Yuppy tractors, red squirrel and a very wee lodge

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The reason we’d come to Kingussie was to visit the Highland Wildlife Park but now that’s ticked off, we decided we should see more of the place. Things to do include walking and biking and we don’t have bikes, so a walk it was.
There’s plenty of walking markers dotted around, so Glyn researched online and found a short circular walk via Creag Bheag. A small chance of see red squirrels in the woods sealed the deal and I packed my longest and heaviest lens in anticipation.
What the walk lacked in length it more than made up in steepness. My regular exercise is a slow jog on flat towpaths, so this was a shock to the calf muscles.
The thick forest eventually gave way to heather and low hedges that probably wouldn’t be so popular with squirrels. I was so glad I’d lugged that massive lens uphill, made it all a bit more of a challenge.
There were a few seats built out of stone with high walls to protect the seated from the cutting wind. One seating arrangement had its own stone table like a mountain patio set!
The reward for reaching the top was finding a cairn which is a big pile of stones that’s either a marker or a memorial. The downhill route was a lot sharper and I’m most grateful we didn’t walk up that way. The stones were slippy and the mud was the sticky fall-inducing type.
Only one other set of walkers passed us and we met another couple on the way up. We made sure to tell them they’d chosen the tougher route up and that I’d like to tell them they were near the top, but they weren’t. No worries, they claimed to have all day.
The peace was shattered by a lot of gun fire in the distance, close to a large country house on Loch Gvnack. This alerted us to the possibility of stupidly rich folk shooting for fun in our vicinity, yikes! I really hope the targets were inanimate objects and that we weren’t listening to the last terrifying minutes of murdered birds’ lives.
Sure enough, as we were further down the track, skirting the golf course, we were passed by flat capped and tweed folk in an assortment of range rovers and yuppy tractors. We spotted dogs with them which might mean it was a blood bath, as I believe they are used to retrieve the corpses as the tweed folk are too bone to fetch themselves.
Walking through a caravan park, we actually spotted a red squirrel bounding between the static homes. Obviously my big lens had been put away into my backpack now, but at least I got to see one.
Upon returning to Kingussie, we used the free public toilets, all the public toilets I’ve used so far have been free, and headed to Ruthven Barracks as suggested by our host at the Avondale hotel.
The barracks are 5 mins out of town and unmanned and free. I believe that they are one of four barracks from a few hundred years back, I’d look it up but have no internet as I write this.
It was windier than Glyn’s bottom up there (yes, an old joke I know but it never stops being funny). The Barracks still have much of their walls but no roof, I could see where the floor timbers would have connected to the walls, fireplaces, a well and the toilet.
From here I started what should have been a two hour drive to Mallaig, but googlemaps decided to take a long detour back to Kingussie and I realised too late. (Yes Dad, that’s what I get for blindly following googlemaps and not using a real map and road signs!)
The road to Mallaig was twisty and turny, where the mountains meet clouds and we all meet rain. We passed lochs, sheep, rocks and all that kind of thing. Arriving at Mallaig we discovered that there maybe no boats to the islands tomorrow due to bad weather, but that’s fine, there’s plenty of places to get lost on the mainland.
Glyn has booked us in at the Wee Lodge a few miles away from Mallaig. If ever you’ve been on a coastal cruise and seen isolated houses miles from anywhere and you wonder who lives there, well this is the kind of area. The Wee Lodge is a modern wooden hut, compact like a motor home and the shape of a small Nissen hut at the edge of the land of a nearby house. The car is parked in a reserved lay-by and there’s a narrow path, about 50 metres long to the lodge down the hill. If it was a nice day, there’s decking at the front to admire the loch from, with sheep meandering aimlessly whilst a lone dog barks at the house.
The lodge contains a 2 seater sofa, a small double bed, 2 ring hob, small microwave, small fridge, sink, toilet, shower and electric heater. There’s also a small table and two chairs but as there’s no where to put our luggage, it’s a suitcase stand for Glyn with my case in the only remaining space. There’s electric but no WiFi or phone signal which is awesome, a real break from the world! Glyn’s first comment was that there’s only one bogroll so we’ll need to keep an eye on that.
Glyn has cooked vegetarian haggis (Dad will disapprove) with potatoes and beans and it was very nice.
So I’m sitting on the sofa, in my oodie with my blanket, a glass of wine and a book. The only way this could be more perfect would be to have my cats here too.

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