• Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Uganda 2013

Musiewild's blog

~ An occasional blog, mainly photos

Musiewild's blog

Tag Archives: Visit Scotland

Travelling again – 3. A long drive further north

25 Friday Jun 2021

Posted by Musiewild in Countryside views, Photography, Plants, Wildlife

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Bridge of Cally, Forth Rail Bridge, Forth Road Bridge, Glen Shee, Grant Arms Hotel, Grantown-on-Spey, Langholm, Queensferry Bridge, Rock and Roll Politics, Steve Richards, Visit Scotland

The idea was that I would join Tom and Ally for a relaxed coffee before setting off for Grantown-on-Spey, Highland, but, especially since I had decided not to take the quickest route, I realised that I would only have time before my departure for a quick visit to their house, in order to have a good tour of Ally’s wonderful garden, and that earlier than planned.

Tom’s daily blog always includes pictures of the wonderful results of his wife’s efforts, so here are just a few impressions I took away on that day.

I set off from their house in Langholm at about 10.00 and arrived at the Grant Arms around 5.00. My aim was to minimise mileage, which as I looked at the map meant not taking the M74 but crossing the Southern Uplands pretty well due northwards, skirting round Edinburgh rather than Glasgow, then not taking the A9 round the Cairngorms westwards, but going almost straight through them south to north on the A93. So I programmed my satnav to do just that. When I told Tom that I was going (I see now, unnecessarily) via a place called Ettrick, he warned me that that meant lots of potholes. What I hadn’t realised is that the first part would mean several miles of single carriageway over fabulously beautiful moors.

It was a lovely drive, and I met scarcely a soul. Tom was right about the potholes, but fortunately nearly all of them had been filled in!

As I lost altitude, the mist cleared. At 11.14 a partial eclipse of the sun was at its peak, but honestly I wouldn’t have known.

And in due course, I could see that I would have to join a major road. View ahead not too bad though.

Once on such a road, it was much more difficult to stop to take photos, which was perhaps as well, or else I would have made slow progress.

It was tedious going round the various motorways to the west of Edinburgh. At one point I found myself alarmingly on one signposted for Glasgow, but trusty satnav knew wat it was doing, and to my enormous pleasure I found myself swept over the beautiful Queensferry Bridge, with the famous Forth Road and Rail Bridges to my right. The traffic went slowly enough for me to glance over to them from time to time. I would have loved to have taken pictures of and from the new bridge, but it was absolutely impossible to stop, for no doubt very good safety reasons. But here is a beautiful picture of all three, taken from the north side, courtesy of Visit Scotland.

Around lunchtime I stopped at the Kinross Services, then set off north again. I really had to stop myself from stopping too often. I had had neither talk nor musical distraction up to then, as I had just wanted to enjoy the scenery, but for the next 50 minutes or so, I did plug my favourite podcast into my ears, Steve Richards‘s latest ‘Rock and Roll Politics‘. That took me through Perth, and somewhat beyond, and I continued onwards undistracted through places which until then had been just names to me: Blairgowrie, Bridge of Cally, Spittal of Glenshee (not that I had ever heard of these last two before), Braemar, and eventually to Grantown-on-Spey.

The Bridge is the flat road curving right. It’s over the River Ardle.

The next three photos are of beautiful Glen Shee.

The road to myself, as it was most of the way!

Through the Grampians

I could not get a better view of this very steep bridge, as the wire fence was in the way. Protecting me from these Greylag geese!

These last three were all taken from the same spot, just a few miles from Grantown.

And after a good dinner in the restaurant, I went to a talk on the wildlife of Guatemala by the hotel’s celebrity speaker, about whom more next time.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email

Like this:

Like Loading...

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Recent Posts

  • The Newt in Somerset – May 2023
  • Forest Lodge Gardens
  • Lesvos 9 – second Wednesday and Thursday
  • Lesvos 8 – Tuesday
  • Lesvos 7 – Monday
  • Lesvos 6 – Sunday (part 2)
May 2023
M T W T F S S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031  
« Apr    

Archives

  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015

Blogroll

  • Avalon Marshes 'Hands on Heritage'
  • Londonsenior
  • Salmon Brook Farms
  • The Jaguar
  • Tootlepedal's blog

Recent Comments

Musiewild on The Newt in Somerset – M…
tootlepedal on The Newt in Somerset – M…
Musiewild on Forest Lodge Gardens
maryh on Forest Lodge Gardens
Musiewild on Forest Lodge Gardens

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Musiewild's blog
    • Join 201 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Musiewild's blog
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: