In Glen Nant

One of my favoured locations for a quick hour’s stroll in Argyll is Glen Nant, south of the village of Taynuilt; in particular the Ant Trail which leads you through a small Caledonian forest – not very reserved as many of the trees were felled a couple of centuries ago to fire the furnaces at Bonawe, but it seems folks have repented a bit since then.

Herewith, some more back-to-earth simple landscapes: Ben Cruachan from Glen Nant and a couple of intimate landscape studies.

Glen Clova

A couple of years ago, a photo-friend and I spent a happy afternoon exploring Corrie Fee in Angus; I remembered emerging from the trees in an impressive bowl of a glacial corrie. In August, I sought to repeat the experience, starting from the carpark nearby, but in my haste to get off the ghastly Forestry Commission track (more like a hard gravel road ploughed through the forestry, complete with yellow metal gantries), I wound up taking a different path. It also emerges from the trees into a bowl of a glacial corrie, but felt different and I couldn’t work out whether it was the wrong exit from the woods or what.

Came home and checked the geotagged images to find it was not Corre Fee but Glen Clova instead. That would explain a lot of things! And unsurprisingly, I now use ViewRanger to navigate whilst hiking.

Still, a couple of hours bumbling around in the grass finding interesting photos in a dramatic bit of landscape on a moody afternoon… Can’t complain.

As I was stumbling around in the foot of the glen, I stumbled across this lovely little burn tumbling its way through the hillside:

The surrounding rocks are quite dramatic – I was amazed at the green and purple hues of moss and primitive plants growing on the crags around

And much as I know the forestry is entirely artificial now, it still drapes over the landscape like a cloak.

Wet Reflections

Just a couple of photos from a stroll beside a burn down the bottom end of town today at lunchtime – not great light, in fact it was beginning to rain. But if looking up doesn’t work, look down and take abstract photos of trees reflected in the burn instead…