Home -> Europe -> Scotland -> Travelogue 2005 -> Thursday 5 May

To Glen Cannich

Today (and all days that we stay at Beauly) we will take it easy. We want to spend some more time with Iain en Cathy, so we will make just a few short trips through the neighbourhood and maybe one or two longer journeys. After all, we see them only once a year and they have become good friends. After a late breakfast (we always take the same for breakfast in Scotland: I have soft fried eggs on toast and Teije scrambled eggs with some extra toast and tea), we are on our way.

We leave Beauly and immediately climb into the hills on single track roads and we get some nice views on the town below. Beauly is situated at the end of a bay and from the town itself it seems like this is a flat area, but that isn't true. Near Crask of Aigas we see this country house, the House of Aigas which is a field study centre now.

It is not as warm as yesterday, about 12 degrees and now and then some rain falls, but most of the time the sun is shining. Typical Scotttish weather, one moment sunny and no clouds in the sky, but a few minutes later it can start raining and you wonder whether the sun will ever appear again. It is May, so we hope it will get a bit warmer in the next two weeks.

At Cannich we turn onto the single track road that leads into the glen, a narrow road through a beautiful area. We have seen here deer before and now they also are abundantly present. They lie and walk just along the road as if they aren't wild at all.

One of the reasons for this is that some land owners here feed the animals, but in July and August they become target again for the hunters. At this moment they still feel very safe and stay where they are when we get out of the car to take pictures.

Another common sight in Scotland are sheep on the road and off course a waterfall here and there. Driving through this nice landscape it feels as if we have been here already for weeks instead of only one day! We greet every oncoming traffic and they wave back, a typical Scottish custom on narrow roads. Obviously, it isn't very busy on the road, since it is a dead end and we will have to drive the whole way back to leave the glen again.

We forgot to mention the lochs, they are also an important part of Scotland. It is a watery country and the vegetation is not only fed by rain. All the green gives the rough landscape something sweet. We love it.

Driving back to Beauly we take all kinds of narrow roads and tracks leading us to hidden villages. Sometimes we encounter a local, so we have to find a place to pass each other, but these passing places are never far away, and nobody makes a fuss when it takes some time.

Along one of these dead ends we come across this cairn (stone circle) whcih we have seen before when Iain showed us the neighbourhood. It is special because it stands half in the garden of someone, in the hamlet Lonbuie. Having a piece of prehistory in your front garden, not everone can say that!

Teije always want to take every possible road he sees (and marks them on an old map which is hold together by lots of tape) and we find quite a few where we haven't been before, most of them dead ends. We call them returning roads now, that sounds better and we always have to return on them to get back. Not many people drive here, but there are still quite a lot of roadsigns, like: be careful, crossing ducks! That is probably to warn crazy tourists like us who just take any turn they see.

We spend the evening in the pub with Cathy while Iain handles the customers. He checks on us now and then while we show Cathy the photographs we have made on our previous journeys. And off course all 700 pictures (only of 2005) of our grandchild Esmée of who we are very proud. Later more people enter who are old acquaintances and it is quite late before we are off to our room. It has been a very pleasant day.

Travel through Europe and Africa

with Elisabeth and Teije