Recently my boyfriend and I had a
mini adventure in Scotland. It was based around the fact that I really wanted
to walk up Britain’s highest mountain, Ben Nevis in Scotland, before I turned
30.
Adam had booked flights and a hire
car, and we packed our tent and hiking gear and flew to Glasgow. Driving
through the Scottish countryside was wonderful, and we stopped a few times to
better enjoy it.
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| Loch Lomond |
Our destination for our first
night in Scotland was Oban, we had a look around the pretty little town when we
got there.
I was most taken by these black
guillemots, which I had never seen or heard of before. I thought they were
absolutely gorgeous, and very cute!
Our campsite was not far out of
Oban, and was a basic site – which was just what we wanted.
The next day we had our first
little adventure. Driving around rather randomly, we came to Loch Awe, which is
Scotland’s longest freshwater loch at 25 miles in length.
After exploring around the loch
and going for a few very short walks, we came to an area where you could hire
boats. I would have preferred a rowing or sailing boat, but being Scotland’s
longest loch I was (sensibly, I suppose…) outvoted and we instead rented a
small motorboat.
We motored out into the loch, looking
for islands to explore.
We spotted a likely looking
island, complete with an overgrown ruin, and landed for a while.
We moored up, and explored the
whole little island, investigating the ruins and generally acting like a pair
of children from an Arthur Ransom novel…
Then it was time to head back. It
took a long time to get back as we had hired the smallest-engined boat
available, but that’s all part of the adventure!
That evening we headed to Fort
William, and set up camp in the Glen Nevis campsite, ready to tackle Ben Nevis
the following day.
We had fine weather to begin our
Ben Nevis walk, calm and dry, and not too warm or too cold, so we set off in
our base layers. We found the start of the main track easily and then followed
the well maintained path.
I had expected it to be a wilder
track, rather than this stone-paved one.
We had great views for most of
the way up, until all of a sudden the weather turned – this is why it’s so important
to be properly prepared for any conditions when you’re in the hills, even if
the path seems so accessible.
There was still snow on the
ground, and the low cloud that closed in made it suddenly much colder. The wind
picked up and the rain came down. Thank goodness for layers and Goretex!
Taking it easy because of the
poor visibility, we made it to the summit, from where we had plenty of views,
but all of them were of mist…
We had bought some whisky
miniatures from a shop in Fort William, so we had a wee tot to celebrate the summit.
It was pretty chilly and miserable
up there in the cold wind and rain, so after photos and snacks we set off back
to the campsite.
There were no great views to be
had through the mist on the descent, and with so many stone steps my rubbish knees
became pretty sore and I didn’t enjoy a lot of the descent. I did have one
bright moment though, when near the bottom I rather randomly bumped into
someone I knew who was heading up! We drew a lot of amused looks as we greeted
each other loudly and with surprise in the middle of the track. Pete had to
push on as he was beginning a 3 Peaks Challenge, but it had been funny to bump
into him so far from home.
The next day, the heavens opened
as we packed away our tent ready to head home – despite yesterday’s mist and
cold we had been lucky with the weather for our successful little adventure :)
