Family visit to the woods

This week my parents and my sister Cath were in town for a couple of nights, and as it was sunny one of the days, we went for a visit to the woods, and my Dad took some photos...
It was the first time they'd seen the regrowth at the top of Sweep Wood, with the Ash, Elder and Chestnut doing exceptionally well:
There's a whole range of plants growing up there, and the insects are loving the thistles, including this Large White and Meadow Brown:
There's a few garden escapees as well, and I think this is the first time I've seen a tomato plant growing wild!
Our walk in the woods continued on, investigating animal borrows:
and trying out the new bridge over the stream:
We came across what I think was an egg from a Wood Pigeon:
Then we were back at the camp, where there were some logs we'd left lying around after splitting, as we heard Cath was keen to do some work up there! So we set her on them...
as a result, the store is now nearly full!
Mike

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Kitesurf party at Camber Sands

Walking back along the beach on Saturday we saw an amazing sight: over 60 people out kitesurfing:
It must have been a perfect day for them, just look at the sand being driven by the wind:
Here's a few more pics:
Mike

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Visiting the Isle of Eigg (part 2)

In part 1, I showed you pictures of the trip to Eigg. In this post, I'll show you some of the magnificent scenery on and around the island.

After arriving at the pier, you're greeted by wonderful views back to the mainland, in two different directions:

I was there for work, so had some meetings at the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust office, and then headed across to my accommodation over at Laig Bay, where I arrived just in time to catch the end of the sunset, with the Isle of Rum across the sea:

which was lighting the guest house and the cliff behind it in red:

Here's a better picture of the place I stayed:

It's Lageorna, and includes a self-catering cottage and two double en-suite B&B rooms. Sue, who runs the place, also cooks a great evening meal. I'd strongly recommend this as a place to stay, especially given the view from the nearby Laig beach to Rum and Skye:

The next day I went on a guided tour of all the renewable energy facilities of the island (more on that in the next post), and took in some great scenery as a result, such as the Sgurr

looking back to Laig bay:

Some of the higher parts of the island are quite barren:

but there's actually quite a lot of woodland too, both deciduous and coniferous:

There's various interesting sites to be seen as you go around, such as the remains of homes left derelict after the Clearances in the mid 19th century.

and the "Giant's Footprint", a small pool with floating islands of vegetation in it:
My next post on Eigg will show the real reason I went there - the renewable energy installations and the work done to reduce their carbon footprint, but for now I'll leave you with some more pictures of Laig beach.
and last of all, the Isle of Rum lit up by the sun rising over Eigg behind the Lageorna guest house:

Mike

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Ouch!

One very good reason to always wear steel toe capped boots when moving heavy logs around! (or at least keep your feet out of the way!)
It's very colourful ;-)
Tracy

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Visiting the Isle of Eigg (part 1)

Back in February I was fortunate to visit the Isle of Eigg, part of the Inner Hebrides off the NW coast of Scotland. I didn't blog about it at the time, as I was visiting to assess the island as an Ashden Awards applicant, but now they've come through the judging process and emerged as a winner, it's time for me to share some of the amazing photos from the trip.

There's a lot of photos, so this post will just cover the trip to Eigg, and I'll do another one shortly.

The first thing to say is that it's a long way to Eigg, but well worth the trip. I actually started from near Manchester, having visited another applicant in that area, and I left at 7am, arriving in Glasgow around lunchtime. From Glasgow, I got the train to the port of Mallaig, which took until about 5:30pm, but was one of the most amazing scenic train rides ever.

Not long after leaving Glasgow you're into the Loch Lomond area, with views like this:

but it's not much further and you really feel like you're in the mountains, like at this little station where we stopped for a few minutes:

I was very pleased to have a clean train window, so I was able to get some nice pictures through it. Every now and then I'd time one just right, like this:

As we carried on, it became very desolate but still beautiful:

but a few hardy souls had clearly lived here in the past:

The sun was setting as we were in the Fort William area:

which sadly meant I had to do the rest of the trip to Mallaig in darkness, including the bridge the train in the Harry Potter films drives over - apparently in the summer you can ride on the actual train!

I stayed at a lovely pub/B&B in Mallaig, the Clachain Inn, although seeing as it was February they weren't serving dinner (and had kindly forewarned me of this), but neither was anywhere else, except...
the Fishermen's Mission! I had a good and cheap dinner there of egg, chips and beans, and then went to rest, ready for my ferry trip the next morning.

The ferry left mid morning from Mallaig, but I went down to the harbour a bit early to get a few pictures.

before long we were cruising across a calm sea, with a nice view back to Mallaig:

The weather was most uncharacteristic for mid February!

It's not really very far to the Isle of Eigg, and quite quickly I could easily see Eigg and Rum:

Here's some closer pictures, first of Rum:

and then Eigg:

Some parts of Eigg look quite desolate, like this bit (with Rum poking up behind it):

But other parts are much more gentle, and you start to notice houses dotted around:

Prominently visible is The Sgurr, which is apparently the left over from an eruption of the volcano which formed Rum (according to Wikipedia...)

There's a pier the ferry docks at - although this was only built a few years ago. Prior to that, you had to transfer to shore in smaller boats I think, and if you brought a car to the island, it wasn't going to leave again!

I was promptly welcomed to the island by a sign, but also the friendly people who were my hosts for the next couple of days.
to be continued... (in the meantime, read about why I was visiting Eigg)

Mike

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