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Showing posts from May, 2010

Talisker & Loch Bracadale

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Tuesday morning dawned and the two us had typical Applecross hangovers. We had a great night singing songs on the beach in front of the Applecross Inn with a large campfire blazing away. We wanted to go back around to Skye because the forecast for Wednesday was better than the rest of the week. A Scotsman once told me that the two best single malts are Highland Park and Talisker (thanks John)We both have a taste for Talisker so we decided to go on a tour of the distillery at Carbost. The tour was very interesting, the most amazing fact for me was that they produce 63000 litres of whisky a week. I make that equate to about 80,000 bottles! Talisker put the co ordinates of the distillery on their presentation boxes. Being an anorak with a new gps I tried to work out exactly where the reading was taken. I walked around the car park looking like lemon with a GPS for a few minutes and concluded that it was probably the Stills unless anyone knows different. We did try some Talisker '57 de

Britains Favourite View - visit site No.1 May 2010

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August 2007 and Trevor Mcdonald hosts an ITV show titled 'Britains Favourite View'. Sixteen sites explored over four programmes (4 per week) with the public voting on which one is best. Thankfully a natural view won, Wast Water in The Lake District, and Three Cliffs Bay just down the road from here came second. This gave the programme some degree of credibilty. I just do not get the views of London, Liverpool or Edinburgh. How can anyone in their right mind imagine that man can compete with Mother Nature. I had seen many of the views but not first up, the view from Elgol across Loch Scavaig to the entrance to Loch Coruisk and The Cuillins beyond. I suspect many of the voters have not seen this view either so the programme was flawed and here is why: We travelled to Elgol from the campsite at Sligachan. Campsites do not get anymore dramatic than this place. Its a haven for climbers and it is situated at the other end of the Cuillin Ridge from the destination of our intended pa

Scotland Mayday 2010

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With no specific plan other than we fancied a trip to the Small Isles we headed North and met up at Glen Nevis near Fort William. After an early breakfast following an unusual alarm call (dog jumping on tent) we took the 'Road to the Isles' headed over to Arisaig. We had a quick trip around the Skerries to blow out the cob webs. We made the mistake of launching in Arisaig itself. This is convenient for parking and toilets but involves launching and landing in stinking mud if you get the tide times wrong. Neil and Catherine had not done this one so it was not really a repeat of Easter. We managed to land near the harbour/marina but this involved a failry long tug with the trollies. The campsites North of Airsaig were quite full due the fact it was a bank holiday but we managed to find a spot overlooking the Smalls and The Sound of Sleat. The wind as forecast for the next few days was too high for a trip to the Smalls so we opted to go to Skye instead. Another early start and we