Golden road

It seems strange to be raving about another wonderful, cloudless day when I've just watched news stories about floods and misery in England; I can't help feeling that the natural order of things has been subverted, although in truth floods are not something we're much bothered by in this rainy part of Argyll. Anyway, with the nights drawing in so rapidly and to avoid another walk back in the dark (we had our torches out last night, mainly to be seen by the odd car driver), we went out after 11ses and staggered home, starving, after 2pm ...

And this is where we walked - another favourite along the Loch Striven shore road, beginning in the middle and heading on inland in the knowledge that, unlike what happens later on a winter day, we'd not be losing the sun behind the hills. This is one of my favourite stretches of that road, with the added bonus of the golden needles lying thickly and turning the tarmac golden. A heron took off irritably from the roadside, flapping majestically away with a squawk; later we saw a buzzard soaring effortlessly overhead, demonstrating the power-weight ratio that the heron lacks, and pheasants scuttled among the trees. 

One extra photo is of an incredible pair of huge bushes with the reddest of berries, growing at a gate close to Inverchaolain church, and the other of an old wall on a bridge with the loch beyond and the hills of Arran in the distance. Simply a glorious day.