Loch Rannoch Sunset

A few photos from Sunday afternoon’s explorations around Loch Rannoch.

We walked through the Black Woods; whilst flying the drone near Camghouran I discovered remains of a building – a pile of stones and hints of mounds in the earth possibly in the shape of a former but’n’ben croft? – in a clearing in the forest.

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Sunset on the shore was beautiful; contrasting deep blue ominous dark blue clouds and vibrant orange sunset across the water.

Prints of some of these photos will be available through my ShinyPhoto website: photos around Loch Rannoch.

Winter around Rannoch

We made it up to the Rannoch area mid-afternoon in time to admire the pure calm stillness and misty distant mountain reflections on Loch Rannoch.

Beautiful simplicity: flat calm, mirror reflections on Loch Rannoch.

(Obligatory plug – the above image is now uploaded to my main fine-art / landscape website: Blue Stillness, Loch Rannoch.)

Drone photos also happened – flying around inversion layers over the Black Woods of Rannoch.

And the forest was its usual welcoming self, albeit in subdued winter mode:

Loch Rannoch Precipitation

“Through sepia showers and photo-flood days”, in the words of Runrig. It certainly felt like that – all the best scenes from an afternoon’s trip around Loch Rannoch seem to have featured water, preferably precipitating in the distance, most probably raining on me! Certainly makes for dramatic landscape photos.

Around Loch Rannoch

It remains one of my favourite parts of Highland Perthshire – with walks in Caledonian Forest to enjoy, beautiful landscape around Loch Rannoch, and this most recent discovery – as I was driving I saw a little round fuzzy grey/black creature trundling along the verge; when I realised it was a badger, well, the car just pulled its own handbrake on so I could get out and say hello. On talking to a few passers-by, it transpires they’re well known, living in a sett under an old pine tree’s partially excavated roots.

Wildlife is awesome.

Water: Around Loch Rannoch (3)

This one isn’t so much about the water as the mountain, Schiehallion. Back in 1774, its regular shape and relatively isolated location led to it being used in the famous experiment by Mason and Maskelyne to determine the value of the gravitational constant, big-G, and the density of the Earth.

Certainly it sits fairly impressively in the landscape.

Water: Around Loch Rannoch (1)

It’s hard driving around Loch Rannoch – all the stopping and starting makes for lousy mileage. But that’s OK – the scenery is more than worth it.

The first time I came around here, more used to the road network than the geography of reality, I drove beyond the end of the loch (into the setting sun in these photos) up to Rannoch Station, and was surprised to see `Glencoe’ on the adjacent page on the map. No mistake – it’s only about 5 miles directly across Rannoch Moor, and yet by road it’s at least 83 miles and 2.5 hours’ drive.