Musings

We started our morning—look at that glorious sky!—at our last standing stone circle of the trip. This one is on a high hill surrounded by much higher mountains. I learned absolutely nothing about the ritual landscape…other stones, where settlements were, other architectural elements…. Sigh. I bucked up, though, and on we went!

We motored up a hill, and discovered even the cattle enjoy lake-views…

…and watching sailboats….

Remember, this is the Lake District, and people here tend to be flush and indulge their notions…can these be considered garden follies?

We motored along winding roads into the nearby Yorkshire Dales, which we found stunning, yet rather sere in comparison, with rock outcrops and different land-use patterns.

With last weekend, we realized we had hit the summer festival season. I think this apparent gypsy wagon is advertising one.

That stone barn…there were lots of these in the valleys and often not very far apart, although each was in a different stone-fenced paddock. I pondered this quite a while, and eventually postulated that they were part of a transhumance pattern, with summer graze on the heights of the ridges, and wintering near these barns, which always had some height and at least two stories, I assume for storing winter fodder. Just a theory, though….

I doubt I’ll see any sheep close-up during the rest of the trip so one last sheep photo…and isn’t this a darned winsome sheep?

Posted at 2:38 PM | 1 Comment »

I took the title from a not-uncommon Scottish road-sign that indicates that the banking of the carriageway is counter to the curve…. I thought it suggestive of mornings that begin with insufficient coffee and other disoriented times…. Today, however—a great day! (Just didn’t want to forget the phrase….)

We came across this pair in this order about a tenth of a mile apart. They each waved as we went by, leaving them plenty of room. Big horse, I think the draft variety.

Later, we encountered several groups of bicyclists. Took me a while to figure out people were (skipping church) enjoying a Sunday outing.

We set a route through Galloway Forest Park…I think almost all the trees are planted. We also saw tree-free moor. In the second shot, you may be able to see a circular stone wall near the bottom of the photo. I think this is an unused animal enclosure, probably for sheep before this became a forest preserve.

These cattle didn’t seem spooked…they are among over a dozen that ran across this field in a line rather than a bunch/herd, I think to meet up with buddies. Hard to know cattle motivation, though….

The sheep in the second paddock were utterly non-plussed.

We drove to the end of the road on the Machars peninsula and had lunch at a special “carvery” Sunday buffet, today highlighting roasted pork loin cut to request and homemade apple sauce, plus crusty baked peeled potato chunks. Yum.

I took this photo of the harbor as we arrived in Isle of Whithorn (means white house, and is on a peninsula not an island, but no matter), and the tide was waaaaay out. I loved the little red car out with the seaweed clusters on the sand. By the time we left, the car was gone and all these boats were afloat.

We also checked out the roofless ruin of St. Ninian’s chapel on the headland, which Historic Scotland states was built about 1300. Ninian is traditionally considered to have lived in the 300s to 400s, but the historical references may be myth-fiction. While the on-site signs indicate pilgrims who landed here came to this chapel to recover from their sea legs before making their way several miles inland to the Candida Casa (white hut), the first Christian “building” in what is now Scotland.

I know nothing about dating ancient mortars, but I am skeptical that the ruin is really that old. Or maybe I’m just ignorant….

’Tis the season for these lovely deep blue flowers. I have been seeing them everywhere, along with white flowers that look like not-parsley and may be hemlock, and pink flowers I’m just not sure of.

I finally found someone to ask today. They are bluebells, Hyacinthoides non-scripta. Duh.

This website says almost 50% of the world’s bluebells are in the UK, and that they are the preferred flower of the house goblin. My house goblin never mentioned them….

Posted at 5:36 PM | 2 Comments »

Hold onto your shorts; we covered a lot of ground today, the weather included blue skies (!!!). Here’s a great sample from our day, and yet I am skipping many beautiful moments captured without the help of Kodak.

Glen Nevis.

Loch Nell.

Moors in the glaciated mountains…at least, I’m pretty sure this vegetation qualifies as moors.

Kilmartin Glen Neolithic ritual landscape…one of the rock cairns.

Kilmartin Glen standing stone with pecked “cup marks.” No idea what they were meant to convey.

Dunadd landform from afar. Dun means fort, usually always a fort atop a high-point.

View northish from the summit of Dunadd, from the part described as the great hall and citadel. The later occupation here maybe began in the late 500s and lasted into the 900s. This was the capital of the native Scoti peoples and their “empire” Dál Riata….

Now, back to the present….

Loch Lomond. We did not cruise it.

Active logging, Scottish style. The log piles show the neatest/tidiest stacking jobs I’ve ever seen. Still hurts to see trees whacked in their prime….

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »

This is a new term I’ve learned, and it means, rainy, cold, windy, and generally unpleasant outdoor conditions…. And that was what we had today.

I have neglected to mention that we had several lovely days with ShedMan and CheetahWoman…lots of laughing and good times. Today, however, that came to an end….

CheetahWoman had told us about a magical cemetery island she found in the River Snizort, and we were going right by, and so stopped in. Despite the rain and many cow-pies, we discovered a sliver of the magic she had observed in the fading light of day (no rain).

Given that it was in the high 40s (F) in the valleys, it’s not surprising that at elevated elevations, the precip was white. I think there’s new dusting atop remnant snowpack from last winter….

I really loved the narrow long chutes of water the mountains were shedding…. More a result of the rubbish weather….

In light rain (still rubbishy), we checked out the Caladonian Canal (along the Great Glen Fault), which we paralleled for part of the day….

We finished up our touristing with a quick visit to Old Inverlochy Castle, which is in pretty good shape for dating back to about 1280. This view is through both gates, all the way across the interior courtyard. It had round towers in each corner, and the wall bases and part of the walls remain outlining the exterior walls and towers. The huge rounded stones are different than in stonework we’ve seen so far.

Finishing a day of rubbish weather is uplifting….

Posted at 10:22 PM | 3 Comments »

We parked near a sand-beach, between black rocks…basalt, we decided.

The surf crashed and boomed on the rocks, and sprawled up the sand. We walked up on the grassy peat-covered…cliffs, I guess you could call them. We stayed away from the edge where we could not tell how supported the green-top was by rocks….

Most of the sheep ignored us, but these were stare-ers. A moment before this, all their attention was on us….

We had set out to walk to the lighthouse (not shown), but bagged our walk after the second rain-storm (one lasting maybe 10 minutes, and one that pushed 20), and returned to the car. Then, we tried to drive to the lighthouse, which we were under the impression could only be accessed on foot…and presto, we could drive right up to it!

The gulls nested on this craggy rock amongst clusters of flowers that may be this kind….

If you look among and around the flowers, you may find an easy-to-spot snail shell, and less easy-to-spot sheep-berries…. No points for gravel-rocks (probably granite).

Posted at 2:05 PM | Comments Off on Beach/cliff-top/old-field walk

Another day, another ferry ride to an island. NOT yawn! Spotted a much smaller craft sharing our waters….

Found a colorful lighthouse…at the end of the road in one direction.

And a sandy beach in a cove at the end of the road in another direction.

What better welcome to our new housing than this colorful presentation from the sky-deities!

This plant is foreign to me. Found in a marshy ditch, maybe a half-dozen others within several hundred meters. Haven’t spotted it elsewhere. Distinctive. Several of the leaves are damaged, perhaps by frost? The brown pineapple-y features are from this year, not carry-overs from last year’s flowering/fruiting….

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »

We looped through the northern highlands, watching the clouds come and go, and the landscape change. Here, hidden lakes….

Arms of the sea poaching the land….

Mountains obscured by clouds, slopes peppered with rocks and cut by rivulets, sometimes with substantial rivers below.

In this land with rare cell coverage, telephone boxes remain in use (“Coins and cards”) at bus stops that the residents of side valleys use to access the outside world….

We even visited a good-sized waterfall, the slopes above it colorful with spring wildflowers, grass shoots, and thriving mosses.

We found Ma Nachur’s eye candy everywhere.

Posted at 4:22 PM | Comments Off on Northern highlands

I felt so good after visiting Lake Clara Meer yesterday that I went again today. When I shot this, I hadn’t realized that The Denizen (great blue heron) was out of the frame to the left. You can see how…busy…the ducks and geese have been (overnighting?), foreground. Yuck.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on S/he was there

We spent quite some time watching the clouds zip over this like-a-shrubby-moorland hillside, framed here by a Krumholtzed tree next to the overlook.

Then I noticed that JCB was standing in the parking area but near the driving lanes, very gently corralling something with his feet. What a lovely little critter! The rescue was tricky, but accomplished, or at least I hope so, and that s/he lives long and prospers (however that plays out in the salamander world).

Internet info suggests that this was a specimen of Plethodon teyahalee, and indicates that an individual will produce “slimy, glue-like secretions when it feels threatened.” Yup, this one did; took a bunch of scrubbing to get it off finger tips that came in contact with his lithe body when the leaves I was cradling her/him with slipped.

Posted at 8:48 PM | Comments Off on Watching time happen

The revamped Piedmont Park sports a lazy route for the creek, rather than the channelized, streamlined paradigm that had been employed. This is a ponding area where a huge amount of flood-runoff water dumps into the creek (below my feet as I clicked). As I stood over it today, I could hear a symphony of bullfrogs.

Note that behind that line of dark green trees in the background skyline from the middle to the right is a multi-story (like 6!, almost all “below ground”) parking garage, totally disguised from this angle, mostly by the bank and partly by those trees.

Posted at 6:56 PM | Comments Off on Nice recovery