There’s no better place to start a holiday than the Nice Place(TM), even if it does involve getting up and on the road at 4am for a 165-mile drive up north. The sun rose over Loch Beinn a Mheadhoin as I approached: The Caledonian Forest at Glen Affric was its usual beautiful self – still […]
It’s been a bit of a dream, a life-mission of a bucket-list item, but the other week I flew over some of the Caledonian Forest at Glen Affric – the drone’s maiden flight, as it happens, and a new way to admire the trees from a different angle. A scene I hope to revisit more […]
For about 13 years I have been of the opinion that it has not been a year without at least one trip to Glen Affric. My favoured time is autumn, late October, to catch the trees in the Caledonian Forest reserve at their most colourful. Arriving before sunrise, the light is all dull and the […]
I first visited Glen Affric in September 2006, more or less 10 years ago. Not long after, I discovered the joy of standing at my favourite bench watching the sun rise behind the distant mountains, its light casting shadows of the trees on the mist. Since then I’ve been longing for a second chance at […]
The Black Woods of Rannoch are a particularly favourite stroll. One of the Caledonian Forest reserves (the only one I know in Perthshire), they boast many native and rare flora species – Scots Pine, birch, rowans, alder, willow and juniper and lichens and fungi – as well as being home to wild deer (as I […]
From wikipedia: The Caledonian Forest is the name given to the former (ancient old-growth) temperate rainforest of Scotland. The known extent of the Roman occupation suggests that it was north of the Clyde and west of the Tay. The Scots pines of the Caledonian Forest are directly descended from the first pines to arrive in Scotland […]
Pine forests: what’s not to like? Scots Pine trees stand tall and proud, burnished orange-gold catching the sun; birch trees get a bit old and develop gnarly character. These are from a stroll in the Black Woods of Rannoch, on the south shore of Loch Rannoch. I noticed Gunnar’s Tree, named for Gunnar Godwin, a chap whose […]
Back in the middle of September, I spent a couple of hours exploring the Black Woods of Rannoch – a Caledonian Forest reserve on the south side of Loch Rannoch. One of the things that struck me – apart from a mosquito – was the sheer proliferation of toadstools, both fly-agaric and others, littering the […]