The Great Outdoors Challenge 2015

In words and pictures http://www.gemini-challenge.blogspot.co.uk/p/the-great-outdoors-challenge-2015-oban_12.html

Challenge Planning

Judith made me chuckle with her take on Challenge Planning here but it had me thinking, what of my own?

I have a list. Or at least, I did have a list. That was before we moved and I haven’t seen it since…

My food was delivered yesterday, thanks to Mark at Mountaintrails, my Challenge Cake (for the Cheese and Wine) is currently being fed and my new water bottle holder has been despatched. I am still trying to establish the existence of a local bus from Shiel Bridge to Dornie run by MacRae Kintail Buses, but hopefully that’s the last thing on my list, bar the fresh food. So, am I prepared?

I was thinking about this as I strolled yesterday and I’ve come to the conclusion I’m feeling more relaxed each year about this preparation lark. My route is good, for me at least. There is variation and there are expanses of the unknown and there are opportunities to go high if weather allows and I want to. It’s also quite a sociable route. Again. I have all my OS LR maps and I have printed off my route maps. I might even remember to pack my route sheet this year. I am very happy with my dehydrated meals choices and I’m fairly confident I’ll find fresh foods that I like quite easily en route. I have booked my accommodation at the start, a B&B and two hostels along the way and arranged for parcels to be posted on to myself, just containing a couple of dehydrated meals and maybe maps.

I have a dry run with the planned kit on Thursday as I have a DofE training night and I intend to take mine and Ciara’s packed rucksacks to demonstrate the kind of kit they should carry, how to pack a rucksack (I hate lots of dangling bits on the outside!) and what they could aspire to. This will give me the opportunity to give things I haven’t seen for a while a check over, including my Laser which hasn’t been out since September.

Will I be posting a kit list this year? Probably not. It hasn’t changed much. I will replace my fleece with my Rab Lunar pull on and my thermal vest, mainly due to the bulk, but I’m confident I won’t regret it. I will also take my groundsheet protector instead of my foiled mat. The protector is a little heavier, but gives me a groundsheet in the porch as well as some insulation and protecting the bottom of my tent and my Synmat. It also means I won’t be sliding around the floor of my tent for two weeks! I haven’t decided which trousers I’m taking yet, that largely depends on the weather forecast before we leave and whether my Paramo trousers are repaired and returned in time. So I don’t think I’ll post the list, I may just post the total weights to keep the fussy folk happy. (I still have my spread sheets, I know how much it all weighs and what I’ll be hauling across Scotland!)

Now, what have I forgotten?

More walking and making new friends…

I’ve walked almost every day since we moved, varying distances, but I haven’t yet repeated any route. It’s brilliant.

So, here’s a few photographs that I’ve taken.

Across Blair’s Loch

Through the trees

In the middle of the above pic is a rock with a dipper bobbing on it. Honest.

White butterbur, lots of it

Close up and sloping?!

White butterbur carpet

Bamboo!

A few weeks later I had confirmation, this is Wild Garlic

In the middle of this pic is a sticky up twig at the top of a tree. There used to be an osprey nest on the ‘platform’ beneath. It was utterly destroyed in the winter storms and I have not yet seen any sign of the pair that usually nest here…

Cross Slab (Ogham)

I should offer a prize to anyone who can identify the pair of birds in this and the following photo (but I probably won’t…just in case)

 

And the path by Blair’s Loch…

was…

absolutely…

heaving…

with frogs!

Two of my new friends

They are cute!

Frogspawn

Why is it always in a ridiculous puddle?

Looking up the sides of the Dava Way near Clashdhu

A rather lichen laden tree

I have no idea why I particularly like this one…

Moss covered tree stumps catching the sun

Wider view

Swathes of garlic

Also catching the sun…

The first celandine of the year

This sheep had just given birth to her lambs when I walked past

Another new friend

Really pungent now, be glad you don’t have smellyvision

First wild garlic flower bud

Lots more celandine

Wood anenome

Tortoiseshell

And a couple of other walks to report on later.

There has been walking…

But I have been very busy doing other stuff as well!

So here’s a quick round up.

David and I went for a quick stroll around Altyre.

Tried to show him a track I’ve used before, but not for some time. I lost it.

Ooops!

I went back again in the snow and did a different route.

Low sun

Blair’s Loch

Altyre church

I did NOT slip on the frozen snow, just before taking this photograph

Half frozen

Broken in the storms

Frozen Blair’s Loch

Frosty oak leaves

Frosty ferns

The little blog to the right of the tree trunk in the centre of the photograph is a red squirrel. Trust me.

The site of the old curling rink has been cleared, the folly on the right

A different view of the folly

Not sure…

…what I was interested by

The old and the new estate fencing

Ha! Yes, they were shooting, but luckily I’d change my mind about my route before I came across them, going the way I should have been coming!

And I used my micro spikes!

The pond, not frozen

The swans, ready to make their new home

Snowdrops

Nice tree

Really liked that tree

Light on a nice tree

A view (after I took the path I’d intended to take with David…)

Fab bark on a silver birch

Different lighting

Remaining autumn fruit

Dava Way, nearly at the Dallas Dhu distilliary

Looking up through the branches to the blue sky

I’ve also walked home from Forres a couple of times by my alternative route (instead of the cycle path all the way)

A pointless gate

The pointless gate fastened with barbed wire?!

Part of the Chapleton flood alleviation scheme

More of the flood alleviation scheme

And then the weather got horrible and the camera went away

I do not know…

…I found half a ski with a wooden block screwed onto it

Looking south along the Dava Way

Different lighting

Why??!!!

And there’s been walking with Laura!!

We did my Loch Romach circuit, with a bit of snow.

It was a grey day over the Moray Firth

Somewhere over there is Ben Wyvis

Slightly snowy track, but we didn’t resort to micro spikes

Laura catching me up

Some people really are that stupid

The frozen loch

Through the trees towards the other end of the loch

And then we returned to the Revack Estate for a short walk, coffee but no cake!

The view from the viewpoint

We found this unusual method of harvest…

…quite devastating

By these people

And that is about it really. Obviously, no complete write ups, but that’s because none of the walks were new.