by one of the site managers "do you know you were supposed to leave today?", Hells bells I'd better ring the wife!

Round and about Loch Muick.

Loch Muick

Loch Muick is situated just outside Ballater in the Cairngorms, a loverly place for a walk around but also as a starting point for an ascent of Lochnagar or Meikle Pap. Ever since we moved up here people have been telling me how we must visit the area, this weekend we had the chance.

The walk was a wet one, lots of rain, we had waterproofs but never put them on as it always looked as if it was about to stop, but never did. These was of course a geocache on route but I did want to see the lay of the land for a possible Munro visit sometime, soon.

Sunday was a better day, working our way back to Aberdeen we visited Burn 'O' Vat, Sloss of Dess and Crathes Castle, five caches on the way.

Been looking at free software that will geotagg my photos, saving time with Flickr as I do like to show where I shot the image and seeing as I am always using the technologies anyway. GPiSync looks good but on testing didn't show the correct positions on Google Earth, couldn't figure out why. Copics Photomapper is very simple to use, has a big image preview but no map, I couldn't get it to show the tags on Google E, will work with it a little more. Microsoft Pro Photo Tools works with virtual earth and seems to have a lot to offer. My favorite so far seems to be Geosetter lots of features detailed Google maps, will continue to try them all.

Springwatch started this week, a sign the holidays are not too far away.

"Blue door" riverside walk, Edzell.

River North Esk, HDR.

So we finally managed to get out to Edzell and do a little geocaching along the "Blue door" riverside walk, which runs beside the river North Esk. Bad weather had stopped the trip earlier due to the snow but today it was fine, starting out very sunny but as we left the van cloud came over, light was poor for photography. Its a great little place lots of rapids, popular with canoeists I see, as well as salmon fishing. Lots of remnants of a bygone age, old walls, bridges, a tower and of course a small cluster of geocaches to be found. 

The walk is easy going about 2 miles down to a place called the Rocks of Solitude, which is a wonderful enough name to entice anyone out here, undulating paths but nothing too taxing. I was told about this place a few years ago but the directions were all a bit sketchy. Red squirrels can be found here and we did see one crossing the road as we sat in the van. I must come out here with a film camera some time and do some serious photography.

Went into Edzell for a look around, quaint little village with a tea shop, dare say it could be quite popular in the summer.

Next trip off to the Lake district at Easter and looking forward to the break and yet more geocaching, hope to visit some high caches.

One thing I learnt this week, our motorhome appears on google earth's street level images.