Inverness and Glen Affric

*Updated*
After visiting St. Andrews on the east coast on Friday, last weekend we headed north to see Loch Ness and Inverness and to go to an orienteering event north of Inverness. I hadn't been that far north yet and of course Loch Ness holds a certain mythic appeal.

The drive up was lovely along the lochs and through the little road-bend villages. We stopped to stretch our legs in Fort Augustus on the southern tip of Loch Ness.




Loch Ness itself was perhaps a bit anticlimactic, if I can admit such a thing. It was just long, narrow, and straight, rather unexciting. Urquhart Castle provided an impressive vista, however.


We stopped to admire it from the parking lot and then drove the rest of the way up to Inverness where we found a campground immediately in the city. We spent the evening wandering through the riverside park that took us to the center of Inverness and then walking through the city. All along the river were pink sandstone mansions, mostly B&Bs and restaurants, but looking very fancy. And there was a pink sandstone castle on top of a hill that we climbed up to.

Sadly, I didn't have my camera with me, and the lovely sunset we watched from the pink castle over the spires and pinnacles of Inverness will remain only in my memory. We got caught in a sudden rainstorm and huddled under the eave of a church until it abated. Yes, the church was pink also. Everything was pink, and quite lovely. I have a wonderful impression of Inverness--especially the waterfront park that was filled with creatively carved benches made of giant logs cut in artistic shapes.

We saw lots of birds--a treecreeper was my favorite. Also a heron on the river, and lots of gulls. Oh, on the drive up we had to stop in the road for a family of woodcocks crossing the road in their funny woodcock way of walking. It was a mother and two chicks and they looked completely goofy and foreign there in the road, taking their time strutting to the other side. They're really amazing birds.

The next day we headed northwest from Inverness to Contin near Loch Achilty where there was an orienteering event. The map was called Rogie--famous for highly technical terrain. I enjoyed the challenge of navigating through forest looking for boulders and knolls and re-entrants, but I have to say that one of those boulders was insanely difficult to find!! I spent about 40 minutes looking for one control, which was incredibly frustrating. I was about to give up when I finally stumbled across it.

Hey, I'm not in any kind of competitive class here. All the same, I think I came in third or something like that. Results and my route mapped on RouteGadget can be found at: http://www.invoc.org.uk/ (Look for me on the WYFORA course and you can see me running in circles looking for boulders.)

It was a fun day, though tiring. After the orienteering we debated going for a hike somewhere and enjoying more of the Loch Ness area scenery. All our guidebooks told us that Glen Affric, a small glen heading west from Glen Urquhart and the Great Glen, was worth visiting to get "off the beaten track" and to see some ancient Caledonian pine forest.

Before we could make up our minds whether we had enough energy to go for a hike, given that rain was starting to fall pretty heavily, we spotted a tea shop and art gallery. We stopped for cream tea for two, and wow, was it wonderful. I think cream tea (a pot of tea served with milk and fruit scones with lovely jam and whipped cream) is almost more of a comfort food than anything else. It was delicious and just completely relaxing to enjoy our tea in the cozy art gallery, which appeared to be in a former church. We sat surrounded by Scottish landscape paintings, photographs, wood sculptures, pottery, and figurines of fairies.

We decided after our tea that we would drive in a sort of triangle out from Beauly to Cannich and then back along Glen Urquhart to Loch Ness and then south. That way, we could see a bit of Glen Affric and some of the scenery from the car. If we found a good place to go hiking, then we could do that.

We picked up a hitchhiker along the way, a young man with an overpowering smell of liquor and tobacco. He was gregarious and offered lots of local stories of clan feuds and grudges against "the English" as we wound our way up the glen toward Cannich. He insisted that if we were going as far as Cannich it would be a crime not to go further and see Glen Affric properly, as we weren't likely to find a nicer spot anywhere in the world. He was so adamant about that that there was no question at all about heading past the town, up the narrow road that ended alongside the loch and became a foot trail.

The rain was really pouring down by this point and we stopped at several places along the road that hugged the shore of Loch Beinn a'Mheadhoin. We viewed Dog Falls on the river and then kept driving, the forest getting more and more gorgeous as we went, patches of birch and then open places with scarce pine and heather.


The ancient Scots pine forest only remains in one percent of its original habitat, and this was one section of it. The forest is as old as the retreat of the Ice from this area, about 8000 years, and the Pinus sylvestris live to be 300 to 400 years old. They are shapely, unique trees with a natural elegance and pride, and though often gnarled and twisted they have a particular beauty and grace.


As we reached the end of the road, suddenly the clouds broke and sun poured over the wet forest. We had the whole place practically to ourselves (human-wise) and took a walk out into the forest along the river to get a better sense of this incredible, magical place.








It's true, there is no more beautiful place. We couldn't have asked for a nicer afternoon. Pleasantly tired, munching on hummus sandwiches we drove back toward Urquhart Castle, south along the bank of Loch Ness and home. As we crossed the Connel bridge just north of Oban, we noticed lots of people out walking, many with cameras and tripods photographing the sunset. It was just exactly 10:00 p.m.

We stopped for our own photograph. Sunset at 10:00 p.m. on the 27th of May, Connel, Argyll.