View out to the west (before I got lost)

Yesterday I accidentally climbed to the top of the big hill nearby my house. It has wonderful views in several directions. Then on the way back down I got lost as I tried to find my way back through the unmarked forest paths by which I'd come up.

I had just thought it would be nice to try exploring these paths my youngest daughter had told me about recently. They're unused now, but I think were designed for mountain bikers. I (stupidly) kept walking through the forest and up the slope, thinking it would be nice to try and get to a more open part and possibly see a view. By the time it opened up I could see I was almost at the top of the hill so I kept going that little bit further. I got very hot as it was an unusually warm, sunny day for here.

It was great to see the beautiful views up there, but getting lost on the way back down was not nice at all. The paths and trees all looked so similar and every time I tried to guess where I was it turned out to be wrong, or the track I tried would peter out into impenetrable gorse bushes. My dog and I were getting hotter, tired and thirsty and by then I should have been going home to cook dinner.

Luckily I always have my phone with me (partly for photo purposes) and so I rang and asked my husband and youngest daughter (who was the only other one who had been on these particular paths before) to please come and find me!

Long story, but finally about an hour later, after much calling out and them having to climb up really steep wooded banks (because they didn't know which direction to go in) they finally heard my calls and managed to reach me! My dog and I were very happy to see them. Then we still had to hope they could remember the way they'd come to get us back to the road....but with a bit of trial and error we made it safely back to the car.

The silly thing was that when I was completely lost I was only about a mile away from our home! That's forestry plantations for you I guess. I will be learning a few lessons from this mishap I'm pleased to say....and I will also get myself a whistle, just to be on the safe side!

In the extras you can see the view down to where I live and out to the Beauly Firth and beyond, plus a snap of my rescue party, once we had got safely back to the car!