Category: Website News
New photos of Inverness added
11th July 2009 This morning, a new box arrived, and the subsequent attention devoted to it took up the most of the day. The result is that I have set up a new main home PC offering a home for the various bits and pieces that have been scattered about the place for the last two months. Laptops and external hard drives are all very fine but I prefer to have a next to everything in a single place if I can. Now that I am more organised again, I can settle things in at my leisure and without any encroachment on taking advantage of whatever walking or cycling opportunities that come the way.
Speaking of the laptop, one of its last acts before its role of main PC was usurped by a desktop computer again was to prepare some photos taken on that stroll in Inverness last month for the photo gallery. You'll find them in the Northern Scotland section after being deposited there with the new machine. My mind has been set to wondering what other new additions might follow them, but no decisions have been made just yet.
Though heavy rain is passing through, today wouldn't have been bad for a walking or cycling trip; rain arrived later in the day in my neck of the woods. Also, once the dampness has moved on, tomorrow may well offer its chances for escape out of doors. After all, one whole day messing with computers at a time has to be enough for anyone.
Still going after three years…
1st May 2009 This blog has seen enough birthdays for me to start wondering whether I should keep on highlighting them at all. This is its third, not bad for an experimental venture started on a whim after a May Day bank holiday weekend spent travelling around Scotland's Highlands.
Last year, I remarked that my native Éire hadn't seen a dedicated hill wandering excursion, but that one changed not so long ago. Of course, one hardly does any justice, and there's plenty more over there awaiting exploration.
If I were to pick out the real highlight of the last twelve months, it would have to be that week spent exploring the Western Isles, an escapade that was related on here in dribs and drabs for several months afterwards; yes, I could do with eradicating that time lag once the two currently outstanding trip reports are out of the way but anything that happens over the coming weekend might end up in the queue too.
With or without delays, outings featuring new sides to old haunts of mine like Argyll, Cumbria, Gwynedd and much more have played muse to my meanderings too. Long-distance trails may have had a bit of a rest, but a break from something can make a return so much better when it happens. A weekend spent surprised by perfect weather in Argyll etched the importance of a collection of ideas handy for times when opportunities appear out of nowhere.
None of these are grand plans, but they should stop me wasting any good weather that coincides with windows of spare time. Thanks for travelling with me and I can only wish that you keep finding something that interests you. Who knows what another year will bring?
Work in progress
15th March 2009 After walking it in a piecemeal fashion over the course of a few years, I finally completed the West Highland Way in August 2007. Following that and a number of entries on this blog, I set up a West Highland Way section on my photo gallery with a view to completing it with more new photos in the fullness of time. In fact, it has taken until now for me to add photos for the piece between Inverarnan and Bridge of Orchy and there could be more when I get to look at some of the photos that I captured on film about the same time (I was capturing more vistas on film than digitally in those days, a trend that was reversed in the intervening period).
Looking back over photos can set the mind to wandering, and various ideas began to bubble up in mine. For one thing, I am considering re-walking the WHW between Glen Coe and Kinlochleven on a sunnier day than the one on which I actually walked that part of the trail. That would let me acquire more pleasing photos than what I have for it already. It wouldn't be the first time that I walked a section of the way, since I trekked the section between Kinlochleven and Fort William twice. A cloudy day attenuated photographic exploits the first time around, and the weather that I enjoyed on the second occasion couldn't have been better. Another part that saw me revisiting was a short stretch east of Tyndrum, and that wasn't done for any other reason than to make good use of a wait for the next train or bus to come and allow me to continue my southbound journey after a weekend spent in Argyll.
Other thoughts followed, with explorations of the hill country at either side of the way lining up for consideration. One such option was a trek from Inverarnan to Dalmally that I undertook last May, but there remain many others. The hills at either side of Strath Fillan attract attention for one thing and those near Tyndrum, such as Ben Lui and Ben Dubhcraig enticing the mind, if only to confirm what hills are in photos that I already made. Looking towards Bridge of Orchy yields a number of options, with making an ascent of the rounded humps of Beinn Udlaidh and Beinn Bhreac-liath as just one of these. My head for heights is far from being of climbing calibre, so I prefer my hills not to have frightening gradients when it comes to reaching their summits and, more importantly, getting back down again. The location of the twosome in question must mean that appealing views towards the Black Mount and Rannoch Moor are on offer. Then, there's the prospect of longer walks either through Glen Lyon to Killin or through Glen Kinglass to the shores of Loch Etive, with options from the foot of that glen to continue to Glen Coe or Taynuilt. These options might make for two-day backpacking hikes for when I finally get to add wild camping to my repertoire of outdoors skills, but one also could be seen as a long day walk.
All in all, casting my mind over older outings has yielded ideas for the future and in an area that hasn't seen my footfall for a while. They might come in handy for an occasion that surprises me with good weather, and it's never any harm to see a new side of an area that you already visited.
A breakdown in transmission
26th February 2009 There is something that I should have spotted earlier that I only noticed yesterday. The RSS feeds for this blog weren't working as I would have liked for a while so you may may not have seen anything coming through because of this. When I went looking, there were a few gremlins running about the place on me but they have been quashed by now. Part of the machinery that I was using to pretty things up was Feedburner but that stopped liking the output from here so that's been ditched until they sort themselves out; I am not sure how they manage to turn a 19 KB file into one of more than 512 KB! So, if you have come here after a splurge of items in your feed reader of choice, then that's how it has happened. Apologies for not heeding the situation sooner (I might have been too occupied busying myself with adding stuff on here after various excursions...) but I'll be keeping a firmer grasp on things from this point onwards, if only to curtail semi-technical discussions like this one.
Greyness
20th February 2009 It has been a very grey week in weather terms around where I live and I could do with seeing a spot of sun and blue skies sooner rather than later. Given the times in which we live, the grey onslaught might be seen as a case of pathetic fallacy but we could all do with something to go and cheer us up. I find that I can only take so much grey weather before needing to head off where there is some sun and, though the sun has been trying to break through today, I feel the need for something more substantive. Saying that, the recent mildness, the return of birdsong and the general feeling of spring in the air has been welcome. That's not to say that the recent cold spell didn't have its bright spots, but the saying that a change is as good as a rest is what comes to mind.
As it has happened, my two most recent forays into hill country were under largely grey skies. The Cumbrian outing may have had its sunny interludes in the cold, but the mildness of the Irish escapade came with no sun at all and it took a while for the day to brighten up with my Pentax's metering showing how dark it thought everything was. Speaking of photography, the lack of sun does make it tricky to capture something in the way in which I would like to share with you. The result is that the occasional posting has appeared on here without any photos.
Part of the reasoning for that dates from over a decade ago when I was building the first incarnation of my online photo gallery. Then, all that any search for photos on the web yielded for me were grey day pictures that I didn't find appealing. The result was that I vowed that sunlit scenes were to be what went on there and I have to say that, apart from the occasional departure, the same thinking rules the roost here too and that's the way that I'd like to keep things.
That is not to say that concentrating on details found underfoot or ensconced in places where flat grey skies can be excluded will not yield anything. For instance, Torc Waterfall near Killarney in Ireland produced the goods on an otherwise damp and dreich day. The waterfall trick has worked elsewhere for me too, with one cataract allowing me to illustrate a trip report for a walk from Ardlui to Butterbridge utterly devoid of sun last November. No doubt, other details that work well in such diffused light would suffice too.
Thoughts of monochrome photography have sneaked into my mind too. A day that mightn't be one for capturing colour vistas might yield good black and white vistas. To me, the trick is to ensure that there is enough tonality to carry off the exploit and not every dull day offers that, so the monochrome route is not a panacea for rescuing otherwise gloomy efforts. In fact, I recommend a look at Craig McMaster's Elements if you want to how much better landscapes look in black and white when there is good light available. Taking colour digital images and converting them to mono like the examples that I have added below (no perfection or greatness is being claimed here) is more involved than merely clicking on the right buttons. Ideally, the photo should have been pre-visualised or planned as a black and white one rather than converting a few and seeing what happens. Of course, there's no harm having a go at that in a spare moment to see what works and what doesn't. That can only help develop your monochrome eye anyway and my impression is that there will be more misses than hits before any refinement starts to come on stream.
2009 seems to have got a start with long grey spells and plenty of ice and snow thrown in for good measure. That's not to say that it hasn't had its sunny interludes but the precedent of 2004 lingers in my memory. That year is one that I'll always remember as being one where sunny spells were a rarity and its summer and autumn didn't help its case, even if the deluges of 2007 and 2008 are perhaps more memorable for some, though that's not how I'll remember those (2007 was decent up until the middle of June if I recall correctly). Let's hope that 2009 brightens up and there's plenty of time for it to do the deed yet. With all the doom and gloom that surrounds us, it looks like we could do with it.
