Travelling again – 8. Glenlivet

Tags

broom, comfrey, Dark Green Fritillary, Drumin castle, Glen Avon, Glenlivet Estate, Glenmulliach, gorse, Green-veined white, milkwort, rabbit, Tormentil

Tuesday, 15th June dawned sunny and warm. Well, I suppose it did – dawn that far north was far too early for me to be aware of it. But when I did wake up, the day was set fair for whatever I chose to do.

I chose to spend it on the vast 23,000-hectare Crown Estate of Glenlivet. The visitor centre in Tomintoul, where in normal times I could have bought a guide booklet, was and still is closed for Covid reasons, but this map was displayed widely, and I also had it in a leaflet I’d picked up. I decided to do Walk 1, the Glenmulliach Viewpoint Trail first, and then to explore the north of the Estate in the afternoon.

But first I was delayed by a small parking area, with an information board and a curious cube just 150 metres away.

I found myself in a small abandoned quarry, (this view taken from halfway up the hill)

with these at the bottom,

and perhaps a hundred jackdaws in total flying around at the top.

This was the curious cube. I’ve since been able to find out that I was at a spot called Glen Avon, but nothing about the monument – if that is the right description of it. [Later edit: But see bruceb’s comment below.]

I couldn’t and can’t work out what was reflecting what as I took this.

I drove on through Tomintoul, and made my way to the parking area which marked the start of Walk 1 (according to the leaflet, 3.5 miles, 5.5 kilometres).

Dark Green Fritillary (I think)

It was a lovely warm day – I even took a layer off, for the first time in my whole stay.

I think this may be a milkwort, but I am open to correction.

It really was lovely weather.

Through a gate, and all of a sudden the landscape changed.

There’s some kind of mast over to the right of the path in the distance.

Unexpectedly, and after a lot of upward effort, it was the end of the designated walk.

I was tempted to go on to the top of the ridge, but, given that I had already spotted the mast, and that ‘they’ clearly intended one to stop there, I feared a disappointing view if I continued, so I turned back after a short rest.

Some boggy plants lined the path at one point.

Once back through that gate again, the appointed path diverged from that on the way up, so I dutifully took it, and at that spot spent some time trying to capture this Green-veined white.

Tormentil

Two similar plants beside each other, and I reminded myself of the difference between gorse…

…and broom

At last back at the parking area, there were lots of people picnicking, so I took a quick tour of the pond, and drove off, on the lookout for a suitable stopping place on my way to the north of the Glenlivet estate to eat my banana.

Refreshed, I found myself on another single-track road, which was perhaps as well, as it meant there weren’t too many places to take too many photos.

I was heading for Drumin Castle, where I intended to do the Drumin Circular Path (‘2.5 miles, 4 km’) and assumed that this was it, but it was in fact Blairfindy Castle, near the Glenlivet Distillery, as I found later.

Arrived at the parking area for the Drumin Circular Walk, I explored my surroundings.

I found that I could visit the castle itself, taking either the slope or the steps. I chose the latter. Many of them were much steeper than this.

I was rewarded with a bank of comfrey on one side, a plant for which I have a soft spot.

Sadly, the first floor was out of bounds because of dangerous steps, but I enjoyed exploring the ground floor.

It didn’t take long.

The gentle way down led past this inviting and polite gate.

It led into a community orchard.

The walk down the slope was a delight.

And at the bottom I heard that contemporary rarity, a cuckoo. (You may have to turn your volume up very loud!)

The signpost points up the road I had come in by. I took it, but then could not find any other sign of the Path, despite wandering around for 30 minutes or so.

In due course I found myself level with the castle again.

So I just wandered back slowly to my car.

A rabbit scuttled away from me, but not very far, thinking that I might not see him if he kept very still. He was at my eye level on the roadside bank.

Time was moving on, the sun had long gone in, I had walked much more this day than any of the other days, and I was ready to return to the hotel, quite a way away by now. I have since learned that in any case the walk would not have been possible because of a broken bridge.

It had been a good day. It seems to me that exploring the Glenlivet Estate, whether following their suggested walks or not, could constitute a hole holiday and more in itself.

Taking a back road, I was interested to cross this truss bridge, which replaced two consecutive suspension bridges, at Cromdale, not far from Grantown-on-Spey.

After my last dinner at the Grant Arms Hotel, a film, ‘Scandinavian Cruise Ship Adventure’ by Nigel Marven, was shown. This was my last night in Grantown-on-Spey, but I had nearly four more days’ holiday remaining.

Dumfriesshire, part 2

Tags

BBC, chaffinch, Dumfries, granite, Hole i' the Wa', John Balliol, Lockerbie, Mabie House Hotel, New Abbey, Nith, rabbit, red sandstone, Robert Burns, St George's Cathedral, Sweetheart Abbey

On Thursday, 23rd July, I was again to be with two people with whom I had been in contact for a while, but had never met.  My late mother’s second cousin and I were have lunch together at New Abbey. On the way, I stopped at Dumfries to explore a little. (Note the sun, it won’t stay for long and it was chilly.)

This is still the top of a Burton shop.

The tiny entrance to this Hole i’ the Wa’ looked so fascinating that I thought I might take a coffee there on my way back down the main street.

Greyfriars Kirk and Robbie Burns

I know it doesn’t do the building any good, but I do like seeing vegetation growing where it’s not meant to.

My eye was caught by these – and other elsewhere in the window – gentlemen!

I soon found myself in an elegant, no doubt former residential, part of Dumfries, now largely occupied by the professions.

Beyond the restaurant, these buildings are the courts and the procurator fiscal’s office.

When I went back to the Hole i’ the Wa’, I was greeted by this along the alleyway:

The inside of the inn was as large as the entrance was small, with a variety of bars and rooms. I was able to tuck myself in a corner with my coffee and observe.

Well refreshed, when going back down the high street intending to return direct to the car park, I was tempted right, sideways and downhill, as it looked to me as if there might be a riverside at the end of that road.  There was indeed, quite a picturesque one with some nice bridges, of which here is one, over the River Nith.

It was raining by the time I got back to the car park.

R. and I had arranged to meet and lunch at the (New) Abbey Cottage Tearoom, next to Sweetheart Abbey, and we were able to dodge the showers just long enough to have a quick look round before eating.  This once Cistercian Abbey was founded by Lady Dervorgilla of Galloway, wife of Lord John Balliol, in 1275.

In the Tearoom, the waitress had some difficulty in getting our order out of us, we were talking so much about who was related to whom, how well had each of us known so-and-so, and general getting-to-know-you conversation, but eventually she got a look in, and we ate, rather slowly as we were talking so much.

We moved on to R. and his wife’s home, deep in the hills, built not in the dark red sandstone of Dumfries and New Abbey, but in the pretty granite of the country we were now in.

I think I could live with such a view

The talking continued, and continued, more on family history, (R. has done a lot of genealogical work on my maternal grandmother’s side), then on R.’s former work as a sound engineer for the BBC, and then on music.  R. is a very competent pianist, and his father was organist at St George’s Cathedral, Southwark (I hadn’t realised there were two cathedrals in Southwark before) and used to compose.  He showed me some songs his father had written, in a beautiful manuscript.  I really wanted to try some of them, but didn’t dare suggest it, limiting myself to just reading a few bars of some of them in my head.  How I wish I’d said something, because, as I learned later, too late, that was just what R. wanted as well.  And I’m not usually one to hold back…

Later in the afternoon, the three of us standing in the kitchen, I saw a red squirrel out in the garden!  Beautiful.  I took my camera, and was planning to sit quietly out there to see what I could snap.  I was outside for just a few minutes, and got this,

then the rain started again.  From inside, I managed to take nothing of real wildlife interest, but this at least shows some of the abundant granite boulders lying naturally in the garden.

As the evening before, the encounter ended with a pleasant meal out at the Mabie House Hotel, conveniently placed for my drive back to Lockerbie. As we left, it was so warm that we nearly drove away without our jackets.

I had just one day of my holiday left, and absolutely nothing planned for it.