Bidean nam Bian

The highest mountain in Argyll; not Ben Cruachan as many seem to suggest; presents this impenetrable looking wall from the A82 road side.
The lovely lochan in the foreground is man made, built by Lord Stratchcona, (Donald Smith) who made his fortune in Canada after leaving Forres in Moray as a young man. He was a hugely powerful and successful industrialist and his name and image sticks in my mind as the man who ceremonially drove the last spike to join the the Canadian Pacific railway line from east to west at Creagellachie in Eagle Pass, British Columbia in late 1885. (I know this because we have stopped at the gift shop.)
Perhaps Lord Strathcona liked nice ponds on his Glencoe Estate but the story goes that he had them built to remind his Canadian wife and her family of a distant homeland. The beautiful woodland surroundings all add to that illusion. I'm sure I spotted a grizzly bear in the woods.