Wednesday 11th May 2011 Gairloch to Lairg 111 miles.................... Scroll to bottom for more photos! It was surprisingly sunny when we got up and although still a little bit windy, it didn’t seem too bad a day. A typical April showers sort of day with dramatic skies and rainbows! We first drove to NTS Inverewe Gardens which overlooked Loch Ewe and spent a pleasant hour wandering the azalea and rhododendron paths, past the ponds and up to the viewpoints and finally the walled garden. Onto NTS Corrieshalloch Falls, a quite spectacular gorge, carved millions of years ago by glacial erosion and with a torrent of water plunging 150ft over the Falls of Measach. We walked across the swaying suspension bridge to the viewpoint overhanging the gorge. As the weather was quite good we decided not to ... read more

Sunday 8th May 2011 Fort William to Arisaig 49 miles....................... It rained in the night and it was raining when we woke up! We had considered attempting to walk up Ben Nevis as they say it takes between 6 – 8 hours taking it steady but with the weather as it was it didn’t seem too sensible! Maybe next time! Had a short drive along the Glen Nevis road and then turned back to drive to Neptunes Staircase – a series of locks on the Caledonian canal where we had a short walk and then drove along Loch Eil to Glenfinnan to see the monument dedicated to Bonnie Prince Charlie and also the viaduct that was used in the Harry Potter films. It was still raining although the sun tried to come out when we were ... read more

Friday 6th May 2011 Staffa and Iona 54 miles................... Forecasts aren’t always right and we awoke to a beautiful sunny day! The bay was even more beautiful but we left at 9.00 am to get the ferry to Iona and Staffa where it had been promised we would see seals and puffins. The boat looked decidedly small and was being tossed around quite a bit in the water so it was with slight trepidation that we boarded and set off! Staffa was an incredible island. It looked quite flat when you first see it but as you get closer you can see it’s made out of columns of basalt formed from molten lava 60 million years ago! Quite impressive! The boat off loaded us at the landing stage and we walked to the famous Fingals Cave ... read more

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Castle Douglas to Isle of Arran 97 miles..................... Well here we are on day 4, no sign of any internet – lucky if we get mobile phone signals!! We watched TV last night and saw that we have two days of good weather left before the rain moves in so we decided to move north and try to get to Oban for Thursday. We didn’t want to miss anything though so it was an early start to Threave castle.....a half mile walk took us to the River Dee and views of the ruined 14thC castle with a bonus of talking to an RSPB person who was there watching an ospreys nest. We were also lucky enough to see the male osprey standing next to the nest preening himself! Onward to ‘the most ... read more

SPAIN 6th March – 17th March 2011 The worst news! Its official! Little dog is dead. We saw our neighbour as we came back from Morocco and I decided to ask her about little dog just to confirm what we thought would be bad news and indeed, she cast her eyes and pointed to the sky and confirmed ‘muerte’. We can only assume that by pointing to the sky, that ‘little dog’ has gone to heaven! We didn’t like to ask what happened ( I probably wouldn’t have understood the Spanish answer anyway!!) so we don’t know whether it was natural causes or accident....... On Sunday, despite rain threatening, we decided to go to Mijas horseracing at Mijas Costa Hippodromo. Usual format of five races on a sandy track and because of the rain earlier in ... read more