Rained all day. Lie in and late breakfast. Went to Lochmaddy museum. Very interesting exhibition on local geology – learnt about Gneiss pseudotachlyte: a rare igneous formation formed by intense metamorphic pressure. Found here along the Hebridean fault, and in meteor craters. Also a the museum was an exhibition of photos of the dull celtic …
Needed to swap rooms today because the lodge only had two nights available in the good room, so checked out after breakfast. Followed a path up the hill behind the lodge, to a stone circle, then climbed to the top and back round the other side to look at a 5000-year old chambered cairn, Barpa …
We met local wildlife guide Steve Duffield (http://www.western-isles-wildlife.com) in the Lodge car park at 9am. A few minutes after we set off, we had a good view of a short-eared owl flying about. Apparently they’re common here. We drove to an old pier near Lochmadday and spent an hour and a half watching a mother …
Got the 9:30am ferry from Uig. Sunny crossing with views of gannets, arctic skua, puffins, guillemots. Porridge for breakfast on the boat. From Lochmaddy we drove around the northern edge of Uist. An uneven low-lying marshy landscape with lots of pools (lochans). At RSPB Balranald we had bread and cheese for lunch in the car. …
Porridge for breakfast, then left hotel at 9am for drive north. Out of Glasgow we followed the edge of Loch Lomond. Sky and loch and road were uniform pewter-grey, everything else was verdant green with purple foxgloves all the way. Coffee stop at Tyndrum, then through low cloud and rain up over the great undulating …
Looked in the one-room piping museum, attached to the hotel. Had a go on the bagpipes. Harder than it looks. A group of Japanese schoolchildren arrived, and they all had a go too. Lovely. Got the subway train to Hillhead, and walked in a pleasant neighbourhood past red sandstone university buildings to the Kelvingrove Art …
Google redirected us through rural Shropshire to avoid a motorway accident, so we drove for an hour through green lanes passing fields of crimson poppies iridescent in the morning sunlight. M6 was slow, as always. At Glasgow piping centre hotel we were met with a complementary glass of Glenfiddich, and have a poky room with …
Through sunshine to our usual Shropshire stop-over, The Raven hotel in Much Wenlock. Pint, meal, wander around the village.
Lazy morning. Packed lunch and drove to Loch Spiggie. On the single-track road around Bigton we had to pull in to let a large German tour bus pass in the other direction. At Loch Spiggie we walked a short way along the loch to the beach in howling gales with few breaks in the rain. …
R dropped J off at Clickimmin Broch in Lerwick in the morning. J spent the morning looking round the broch and Lerwick library, museum, and arts centre. R drove up to the Vidlin in the north-west mainland to look for otters. R spent an hour at Swining Voe. A tern colony was aggressive when passed, …