We had a few days off over the last week and took a drive through Glencoe in Scotland.
Glencoe is a stunning valley in the Lochaber area up on the West Coast of Scotland. Its also considered to be in the Scottish Highlands. Glen is the Scottish word for valley.
It was quite a stormy day when we were there with very high winds and quite a lot of rain. It was still a lovely drive through the glen, although the views were not as clear as normal.
Glencoe is very touristy because of the scenery, and hence attracts a lot of visitors. A single road winds its way through the glen, carrying all of the traffic.
There was still some snow on the higher peaks. There is actually a ski area in Glencoe. On a good year in Scotland it is possible to ski all the way into May (just) - although our ski areas are pretty small and rough. If you can ski in Scotland, you can ski anywhere !
When driving there, we went took a detour via Glencoe village, and then the back road out of the village to connect back up to the main road at the start of the Glen. I'm so glad we did because along that road we came across a herd of wild goats ! In my 50+ years, its only the second time I've seen wild goats in Scotland. There were about 20 or so dotted around the hillside, which was quite remarkable. The last time I spotted one in the wild it was around 1990s in the Cairngorm mountains, and it was one single mountain goat.
I really do love the scenery there, and we will take a drive through the Glen every so many years. The whole drive from Ballachulish (pronounced bala-houl-ish) to the Bridge of Orchy is maybe 20 or so miles long. However, with stopping to take pics and driving slowly to enjoy the scenery it can take close to an hour to enjoy.
Its also a very popular area with walkers. There are a few munros in the glen - that is hills that are over 3000 feet in height. Its popular in Scotland to 'bag munros', which is to climb as many munros as you can, so hence the glen gets a lot of visitors for that.
There is also a famous walk that runs through Glencoe called the West Highland Way, which stretches all the way from Milngavie on the northern edge of Glasgow to Fort William. So you also get lots of walkers passing through doing that.
Even though it was early in the season there was still some nice colours around in the heathers and bracken. The terrain is fairly rough and rocky, and hence there is not many trees around. Heather and bracken are better suited to these rough conditions and peaty soil, and hence they dominate in the area.
It had been raining for a day or so and as such the stream that runs through the glen was in spate. If you look closely you can see a guy down by the waterside taking pictures of the water in the bottom right of the pic above. He was right down on the edge of the rocks there in not great conditions. Fair play. If he had gone in, he might not have gotten out.
We really enjoyed the trip. The scenery was just stunning, even if the weather was wild. In a few of the more exposed places we stopped I had to hold on tight to my camera, because it was at risk of getting blown out of my hands (seriously !),
We really did enjoy seeing the valley again. These pics are not doing it justice - it really is one of the places you have to see if you ever are in Scotland !