In the week leading up to Easter, Allan, Lorna, Douglas and I rendezvoused at Glenfinnan by the head of Loch Shiel. Under a pale blue sky there was warm sunshine....unremarkable enough except that for the previous two weeks Scotland had been under bitterly cold easterly airflows with low single digit Celsius temperatures. A change in the source of the airstream across the country had been well forecast - but none of us really believed it until we stepped from our vehicles into 20 C sunshine!
We planned a journey down Loch Shiel to the sea, then along the Moidart coast. It's a journey we've done previously a couple of times but Allan had missed out due to illness - all the more reason to do it again! Our last journey down the long length of freshwater Loch Shiel had been in October 2016 when Douglas, Lorna and I had enjoyed a superb display of autumn colours. On that occasion we'd rustled through the fallen leaves and "conkers" of a big Horse Chestnut tree to get to the launch, on this occasion the leaves of the same tree were just opening - the wheel of the seasons turning.
We ran two of our vehicles to our expected finishing point and had arranged to park one at the Glenfinnan House hotel for a very reasonable parking charge. If you do this trip - please make sure to check in advance as we did that there will be space to leave a car; the available spaces are restricted and hotel guests will obviously have priority. The hotel staff told us of a group of Open Canoeists who had arrived without warning, half filled the car park then returned and left without paying - on a holiday weekend when the hotel was full to capacity.
We were soon on the water in a light breeze which gave Allan and Lorna a chance to accustom themselves to sea kayak sailing - for Lorna this was the first time and Douglas had in fact fitted her boat for a sail in the car park immediately before we got on the water!
The pal ochre colours on the hills behind Glenfinnan were definitely still those of early Spring, but the temperatures spoke of summer - it was so good to be back out on the water.
At the head of the loch you can see the two main attractions of Glenfinnan; the railway viaduct and the memorial to the ill-fated 1745 Jacobite rebellion. The monument used to be the main draw for visitors to Glenfinnan, with the railway viaduct of interest mainly to enthusiasts of railways and concrete construction; it was completed in 1898 of the then new-fangled wonder material by Robert McAlpine who earned the nickname "Concrete Bob".
All this changed with the appearance of a certain Boy Wizard. The second and third Harry Potter films featured Glenfinnan viaduct and the "Jacobite" steam train as it took Harry and friends to and from Hogwarts. The explosion in tourism which followed has been nothing short of remarkable. Traffic congestion is now a daily event and despite a second car park being constructed to accommodate visitors, both are invariably full with cars parked in all sorts of "interesting" places.
But the Harry Potter lookalikes and the sound of the traffic were left behind as soon as we headed out into Loch Shiel. Fresh water under our hulls, miles of empty country ahead of us and the sun beaming down....we were off on our own adventures again!
A spell of sunshine and higher temperatures makes all the difference to nature. Even here, in the parks, one week of good weather produced a rapid burst of blossom, new leaves and flowers within a few days. One of the reasons I stopped going up the west coast was the weekend traffic jams down Loch Lomond. Often two hours at busy periods like Easter or after a crash or bump.
ReplyDeleteThe warmth was certainly welcome Bob! Douglas travelled up and back via the A82 and reported the traffic as some of the worst he's seen on Lomond side
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