The Cobbler

Wet, wet walk - The Cobbler 29 June 08

Only three of us out of the usual group were brave (?daft) enough to go for a hill walk that day- shortly after we started walking we got absolutely soaked - the rain poured down. However, there were lots of other people doing the same walk - a group of young English people with a guide all dressed in navy blue Helly Hansen waterproofs (a dead give away that they wer eon a guided walk!) and a couple with a young son of about 7 or 8 years old - all wearing welly boots- yes wellies! - to climb up the steep rocky bits and the boggy bits. It was pretty hard work for us with our proper walking shoes to get to the summit but this wee lad in his rubber boots made it to the top! They must have had some serious blisters by the time they got back down.

The distinctive outline of the Cobbler's 2 peaks - it looked like this before and after we reached the summit

At the top, we could see nothing of the view- only mist since we were in the rain cloud. We stopped only long enough to eat a banana, take a few piccies and congratulate the 7 year old boy on getting to the top! For a few brief seconds the clouds parted and we caught a tantalizing glimpse of the view we might have seen if only our timing had been better. Oh, and we talked to some of the Helly Hansen youths who were very disappointed that Sergi wasn't Scottish despite his Scottish accent as they were desperate to meet some real Scottish people (not sure why they hadn't encountered any in Scotland so far!). They then insulted the only Scot amongst us by asking why anyone would want to move from Barcelona to Scotland! Perhaps for the same reason they had come here on holiday ...!

Sergi & Toni at the summit- the view was of mist, mist and more mist (we were actually in the rain clouds)!

The Cobbler looked pretty much like this when we were at the top.

Sergi & Emma getting very wet and cold on the summit in the rain - we didn't linger there for long

We took a slightly different route down- recommended by the welly boot family - which seemed harder and steeper but was apparently a short cut. I was glad we did because as we came round a corner, Toni spotted a brown and white bird with a red spot on its head, smaller than a hen with a small brown chick -a ptarmigan! I wasn't quick enough with the camera but just enjoyed watching them since I have never seen one in the wild before and certainly wasn't expecting to see one this far south. I thought they were only found further north in the Cairngorms and similar places. I even filled out an RSPB viewing record when I got home!

Munros & midgies

Cruach Ardrain, 21 June 08
Near Crianlarich 5 of us went on a hill walk up Cruach Ardrain (one translation from the Gaelic is ‘Stack of the High Part’- catchy, eh?) which is one of the mountains that stand in Glen Falloch - a few of us have been doing quite a few walks recently and are getting quite fit but we had a newbie with us who really struggled up the first slope meaning it took us much longer than expected with lots of stops. It was a long walk anyway with lots of up and downs and very steep sections - 12 miles of walking! It took us 5 ½ hours.

Lunch stop - Romain, Cath, Roser & me

There were beautiful wild flowers including pink and white spotted orchids, butterflies, and drifts of stems with soft cotton wool-like seeds. There were lots of scruffy, pooey sheep and lambs very near the summits where it was cold and windy– they seemed a bit pissed off to see us and baahed at us loudly for ages! We saw a couple of dead sheep on way up - poor things.

Lunch with the midgies & mountains for miles around

There were paths on the mountains worn by humans and sheep which also use the paths. I was a bit surprised that there were actually paths to follow on the mountains but some routes are so popular that it’s fairly easy to follow the way without a map (as long as it’s not cloudy/ rainy when you could fall off the mountain).

When we stopped for lunch we were hassled by insects- I wasn’t sure if they were midgies or not as they were very small, looked innocuous and it’s been a long time since I’ve been attacked by any (we got mozzies down south!). The next day I knew for sure by the itchy, swollen lumps on my arms, legs, ears, and neck that, yes, they were definitely midgies! 3 day’s later they were still driving me mad itching (even woke me up in the night) and now I have scars!

Top of the world!

The summit, called Stob Garbh is 959 m (3146 ft) high (I don’t quite understand why a mountain has a different name for its summit…). As it’s over 3000ft it’s classified as a ‘Munro’ named after Sir Hugh Munro who was the Scottish mountaineer who created a list of mountains in Scotland over 3,000 feet (914.4 metres). A popular activity among some (sad) hill walkers is ‘Munro bagging’ basically climbing as many munros as you can just to say you’ve done it!

The obligatory summit shot - left to right Roser, me, Toni & Cath

White cotton flower seed-heads in foreground & Toni & Romain descending

When I got down the mountain my legs were like jelly and were trembling when I stretched them – later my thighs felt bruised after such a hard climb.

The weather was good until we got back to the car when it finally rained. On the return journey we stopped off in the Lade Inn (har, har) by Callander for real ale – I’d never been before and it was really nice - one of the Spanish guys knew of it. I didn’t get home till 8.45 pm - Michael had been worried as had not expecting it to be such a late one and I’d had no phone reception all day.

Highland Fling!

June Highland weekend

My manager at work has a good friend who has the leasehold on a cottage on the Rothiemurchus estate near Aviemore that he rents out cheaply to friends and friends of friends. I suggested a weekend away to a bunch of friends and we organised for 10 of us to drive up there on Friday night and stay for 2 nights.

We had instructions on how to find the cottage, how to get in, how to work the electricity, stove etc and I was having anxious dreams worrying about how we’d manage with heating enough water for all of us to wash etc!

Our accommodation for 2 nights- Guislich cottage on the Rothiemurchus estate

The journey up was really quick with only a few delays due to slow-moving vehicles on single lane roads- only 2 hours from Stirling to Aviemore. I drove with 3 passengers. We’d left after lunch so had plenty of time to get some last minute shopping in Aviemore, explore the cottage and make dinner before the second car arrived with the other 4 people who were staying all weekend. The last 2 guests just stayed for 1 night arriving late on Saturday for birthday cake and cava since it was Jenny’s birthday that week.

In the garden of the cottage enjoying the gorgeous weather and amazing scenery after a hard day's hill walking

When we arrived with a lot of the food that needed to be refrigerated I was mortified to find no fridge but only a cold cupboard! We looked in all the kitchen cupboards in case it was disguised, in the hallway, all the big cupboards in the living room until eventually I found it in the cupboard under the stairs along with a microwave- bonus! It then took us another 20 minutes to work out how to turn on the electricity!

A rare photo of the whole group in front of Loch Morlich and the Cairngorms, Sunday

To heat the water we had to use the wood burning Quebb stove which meant a toasty hot living room all weekend which in the hot sun did make it a bit uncomfortable in the evening - the insects were out in force so we had to shut the windows too.

The setting was lovely- incredibly peaceful and smelt amazing with the trees, grasses and flowers. On arriving we saw a deer skipping off into the trees – great excitement for city boy Sergi!

The ‘country girls’ had the job of lighting the stove while Sergi and I were responsible for bringing in the fire wood from the shed – we did try to chop some. I hadn’t realised how heavy an axe is – I couldn’t even hit the piece of wood!

The Quebb stove and kettles

We stayed in the house in the evening with our well-stocked wine/ beer cellar, loads of food and some board games. I learnt some new ones including ‘Mafia’ a game relying on your abilities to deceive and also to concentrate hard (now we know who’s a good liar and who’s terrible at it) and ‘Cranium’ a board game involving various creative tasks like modelling with Play-doh and drawing with your eyes shut as well as trivia questions.

Despite the large amounts of alcohol almost everyone kept their dignity apart from one person (naming no names) who, on Saturday night, passed out behind the armchair having already had a near miss by falling off the back of another armchair almost hitting the cast iron stove. Sergi discreetly put the person to bed while we carried on with our game of Cranium!

One of the amazing views from the cottage

There was a swing on a large oak tree outside the cottage- we had great fun swinging on it while admiring the wonderful view of the mountains – until one of the bigger blokes had a go on it and broke it!

On Saturday we did a hill walk up Cairn Gorm starting from the car park by the ski slopes – we had fantastic weather and even got sunburnt. It was very rocky and barren – the only wildlife I saw were beetles! There were lots of people out walking although not all of them took the steep rocky route we took to ascend. Ailsa got a bad attack of fear on the way up –it was very steep with lots of loose rocks and I was scared too but we spent about 20 minutes with her frozen to one spot before she calmed down enough to keep going. Chunks of rock kept getting dislodged and falling in my general direction- I was worried about losing a tooth or an eye! Going down the way we’d come up would’ve been harder than continuing up the slope.

Anyway, we made it to the summit and then on the way down there were rocky stairs that had been created so it was much easier to descend although by that time my legs were tired and it was hard on the knees. When we got back to the cottage we lay on a rug in the garden, chatted, had wine and admired the scenery.

On the ridge on our way up Cairn gorm- despite the hot sun there were large pockets of snow near the peaks

The summit of Cairngorm- my first munro (2 previous attempts in winter resulted in me turning back before the top when the option seemed like 'die or go back down')

The last 2 guests, Jenny and Jason had also been on the mountain but later in the day than us and they had been rock climbing close to where we had gone up the scary slope. That must've been even scarier although they did have safety ropes etc.

The only down side of the cottage was that it isn’t serviced so we had to do a big tidy up on Sunday morning before leaving- almost everyone helped and we then had the day to chill out and have a picnic by Loch Morlich, then wander round Aviemore before driving home.