Scotland Circle Tour – June 7

This area of Scotland is very photogenic. It has 3 main areas which are uniquely different in a short 20-mile path. You can cover all three areas quite quickly if need be.

Rannoch Moor offers reflections of mountains in a loch. Glen Etive offers the iconic Big Shepherd of Etive, and a meandering river filled with waterfalls. Glencoe Village offers awesome reflections in Loch Leven. I believe I captured the essence of all 3.

Have I mentioned how boggy Scotland is? They have bogs in the valleys, on the hills, on the side of hills, even in my hotel room. Every damn step is boggy. I thought I had waterproof hiking boots but the bogs have shown that not to be true. You need what are called Wellies, which are just big rubber boots up to your knees. I know why people have these here now.

My mishap of the day, which I know seems to bring the most enjoyment to many reading this blog. During the day, I was scouting out various waterfalls along the Glen Etive road which I could come back later to photograph when the light was better. Saw a potential one just a short descent down a steep hill from the road. Got to the bottom & was walking along the large flat rocks to get a better view. I stepped on one rock that had a small amount of what looked liked black moss. Wham, I was flat on my back faster than Wayne kicking out an opponents skates in front of the crease. As I lay there in pain, I turned to see my car keys gently doing a death spiral in mid-air towards the deep & fast moving river. All I could think of at this time was – FOOLED YOU. Did you really think something like that would really happen to me?

Actually, everything in the story is true except the car key part. I actually bruised my back, cut my palm and scraped my elbow up. I am going to take a sample of this moss embedded in my elbow & have it patented as a non-stick cooking coating. Impossible to stand on it. Thank god I did not have any camera equipment with me or this might be more than just a mishap.

Note to future self: always carry bandages with you in the car & not behind in B&B. It saves you a trip back for repairs.

Note to future self: always carry an extra toothbrush to use as a scraper to remove embedded black moss from new Gortex jacket. I will let you know if the black moss has any medicinal value after I brush my teeth.

Later that evening, I stopped in a valley & wished I had 3 cameras. You could have pointed your camera in any direction & got a great photo. I only posted one of the house but there were many others. The light lasted about 30 minutes & as I was packing up to leave, two Scottish guys came running towards me, tripods in hand wearing wellies. They saw the same light I did and were frantically trying to get a picture. I told them the sun might come back, and one of them pointed over to another viewpoint hoping. I followed and one of the guys wanted to borrow one of my lenses as he ran so fast that he forgot his best lens☺️ I said no and in the end the light never came back again. Unfortunate for them but good for me.

I continued down the road and got some more good shots. Cannot post them as they are resting peacefully on my backup hard drive.

Returned home to see this lovely sunset over the loch.

Thinking my luck has turned, I thought I would go for another sunrise shoot tomorrow before packing to leave Scotland.