Climbing on Sunday

The weekend weather here was quite nice, well it is November. On Saturday Carol and Andy did  a couple of hours on the climbing wall and then did a 9mile off road run. Had rain and wind, but it had been nice till then.  Last few miles were in darkness, good job Carol took a headtorch. We saw Karen, Pete and Matt on their Mountainm Bikes doing the same route.

On Sunday Andy went to Sheildaig (Jim's village) with Pete, Karen & Matt and Jim took us to one of his local crags for some multi-pitch climbing. Rain held off until we were packing up at 4-30pm. 2  big group climbs and abseils and then Andy climbed with Jim and did some leading under instruction.

See our flickr    photo site for the pics

www.flickr.com/photos/jamslife/sets

Last 2 week update

Flickr is now set up so you can view all the recent pics.

www.flickr.com/photos/jamslife/sets

Margot went to Southport last week and went to her brothers 60th, the weather has been lovely up in Gairloch and Andy has been out walking in the hills

Find pics

Hi blog readers, we've been away for a while, went to Cavtat (pronounced Tsavtat) in Croatia. Bought a new camera to take with us-one of these tiny, point & shoot affairs which was great, but it's been proving very difficult to download and post the pics here.
Possibly too many pixels?

Anyway, try this link   www.flickr.com/photos/jamslife/sets

BTW, any tips on quicker up/downloading would be appreciated. Maybe a more up to date pc might be the answer.

Croatia is a beautiful place and we'd highly recommend it.

Sunday night sunset

 Reminder of the w/end weather as it hasn't stopped raining since Monday.

 Probably an exaggeration but it seems like it!

At least the wind has calmed down.

Riding in the woods

 Autumn colours showing

 Peaty water after the rain - no heatwave up here.

 Andy poses for the new camera,

Margot hurtling down "the muddy path". Good job there's no sound.........

Indian summer

 Mellon Udrigle beach, Beinn Ghobloch to the right,

looking north to Assynt & Sutherland

 Gruinard bay on a particularly, low tide,

Inveranvie river snaking out across the beach.

September beauties

Laide woods scores as a great place to study fungi

Sea trip

 We took to the water again this afternoon, paddled over to Badachro, round Eilean Horrisdale & back to the harbour. The dolphin pair joined us twice during the trip - how lucky we are to get so close to them. We also saw an otter, eating a fish he'd caught.

 Outside the Shieling a couple of days ago.

Amazing clouds.

Mountain Bike Day at Red Rocks

On Sunday the school took the Minibus & trailer over to the East coast to the Red Rocks Mountain Bike Trails. We had sunshine all day and did most of the easier routes. green & blue, graded like ski runs.

We have just bought a secondhand mountain bike from one of the teacher at the school so it was Andy's first outing on it.

The group have a rest after the first hours and then we push on to the top with great views over to the Moray Firth and the Nairn coastline

The last few runs were on a Orange route which had sweeping banked bends and really big humps which you could get airborne off, if you were not too careful. Home to a wet day in Gairloch so we were in the right place today.

Tonight's sunset

 The school wind turbine (blot on the land/seascape) which thankfully, Andy switches off at night, as it keeps the neighbours awake as well as me.

 Isla (on her holidays) watching Andy go down the hill to switch off the turbine

 Everything is bathed in a golden light,

One of the best sunsets we've seen in a while.

Jaws at Gairloch

Took a trip on Sealife Glass Bottom Boat  http://www.seawildlife.co.uk/  yesterday. Had great sightings of the 2 dolphins which have taken up residence in the loch.

 Time and again they swam alongside us, leaping out of the water, diving under the boat and cutting across the bows.

 Unconfirmed rumour has it that, it's a pregnant female with last years youngster.

 After that, the seals seem a bit tame.

Wonderful cloud structures inland,

just clipping the top of Baosbheinn.

Redpoint to Diabaig

The old YHA at Craig, now serves as a bothy, about 2/3 of the way to Diabaig

 Andy joined other school staff today, to monitor the first leg of the "D of E silver" expedition. He drove them all out to Redpoint where the participants set off, with the monitors following at a discreet distance. This is the first beach south of Redpoint, where the old fishing station remnants are to be seen. A few poles, from which they used to hang the nets to dry out.

 Not the best of days but they're all still smiling. Should be safe with a couple of ex-SARDA dogs along.

 First glimpse of Upper Loch Torridon,

 The road down into Diabaig, the village which featured in the 1996, Ted Danson film "Loch Ness". We stayed there in 1998, in the house which had been depicted as the garage in the film.

You can just glimpse the houses on the shorefront in the centtre of the pic. This is where Andy headed back the 8, coastal miles to pick up the minibus from Redpoint. The "D of E'ers" will continue on to Inveralligan where they'll set up camp for the night. Fortunately, the weather isn't too bad for them - the midges might be though!

Poolewe cycle ride

 Beinn Airigh Char rising in front of us

 Looking down the Inveran river towards it's outflow into loch Maree

 Across loch Kernsary - loch Maree is between the trees and the hill.

Looking down to Kernsary farm.

Beauly weekend

 Looking out across the Beauly Firth to the Kessock Bridge and beyond

 Loch nam Bonnach above Beauly

Looking down on the village and the river Beauly, curving it's way to the firth.

Sunday Kayak trip

We has a lovely kayak trip last Sunday and were surrounded by several dolphins, just outside the harbour, so this Sunday we decided to do another trip and take the camera.

The weather was quite grey with rain to start with, the tide was in so we could go under the bridge and into the river.

There was a large ship in at the pier. Margot goes to investigate it.

It was a cruise ship called Lord of the Isles and is a regular visitor in the summer season, we has a look round the outside and checked out the lower deck cabin through the small portholes.

Then it was a trip over to Sheildaig bay and round the two islands, we saw some dolphin activity and lots of heron's and a sole seal.

The trip home was a bit rougher and we had to paddle hard and ride the waves. Once back in the harbour it got calm again. Soon we were back home having a coffee