Autumn Holiday Day 1: The Nice Place

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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 not cold enough for morning mist in the trees, but brilliant morning sunlight and heavy rain caused a wonderful vibrant double rainbow while I was down by the river.

For a change, I took a long walk a couple of miles along the side of Loch Beinn a Mheadhoin, to be rewarded with a gorgeous view of Sgurr na Lapaich covered in pure white snow, across the water.

Other views from the morning:

The Nice Place(TM)

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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 often as flying skills evolve.

Autumn at Glen Affric (1)

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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 scenery a moody shade of gloomy – the last vestiges of moon stars remaining in the cobalt blue sky.

One of my favourite scenes at Glen Affric – two ncie birch trees amongst purple and green heather.
Sadly this shot has been marred in recent years by the installation of a large wide path cutting right through the heather between bench and trees; this photo used to be easier to compose but now I’m too conscious of having to position the frame to avoid the path just below; it’s becoming too much of a trick-shot for my liking.

 

Slowly, over the course of an hour after the posted sunrise time, the sun will gradually rise behind Meall Dubh beyond Loch Beinn a Mheadhoinn, casting a beautiful light on the forest:

Having arrived so early, it is a delight to bask in the first proper warm sunlight of the day:

One of my favourite birches – always think it should be called “Dancer” for some reason – basking in the first warm rays of sunrise amongst the heather.

Around Glen Affric 3: Morning Sunrise

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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 same scene – and this year, with a bit of good timing, I think I managed it.

And another behind-the-scenes 360-pano selfie of what it’s like to be there…

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In the Woods

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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 discovered when a stag suddenly trundled right across the path barely 20yd in front of me).

Interaction with mankind is a different matter. There’s something about the flow and depth of river water in the weir that creeps me out, but the text on the last sign-post says:

The Black Wood of Rannoch Canals

Before you you can see a ditch cut through the heather. This dates from around 1800 and once formed part of a York Building Company scheme to remove timber from the Black Wood of Rannoch. In order to extract the logs they devised a system of canals (the ditch before you was the lowest of the three canals).

The scheme provided a great deal of work and employed most of the men and women of the district. Over four miles of canals had to be dug using picks and shovels. The trees then had to be felled before being floated along the canals and then down a chute to Loch Rannoch. The logs were tied together in rafts for the journy down the loch to Kinloch Rannoch, then sent singly down the Rivers Tummel and Tay to their final destination at Perth and Dundee.

If the project had been a success, the Black Wood of Rannoch would have ben completely destroyed. In the event, the plan to float the logs down the rivers did not work. The scheme was abandoned, and the wood saved.

Employment just does justify desecration. The woods are too special.

Glen Affric: Caledonian Forest

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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 following the ice-age; arriving about 7,000 BC. The forest reached its maximum extent about 5,000 BC after which the Scottish climate became wetter and windier. This changed climate reduced the extent of the forest significantly by 2,000 BC. From that date, human actions (including the grazing effects of sheep and deer) reduced it to its current extent.

Today, that forest exist as 35 remnants covering about 180 square kilometres (44,000 acres). The Scots pines of these remnants are, by definition, directly descended from the first pines to arrive in Scotland following the ice-age. These remnants have adapted genetically to different Scottish environments, and as such, are globally unique; their ecological characteristics form an unbroken, 9,000-year chain of natural evolution with a distinct variety of soils, vegetation, and animals.

To a great extent the remnants survived on land that was either too steep, too rocky, or too remote to be agriculturally useful. The largest remnants are in Strathspey and Strath Dee on highly acidic freely drained glacial deposits that are of little value for cultivation and domestic stock.

It’s also amazingly beautiful. I can happily drag myself out of bed at 3am and drive several hours north to arrive at the forest in time to watch the sun rise: with its ancient history, the scent of the heather, watching mist flowing around the old pine tree-tops catching the morning light, there’s nowhere more gorgeous on Earth.

Trees

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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 fondness for these woods led him to manage them and agitate for them to be designated a Caledonian Forest Reserve.

fungi in the forest

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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 path through the woods.