Queen Elizabeth Country Park
18/06/2023
We moved on today to our next stop on our mini tour of Scotland. We are heading for Spean Bridge, just north of Fort William, in the Highlands. To bide some of the time before booking in we decided to visit the Queen Elizabeth Country Park at Aberfoyle. We like walking and we like natural spots, so we had high hopes for this stop-over.
As ever, we were grateful to find disabled car parking spaces close to the entrance to the visitor centre, and even more so to Scotland for making most of their disabled parking free. Without wishing to get onto my soap box I find the disabled facilities south of the border severely lacking, and rarely free! Right, off my soap box and on with the blog.
We spoke to the very helpful man in the visitor centre, who advised us of the best places to go, with a buggie in tow - he gave us the heads up on the red squirrels in the woods, and said they had been quite active, so we had high hopes of seeing some in the wild. We have encountered red squirrels before, in the British Wildlife Centre, when my brother was attacked, well jumped on, by one in a walk through squirrel enclosure - anyway, I digress!
We set off into the woods following the white trail. The going wasn't too bad, although all down hill (in the back of my mind I was thinking - "down hill now, up hill later"), never mind, think about later, well, later.
On the way down hill we found a fantastic glen, with life-sized cut out mirrored mannequins. This was a fantastic find and extremely beautiful. Depending on where you stood decided what reflection you got in the mirror. It was stunningly simple - simply stunning.
Moving on further we came to a waterfall, cascading down the rocks into a stream. It isn't hard to imagine how this would look after a few days of rain, rather than the dry spell we have had of recent.
In this area we came across a couple of hammocks, strung between the trees. They were good sturdy hammocks and surprisingly comfortable - my wife and little one appeared to really enjoy them.
The highlight of the visit though was seeing a couple of red squirrels. It is hard to imagine that these beautiful creatures used to be the main species of squirrel in this country, before the introduction of the grey. There are only a few places in England, like the Isle of Wight, with it's natural protection of the sea and areas of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, that really have healthy colonies of reds left.
A lot of work is being done by various wildlife trusts to try and prevent the red squirrel from becoming extinct in the UK, with some success.
