Glengarry Highland Games!

We'd thought we'd better let you know that this weekend is the Glengarry Highland Games in Invergarry, 1pm at the shinty pitch.

We had great fun at the last one - watching the strong men toss the cabers and throw the weights, watching the Highland dancing competition and the pipe band, considering entering the races but eating sweets instead.


There's also a pet dog show so we may even take Dylan along, he did pretty well at the Lochaber Agricultural show last year, he's still proud of his rosette (don't tell him but everyone got one just for entering).

Hopefully we'll see you there!

--Matt

I should mention that I borrowed this photo from http://www.fife.50megs.com as can't find ours from last years games.

CMD Arete (with extra scrambley goodness)

Rich and I decided to head up to the CMD arete but made it slightly more interesting by adding an extra little ridge on the way.

The traditional approach is to start up the mountain track and cut across to Carn Mor Dearg, we thought we'd miss out the steep ascent of CMD by ascending up the east ridge of Carn Dearg Meadhonach from Allt Daim. From the lovely secluded glen (nice wild camp spot?) we headed up some lovely pink granite slabs for about a 100m and then continued up a slightly loose boulder field to the pinnacles (not difficult but slightly windy) with a couple of stops to admire the west face of Aonach Mor




Over the pinnacles we where presented with fine views of the north face, although the skies had clouded over, the way the the north face is suddenly presented to you as you come over the top from the pinnacles was great. We saw a few other walkers looking tried after their steep ascent and decided we'd made a good decision.

After a quick stop for photos, lunch and the "Hill food: frozen butties versus refrigerated butties" experiment results (long story, but since you asked....tasted the same but the frozen ones had kept their shape better!), we carried along the splendid looking ridge.



The going is easy but very enjoyable, the hardest part is the slog up the steep boulder field the reach the actual summit. You can stick to the crest of the ridge for maximum enjoyment but there seems to be a path slightly lower down so you can avoid anything you don't like the look of.

We spent a while at the summit looking for climbers on the north face (none) before heading off down the zig zags with half of Fort William (it was Rich's first visit to the Ben and he was amazed at how busy it was - he likes his mountains a bit quieter!) before splitting off at the half way lochan. The sun had come out again for the walk back to the car.

--Matt

More Wild Swimming...

There been a bit more wild swimming for team Invergarry Lodge (me, the wife and the dog). Thought I'd post a quick picture to make you jealous and let you know about the fine weather we are having up here...get up here and enjoy it while it lasts!

This not-so-top-secret swimming location isn't as idyllic and secluded as our other spot but this one has the advantage of being closer to an ice cream shop. It's a tough decision...

--Matt

Strathfarrar 4 - Dylan 9

I had a favour to do for someone which meant I had to head up north, I figured I may as well combine it with a Munro or 4.

I've always said the great thing about living up here is being able to wait for the nice weather before you head out for the hills, unfortunately that doesn't really explain why today I was out in gale force winds and ice cold horizontal rain.

The 4 Munros down Glen Strathfarrar are a funny mix, two nice interesting hills and two big round lumps. I was planning on heading east to west, doing the featureless lumps first, before getting to the interesting hills further along the ridge. The wind was supposed to be about 40 mph so I decided to do them the other way round so the wind would be partially behind me.

The weather looked like it might be ok but as we approached the ridge it got pretty bad. Dylan kept stopping and looking me - now I don't speak dog, but if I did I think Dylan would have been raising his eyebrow in a knowing way and nodding his head towards the way down.

I ignored him and pressed along the bleak looking ridge helped along by the wind. After the first summit things started looking up, the horizontal rain had stopped and the ridge ahead had cleared up so we headed up to summit number 2 for a spot of lunch.



Half way to summit number 3 we met some walkers I knew from staying with us at the hostel, they confirmed that I'd made a wise decision doing them west to east, they looked pretty windswept.



The last Munro passed uneventfully (apart from the rain was back) and we made our way back down to the glen which was bathed in glorious sunshine for our 6 km walk back to the start.

These four hills put Dylan's Munro total up to 9 - he's really excited about soon reaching double figures - well, he was excited, currently he's out sparko on the sofa and has been for 4 hours.

--Matt

Invergarry Bowls Champion....

.....Almost

A couple of weeks ago the Invergarry Bowls Annual Knockout competition finally came to a head and yours truly managed to make it through to the final - but tripped at the last hurdle.

I only started playing when we took over Invergarry Lodge last year but have thoroughly enjoyed it. I struggled a bit the first few weeks using a different set of borrowed bowls every game but my grandparents came to the rescue by donating their old faithfuls to Team Invergarry (Me and Jen).

Grandad had obviously taught his bowls to play well because they were great - made all the difference. Jon and I had a tense final, but I couldn't get the better of him.


Runner up's not bad though - I was even presented with a certificate (along with a hug!) from Marigold - much rather from her than the club president Dave! Notice the extreme through-the-legs technique and the mis-spelt name on the certificate.

Anyway, until next year Jon.....

--Matt

Ciste Dhubh (and Am Bathach)

We (me and the dog) took advantage of the long hours of daylight and took the opportunity for a quick late afternoon stroll up one of the local corbetts, Am Bathach. Am Bathach is a great little hill, you can be at the top in a little over an hour and get great views of the surrounding Munros.

The ascent was the usual, me slogging up with Dyl way ahead looking back wondering what was taking so long.

After a short pause to rebuild the cairn that I sat on at the summit (too much of the wife's home baking!) we decided we'd make the most of being out and head across to the adjoining Munro, Ciste Dubh. The descent is steep but grassy - last time I bum slid down it in the snow. We struggled to find the path up the ridge to Ciste Dubh (the path is obvious in descent, and probably in ascent thinking about it). I asked Dylan to seek it out - my mate Mark's dog, Jack, is great at finding paths -my dog can find bogs, bones, poo and all sorts of smelly undesirables, but not paths.



We eventually met up with the path half way up the ridge and made our way up past An Cnapac to the summit where the sun pretended to come out.


We took in the views for 15 mins or so than headed back down to bealach and followed the An Caorainn Beag. I'm guessing this is where the weekends LAMM passed through because there was a million sets of fell shoe prints on the boggy bits of the path. An easy descent down the Glen and home, just in time for a rapidly cooling dinner. Lovely.

--Matt

Homemade wine? Fine and Dandy!

We were passed a book a while ago on Country Drinks (thanks Dave!) and have been desperate to try it out for ages and we finally got round to it.

We put some serious thought into what our first drink was going to be, something seasonal, easy to find, free (obviously)...well, I hadn't cut the grass recently so the answer seemed obvious....Dandelions.

Washing hundreds and hundreds of dandelions soon became very arduous but the recipe was pretty simple.


Add a lemon, an orange and some boiling water and leave for ten days. Strain and add sugar and yeast, leave for another 3 days. Strain and put in demi-johns, leave until clear (ours took about 3 weeks) then bottle and label.

We've got 5 bottles of the stuff but I guess it'll all have to wait until Jen is drinking again...apart from the half bottle I've got chilling in the fridge - purely for testing purposes you understand.

--Matt

Our answer to the heatwave...

We've been spicing up our afternoon dog walks the last couple of days with some swimming in the local rivers. Dylan thinks all his birthdays have come at once when we all get in the water together!


We can give you the inside knowledge on our top secret swimming destinations next time you're staying with us at Invergarry Lodge.

--Matt