OUTSIDE IN DORES

Half past ten on a Sunday morning and here we all are gathered together in a pub car park!

It was the car park at the Dores Inn and we were getting ready to go for a walk around Aldourie - we didn't actually get to go into the pub until a good bit later.

You can't stop at Dores and not take a photo up Loch Ness towards the south-west.

Nor can you avoid the ducks, which I suspect, don't go very far given the availability of food.

Just to prove we were where we said we were.

Mealfuarvonie is over 2200 feet high. The name derives from the Gaelic -  Meall-fuar-mhonaidh,  mountain of the cold moor. 

And it certainly was more than a bit Baltic walking along the beach. In fact, Maureen looks frozen. 

Once we got into the trees it got significantly less cold - not exactly warm, but not perishing cold either. Also, once we got into the woods, Hugh got the map out. As always this sends tremors of worry and disquiet among us all given his propensity for getting lost - or more euphemistically - straying from the one true path.

We were soon, however, on our way on the one true path.

It wasn't long until we came upon the first odd sighting of the day - a sunken yacht. There were some stupid questions about how this had happened and some more mysterious questions about how they might recover it. The consensus answer for the first was that it had filled up with water. For the second there were theories about filling up balloons or dragging it up the beach. Readers can take their choice or invent their own theory.

 A strange-shaped roof on a little hut of indeterminate function. 

It had a little skiff in it, but it didn't look like a boathouse and it was further from the water than these normally are. Another mystery of Loch Ness.

A quandary - no way to go forward. There was a path, but it was not terribly inviting.

Mainly because of this unambiguous sign.

The castle did look good, but we have been in a bit of bother for walking too close to it before. So we didn't do so again.

Aldourie Castle is the only inhabited castle on the shores of Loch Ness. It was built in 1626 with various additions being made in 1850 and a total refurbishment undertaken in 1900.

It is currently luxury accommodation and we could have hired it for the weekend for a sum that is not disclosed on their website. I take the view that if you have to ask how much, you can't afford it.

For information, in case you need to know, you can hire the Castle for a whole week for only £40000. Yes that's right - Forty thousand pounds.

So we turned right and walked into the trees. We sat on a log and Hugh and Pam produced a dinky little birthday cake for Sharon, whose birthday it was the day before the walk.

To all intents and purposes we had a birthday tea in the Castle grounds and very good it was too.

If Sharon was wishing for a week at the Castle, she was going to be sadly disappointed.

Despite not being made by either Hugh or Pam, the cake was very good as you can see.

We had a little poke around Aldourie Castle Stables, which looks ripe for conversion to some nice accommodation.

After a few more avaricious glances over the fence we turned towards the more affordable option of lunch at the Dores Inn.

As if anticipating the opening of a bottle of wine we passed the corkscrew tree.

Spring was clearly on the way and there was plenty frog spawn, bizarrely situated in ruts in the road. Not an ideal survival strategy methinks.

The route looked blocked, but actually it was a helpfully placed photo-opportunity.

Having said that, Sandra really should have stood at the lower end of the trunk.

Moss on the one side of the trees. As we intrepid walkers know, moss always grows on the north side of trees. 

Actually it doesn't - or at least not always. Moss needs moisture to grow, so moss grows on the wetter side of trees. The reason it works most of the times in the northern hemisphere is that the sun dries moisture running down trees and does most of that drying when at its highest. So, this far north, the north side of the tree is sheltered from the drying effect and the moss grows best. However, other shadows from trees, rocks and landforms can all cast shadows and affect the growth of moss, so it might grow equally well on the east or west. The moral is - learn to use a map and a compass. I hate to go back to Hugh and navigational skills, so I won't.

Soon we were back in Dores and Dave found a swing to play on.

He wasn't alone

So, after the swinging sixties and seventies we arrived back at the pub where we had an excellent lunch of varying degrees of hugeness. Suffice to say that Pam had whale and chips and decided` that she didn't need to cook again until Wednesday, so Hugh would starve.

A very good walk and well done to Hugh and Pam for the organisation - including the very good lunch.

I HAD READ THERE WAS A CASTLE THERE

For February we went walking in the area of Redcastle. A fairly short journey from Inverness, but in many ways a different world. Certainly we had pleasant weather and a very nice walk with lots of interest. Of course, there was a lot more interest than we were aware of at the time and it is my self appointed duty to let you know all about it.

We parked up at Kilearnan Parish Church, so that seems an appropriate point to start the lesson. The church dates from about 1800, although there is evidence to suggest that there were earlier churches on the site. There is a Mediaeval archway and effigy in the church and a cross dating from the 14th Century. A silver groat from the reign of Edward III (1351 to 1377) was found in builder's spoil nearby. The bell dates from the late 17th Century.

We were a trifle early so had to wait for the punctual Mac and Janet. This allowed Jimmy to stare at the trees.

Off we set along the narrow and quiet public road to start with. Clearly the builders of the stone dyke had graduated from the Smith School of Stonewalling. This evidenced (an awful new and abominable word) by the recycling of old building masonry.

A nice little roadside well.

Some dinosaurs going round the bend.

Harbingers of Spring - the ever popular snowdrop. The Latin name is Galanthus nivalis - it derives from the Greek gala - milk and anthus - flower. Nivalis means of the snow.

Snowdrops are not, in fact, native to Britain. They are often thought of as having been brought by the Romans, but they are more likely to have been introduced  in the 16th Century. They are not currently a protected species in the UK.

Pam astonishingly didn't know any of the interesting facts about snowdrops and hung her head in shame during the bridge photo.

 Soon we were at the site of the now ruined Redcastle. This has a long and interesting history as might be guessed at from the date stone of 1641. RMK is one of the MacKenzies of Kintail who came into ownership of the earlier Castle in 1570. There was a castle at the site from the 12th Century, built near the remains of the even earlier Eddydour castle.

Indeed, Redcastle was thought at the time of the Second World War to have been the oldest inhabited building in the North of Scotland, if not the country. It was used during the war to station officers of British Forces. After that the slates were removed from the roof ensuring its eventual and quite shameful decline.

Notwithstanding the melancholy air around the castle, the crack was quite good.

 From the castle you can see the magnificent farm buildings which we had to pass by on the rest of our walk. 

These are a very fine collection of farm related buildings which were at one time quite grand. The clocktower in itself is pretty imposing and goes well beyond what you might normally expect in a farm steading complex. I have tried to find out a bit more about these buildings but some of you will be relieved to know that information seems pretty scarce.

I thought this building here was a mill, but it appears to have been a slaughterhouse.

Further on and we find this dinky little bridge.

More Galanthus. I hope you were paying attention earlier on.

The view across the Beauly Firth towards the rain that threatened all day, but never actually arrived.

Into the woods where there was lots of evidence of Pheasant rearing. They seem to get a pretty varied diet here including Mango chutney on an industrial scale.

I am not sure if this is supposed to scare off real hawks, or whether it is supposed to scare the pheasants into eating the mango chutney.

As for the owl....

....well we were walking up Gallowhill! There are lots of Gallowshills in the Highlands and elsewhere. In Inverness the gallows were located firstly at the junction of Culduthel and Old Edinburgh roads. The Gaelic name for the site wass Tom nan Ceann - Hill of the Heads. This bears testament to the original form of execution - beheading. The gallows moved to the Longman by the 1830s.

A big puddle, which always provides an opportunity for disaster. Unfortunately there was none today.

A reminder that winter still was here despite the Galanthus.

 This looks like two photos, one above the other. In fact it is one image, with the opposite shoreline of the Beauly Firth forming the apparent join.

Maureen eating a banana somewhat pensively.

Janet the gunslinger gets ready to draw against Deadeye JIm.

A metal bird's nest? A barbed crown? A strange game of hoopla?

I do like a secretive door.

It doesn't look like anyone has been through here in some time.

Jimmy standing beside a big stone with a hole in it.

Of course, the little hamlet that people call Redcastle is actually named Milton on the Ordnance Survey map. Milton being the Mill Town associated with Redcastle itself.

On the wall was displayed this scull, apparently dated 1931 from Eton and presumably Eton college. Rowing was considered dangerous by the college authorities due to commercial use of the Thames, but also because the river was a sewer. The first race between Eton and Westminster schools took place in 1829. Eton college has more members and boats than any other club in the world!

Despite trawling through information contained at the justly famous National Rowing Hall of Fame and Rowing History Exhibit, I could not find out who won in 1931. I hope you are not too bereft. 

Honesty. Actually Lunaria annua. Native to the Balkans and south west Asia, it is now common throughout the temperate areas of the world. The name Lunaria refers to the silver disc seed pods which look like the moon.

Birds on the foreshore. There were alot of them, but they were a little too far away to identify with certainty or even binoculars.

No need to tell you what these are by now.

These were in what is a now abandoned quarry. The quarry was thought to have been there since the 12th Century and its stone was used then in the building of Beauly Priory. Later it was used in the construction of Cromwell's Citadel in Inverness (1650-1655), Inverness Harbour (1720-1730) and the Caledonian Canal (1805-1820). It closed in 1872. The pier through which the stone was exported is in disrepair but still visible.

That brings us to the end of the walk. Great interest and a good stroll through a bit of the country we have not walked in as a group before. Thanks go to Jim and Jacque for all the organisation. Especially to Jacque for giving me her Lemon Drizzle cake at Munro's Nurseries.

Here we all are at Munro's. Well, I say all, because, in fact, Hugh was at the table. He wasn't on the walk and only came for the tea and cakes and so, like in old communist countries, he has been erased from the official record. Sharon did do the walk, but she took the photo so is not in shot.