walkwithdinosaurs: THE DINOSAURS TAKE AN OPEN UNIVERSITY COURSE

Hard to believe, but the title of this blog is a bit misleading. We didn't go off and do a distance learning course in palaeontology. We actually walked through the newly accessible campus of the new University of the Highlands and Islands and very informative it was too.

As Dave is wont to say, "Every day is a school day".

We started off in the Tesco car park, which is not really my favourite place to be on a Sunday morning. However, the location was chosen to be close to home and not too arduous, because we had all been at the wedding of Hugh and Pam's daughter Carly to Sanders. There was not much evidence of hangovers, despite our best efforts, but it was better not to have to go too far. Hugh and Pam were, unfortunately unable to join us as they had other things to do with grandchildren and paying for stuff.

Here we all are with the happy couple. We all wish them every happiness for the future. Once they have been married for a while and can't think of anything to do on a Sunday morning they could always join us for a walk!

We were soon striding down a path past Inverness Medical which most of us had no idea was there. The path that is. It is quite hard to miss Inverness Medical.

As this was an educational walk, it didn't take long for Janet to find something to educate us all about. As you can see, there were some young people with us. Iain and Katie decided they needed fresh air and education, so they had come along with their two children (our grandchildren), Robbie and Millie. Luckily Robbie and Millie are too young to remember this, so won't be scarred for life by the experience of going for a walk with a group of old weirdoes with a combined age of about 6 centuries!

Janet continues with the educational stuff. Apparently a few hundred laps was equivalent to walking to Fort William. Why ever would you want to do that? So much education doesn't really equip you for real life.

Despite his young age, Robbie quickly loses the will to live and makes a bid for freedom. However, Iain decides that if he has to put up with this then there is no escape for Robbie.

Remarkably, we come across a stone circle. This had been in the way of the A9 at the time of its construction and so had been moved and rebuilt in this new location. Strangely there are more stones in the circle at the new location than there were when it was in the original position.

From the stone circle that 'walked' across the A9, it is a short walk for us to the Golden Bridge and our own walk across the A9.

Here is one of our usual photos of Dinosaurs on a bridge.

This is the non-golden part of the Golden Bridge. It is a little bit reminiscent of a (very long) gents' toilet. Certainly, at this point it was hissing down.

You could still get a nice view across to the Black Isle from the Golden Bridge. How colourful.

Jimmy found a dyke to cuddle.

Millie just cuddled up and slept.

Robbie was a bit tired after all that walking on his little legs so he had rest and some raisins for energy.

A new Life Sciences building. That might be biology, but who knows what Life Sciences really are.

The little lochan in the middle of the site.

Already the lochan is home to swans, ducks, swallows and swifts.

Indeed, the swans have really made themselves at home.

Here is that home.

Here are the dinosaurs gazing at the home. There is no real privacy in the digital age.

Iain and Katie decide to walk on the uppy downy path that is probably some sort of seating.

Robbie really liked the seat that might have been a path. Perhaps it was actually both a seat and an uppy downy thing for children to run on.

If it was multi-functional it was very successful.

It is not all concrete, steel and wood. There is a lot of nice planting around the whole site.

There were lots of interesting things to look at, although Maureen was disappointed not to find lots of louche students lazing around in their flowing gowns and mortar boards discussing the finer points of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. Me too!