Category Archives: Lowland

Seed of an idea.

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Getting dark now, 5°C and clear.
We walk about 6km/hr on good, flat sooth ground. About 4mph, or 40 miles in 10 hours, 80 in 20.
Would it be possible to walk 100 miles in a day?

That sounds pretty hard-core, but it’s developing into an idea that might be more realistic:
Walk to Lancashire in say 36 hours along the canals.
There’s one that gets you in Runcorn from near here. It’s the Trent And Mersey Canal. Okay, it does weave about a bit, and the route would probably total more than one hundred.
I could pick a summer month that has shorter hours of darkness, short enough not to get through too many batteries for the head-torch.

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Just a thought.

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Long walk on the shortest day.

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8°C, clear sky with building light cloud. The usual SW breeze,
I hiked with MapMyRide+! Distance: 4.64mi, time: 01:14:11, pace: 15:59min/mi, speed: 3.75mi/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/1284668245
Thick, slippery mud was impossible to escape.
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Both Ford crossings were impassible too, the water was just too deep. Since I’m ultra smart, I prepared an alternative route that crossed footbridges instead.

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Night walk selfie


Carl took this nighttime selfie while we did the Blair Witch lights thing.
I was out-shone by their lights. By myself, the headtorch I have is plenty. It’s a Petzl Tikka 2 which was great the time I was benighted near Glen Coe in 2014. When the others had 200 lumin lamps, mine couldn’t compete. However, bright lights frequently spoiled our night vision especially after holding up the map. No strong reason to upgrade then, but perhaps a stronger hand torch would work well.
Next time, I will take a bike light.

Falls of Glomach,

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13°C, SW breeze that brought heavy rain later.
Rainy day walk; it’s quite logical to use a wet day to walk low level to waterfall. This one is supposed to be the highest single drop in Scotland.The walk starts after a 6 mile drive up a single-track road. There follows a Glen walk and the waterfall is up a side Glen. The side Glen is steep but to only 150m. This is also the stage where the rain started.
Beforehand, in the valley is a track that is easy walking for about 7km along a Glen that is very attractive. You can admire the clarity of the glacial features, drumlins, nunateks and various moraines.
Then you can look forward to see the most enormous Highland cattle. The adults must weigh over 2 tons, and they had calfs. Admittedly, the calfs were probably 1 year olds. But still, their curiosity was strong, as was my desire to take a wide detour.
Eventually, I got to the falls after climbing over gneiss boulders. Their grip was plenty despite the water everywhere. More frogs too.
On the return, the herd of cattle had become two, but the divisions were easier to find this time.

I have found another mountain to add to the ‘must climb’ list: Benn Bhan, in the Applecross region. It has 4 fantastic looking spurs that loom out of hill fog in an intoxicating way.