Creag Meagaidh - National Nature Reserve
We had planned on going to a country park in the Cairngorms, Craeg Meagaidh National Nature Reserve, as there were some nice walks listed suitable for our party. After much deliberating, we decided to tough it out and go for it.
On the drive through to the Nature Reserve the skies brightened somewhat, or it could maybe just have been my rose tinted glasses!
We arrived and kitted up in our wet weather gear, although by this point it had actually stopped raining, and headed for the most important part of the walk - the toilets! While here I noticed a couple of House Martins (no, not Norman Cook and a bandmate) buzzing around us. After a short while I realised that the birds were actually warning us off, as they had built a nest under the eaves of the entrance to the toilet block, and were busy feeding their young, whilst keeping unwanted visitors away! We left quickly so as not to scare them too much, just after I had managed to get a rather hurried shot of one of the adult birds coming back to the nest to feed their brood.
We headed off uphill on a path, which as it turned out was slightly tough for the buggie, but with some huffing and puffing we managed to all get to the viewing point of the Otter walk. We settled here to have lunch, surrounded by Arctic plants include alpine speedwell (Veronica alpine), Highland cudweed (Gnaphalium norvegicum), tufted saxifrage (Saxifraga caespitose) and alpine woodsia (Woodsia alpine). Moment of truth, I pinched the plant bit from the reserve's website!
Anyway, botany aside, we sat on some large rocks and ate lunch, watching the rain clouds roll towards us across the hills. Life in these moments seems so simple, no cares or worries, well apart from the obvious signs that the rain was coming back. Being hardy, or even possibly slightly stupid we stuck it out, until risk of getting our Pringles wet forced us back down the walk to the car park. We were now happy we had the wet weather gear and little one his rain cover. Once back at the car in the dry we finished off what was left of our provisions.
Having curtailed our walking I did a quick Google search (other search engines are available) for a back-up plan. The search revealed that, as was expected, pretty much everything to do in this area was outside and subject to the mercy of the elements. We did however find an offshoot of Edinburgh Woollen Mill - in this case Spean Bridge Woollen Mill - with the promise of several retailers covered, literally, in the one location. Most importantly, from my point of view they had a whisky shop attached.
We have been in Scotland for nearly a week now, and I haven't had a single drop of whisky! Unfortunately the shop was a disappointment, selling very over-priced examples of whisky, most of which could be sourced from a local supermarket - clearly whisky tourists don't care or understand they are being ripped off, the coach load of Japanese tourists that suddenly descended on the shop bore testament to this.
My wife was happy though, as she managed to get a couple of nice items, and a Nessie fridge magnet. Got to have a Nessie item, even if you haven't actually been to Loch Ness, no trip to Scotland would be complete without it.