Loch Mallachie

Our adventure of the day started at midday after some sanding and plastering walls! We had a very disappointing ride up the Highland Funicular railway at Cairgorm mountain. We were told when we bought our ticket that we would not be allowed out of the building at the top as conservation measures would not allow so many people on the mountain on a day! We decided to go anyway and although the view was spectacular it just did not feel right being kept inside a building when we wanted to roam free! I love wild places and this is certainly wild but I like my wild places to be quiet, commercialism free and unrestricted. So we beat a hasty retreat back down on the train and headed off for Loch Garten instead.

We did not do the predictable thing of going to the RSPB hide -I've been before and Sandra has seen lots of osprey in Oregon. Instead we headed off on an Abernethy forest trail along the edge of Loch Garten and onto Loch Mallachie. This is the kind of wild experience we had been after! Only saw two other people, it was quiet, peaceful with gorgeous forest smells and stunning views of the loch. We came across large swathes of water lilies growing close inshore but the highlight was coming across 2 young deer who seemed fairly unperturbed to see us and we were able to watch them for 5 minutes and take photos. It was a great privilege to be able to enter their world for a short time and was the highlight of the day! This is the kind of experience that makes searching out the wild places so worthwhile.

The Blip is of Loch Mallachie with some beautiful cloud reflections going on.