Pentlands, David Pike Images

Scotland boasts some of the best walking in the world. Here are five unheralded routes that rate
among the country’s best.

John Muir Way

If you are arriving in Scotland by air, as you approach Edinburgh Airport, the Firth of Forth spread
out below. One of Scotland’s greatest, but little-trodden walks follows the Forth from Edinburgh to
the North Sea. The John Muir Way is a long-distance path named after one of Scotland’s greatest
naturalists. Marvellous coastal scenery characterises the walk, from the industrial heritage of
Prestonpans to the cliffs of the North Sea coast.

The Cairngorms

The Cairngorms National Park covers a wilderness area of natural splendour, but you may well have
the place to yourself on the high-level walk from Cairn Gorm to Ben Macdui, Britain’s second-highest
mountain. Once you have climbed the imposing peak of Cairn Gorm, you then walk across the high-
altitude Alpine plateau towards Ben Macdui. The scenery just gets better and better as you head
into the wilderness.

Southern Upland Way

The Southern Upland Way is Scotland’s longest, and one of its most challenging walking routes.
Stretching across the south of Scotland from the far west of Dumfries & Galloway to the North Sea
coast, it takes beautiful landscapes, yet is still unsung as a trekking route. You could take on all 212
miles, taking 10-14 days, or get a taste for the route with a bite-size chunk by just doing one of the
15 sections. Whichever one you choose, you’re in for a treat.

Highland Perthshire

Get a taste of the Highlands on a circular walk through awesome scenery that takes in moor,
mountain and forest far away from well-trodden routes. From Pitlochry, head towards the
summit of Ben Vrackie before taking a high-level pass and plunging down a knee-testing descent
to Killiecrankie, site of the infamous Soldier’s Leap, where a Highland soldier escaped from the
advancing government army by leaping over a river gorge.

Pentland Hills

While many walkers who come to Scotland head to the famous Highlands, there is wonderful
walking just a few miles from Edinburgh Airport. The Pentland Hills is an area of natural beauty
taking in some impressive peaks. The walk along the ‘Pentland Ridge’ scales five summits –
Turnhouse Hill, Carnethy Hill, Scald Law and East and West Kips. It gets a wee bit windy up here, so
take care, but the effort will be well worth it.

Guest post by James who  writes for Skyscanner.net

Not much unusual in the way of birdlife although I’ve seen the Kingfisher a few times this week flying up and down the River Croal, hopefully looking for suitable nesting sites, and on Monday I saw a Teal on the river, a new Queens Park ‘tick’ for me.

Work is continuing on the lower pond where the rangers are building some fishing platforms on the recently dredged lake. Hopefully they’ll move the fish back into the pond before Spring kicks in properly so the local coarse anglers can try their hand at catching some of the local Carp. It looks good and it’s great to see the work continuing to improve the quality of the ponds.

There’s also a bit of work going on at near the Southern end of the park where I think they’re making a new play area or car park – I’m not entirely sure – but it’s refreshing to see the local council is still going ahead with improvements where so many others would have cancelled them due to budget cuts.

The book, “Fishing Boats & Ports of Wales, A Way to Explore” by Stewart Lenton is about 180 pages in total, including the index and spiral bound which for an exploration type of book is a great idea as it means you can leave it open on the relevant page.

The introduction by Liz Lenton is a fascinating read and goes into a bit of history as well as guiding us gently round the coast from South to North. It shows that Liz really does enjoy these explorations and is written in a way that makes them accessible to us all.

The real ‘meat’ of the book is the Ports section. Every major (and a lot of minor) port is listed with a great introduction into the ports history, uses throughout it’s life and current condition as well as a few pictures of the port and surrounding area. This is then followed by a listing of the vessels registered at that Port including such details as registration number, name, type (eg, angler, liner, etc.), size and build year.

These details are actually quiet interesting in a geeky kind of way and I found myself looking through them even though I only had a passing interest but the main bit that caught my eye were the boats photos – I spent ages just going through Ports I’d visited looking at the pictures of boats thinking “I’ve seen that” or “I wonder if there’s a picture of…”

So overall, although it’s not a book I would normally buy I found it interesting and once I’d started hunting through areas I knew, it dragged me in. Is it worth £17.99 ? If you have any interest in boats or ports of Wales I’d say yes. Even if you just amble round the coast it would come in handy for those “I wonder what the boat is…” moments.

The Fishing Boats & Ports of Wales – A Way to Explore by Stewart Lenton  is published by Channel View Publishing, Plymouth, ISBN: 978-0-9554023-4-0 and is priced at £17.99. You can purchase it (and other books by Stewart and Liz) from the Chanel View Publishing website.

Exploring the area? Click here for places to stay in Wales

After saying the weather in West Lancashire hasn’t been too bad mother nature threw the heaviest snowfall our way last weekend since I was a child. So, after struggling home on Friday night we did what any other like minded loony would do and went for a walk on the Saturday. We had such a good time tramping along the River Douglas through the snow I did it again on Sunday, this time with the ‘proper’ camera.

Instead of just going along the river I spent some time wondering through the boatyard until I noticed an odd sound coming from the river, on looking closer I was shocked to see ice flowing downstream, the noise being generated as it pilled up against the boatyards pontoons.

This may not seem such a big deal until you realise that the River Douglas is tidal in this area and contains mostly salt water when the tide is high (when it’s low water you can wade across it in places, at high water it is over 15 feet deep). I stood there and watched this spectacle for ages until I remembered I had the camera with me.

Dragging myself away from this highly unusual occurrence I continued my walk Northwards along the banks of the river, stopping every so often to see if I could get a half decent snap of the ducks on the river without falling through the snow into a hidden gully. Eventually I gave up on that idea as they were just to far away but climbing back onto the retaining bank I spotted a flock of birds feeding on the Hawthorn. Assuming they were Starlings I just watched them for a while until they flew overhead and I got my first proper view of a large flock of Fieldfare.

I’ve never actually been close enough to photograph these beautiful birds and they certainly played hard to get  as whenever I got close enough to attempt a picture they flew off but eventually I managed to get a shot of a group of them on the bushes, not quite as close as I’d have liked but still, not a bad first go.

After seeing them I slowly made my way back along the farmers track and down Marsh Lane, a short but wonderful walk along our local river. Amazingly the temperature has since got colder and driving over the river this morning there was even more ice so I’ll definitely be going back over the Christmas break for another look

I didn’t get to go out sea fishing this weekend due to the weather being just too damn cold and wet although a few of the guys from the Wirral Sea Fishing website had a couple of sessions on Saturday, one at Seaforth and the other at Hall Road, Crosby. Not much was caught but credit due to them, they stuck it out in truly horrid conditions.

The bravest I managed was a gentle walk along the banks of our local river, the Douglas to see if I could manage to get any half decent photographs. From a birding point of view the walk was great and I managed to spot Mallard, Widgeon, Little Egret, Grey and Canada Geese, Great crested Grebe, Redshank and Oyster Catchers on or around the river as well as Kestrel, Fieldfare, Blue, Great and Long tailed Tit, Goldfinch, Robin and Blackbird on the hedge along the embankment.

Of course, non of these would stay still long enough for a photo in the fog but I did manage an arty shot of a couple walking their dog as the last of the evening sun lit up the fog.

As for sea fishing the BLAS Christmas match has been brought forward to this Sunday at Rossall and with a bit of a thaw, a predicted balmy 6°C with a slight Westerly I may actually be in with a chance of a fish or two.

And I thought clearing out my parents pond was hard work...

The weather this past week has been truly miserable so we haven’t done any type of fishing, indeed it’s been so bad that even getting lunch has been a pre-winter test of my waterproofs.

I managed to get out yesterday without getting soaked and during my usual walk round Queens Park I came across this extreme case of pond dipping. I remember using a net to catch things out of a pond but this seems a little overkill…

What they’re doing is removing all the silt and accumulated junk from the bottom in preparation for re-building the edges and adding fishing platforms. All the fish from the pond were moved months ago to an adjacent one and the birds moved once the heavy machinery turned up. The local Heron was having a field day picking out small fish and frogs that couldn’t be moved while the water was only a few inches in places.

On a fishing related note, we’ve got a couple of ‘proper’ fly fishing rods but not really given them a work out yet – hopefully we’ll get out this coming weekend to give them a proper try, weather permitting.

Cemlyn Bay

A few more photographs from our recent visit to Anglesey which include our first visit to Abermenai Point

Llanddwyn Bay - looking NW from Abermenai Point

Sea Holly (Eryngium maritimum)

The protected dune plant, Sea holly (Eryngium maritimum) is native to most European coastlines and resembles a metallic blue flowering thistle growing to a height 60 cm. In Elizabethan times in England, these plants were believed to be a strong aphrodisiac and in 2002 Sea holly was nominated the 2002 County flower for the city of Liverpool.

Looking south from Abermenai Point towards the Lleyn Peninsula

"Where Sand Meets the Sea" - Llanddwyn Beach

Looking towards Rhoscolyn Beacon

We might not have done very well in the sea fishing stakes during our summer visit to Anglesey but we managed to get out and about a few times so here are a few of the better photographs I took while we were there.

Helicopter from RAF Valley practicing over the headland

Looking South West from Aberffraw Bay towards the Lleyn Peninsula

Six-spot Burnet Moth

All of the photographs in this post are taken using the Canon EOS 450D with most of them using the standard ‘cheap’ 18-55mm lens. To enhance the skies I used a hoya circular polariser which also cut down on the glare from the sea in some of the shots.

They were all taken in RAW format so if I need higher resolution versions or need to enhance them further the detail is stored within the file. All of them were cropped to size in photoshop and sharpened a little as they tend to blur a bit when you take them down in size so much.

The only other thing I tend to do is straighten the horizon on the seascapes as no matter how hard I try, when hand holding the camera I can never get it exactly horizontal.

I’m really enjoying my photography at the moment and Anglesey gives anyone the opportunity to visit some truly beautiful, almost deserted, areas which for any amateur photographer is great.

Saint Cwyfan Church, Porth China nr Aberffraw

Small Tortoiseshell butterfly

It was good to see a few Small Tortoiseshell butterflies feeding on all the flowers – these have been hit with a disease in recent years and I’ve not seen anything like as many as I used to as a child – but they seem to be doing OK on Anglesey.

I know I go through all sorts of clothing and footwear in my sea fishing and walking adventures and although I like browsing through all the outdoor gear shops it’s a pain sometimes as I live in a village a fair distance from any major retailer.

Well this month that all changed as just up the road from where I live a shop has opened called trek outdoors which aims to offer a range of quality technical and casual brands, expert advice and excellent customer service. I’ve just been for a look today and bought a new soft knit top from weirdfish, I couldn’t help myself and I did need one, honest. They sell all the usual brands such as craghopper and merrell with a few others I’d not heard of, all of which are the highest quality.

I don’t usually post about shops but this guy is local and sells stuff I want so if you’re in the area or just passing through why not look up Jason, the shop is on Church Rd in Tarleton, about half way between Southport and Preston, just off the A59.

Spring Couples - Oyster Catchers, Shelducks and Avocets

As the weather has been so great recently I went for a long walk along our local river, the Douglas to practice my photography skills and to see if i could manage to get a half decent image of birds in flight with my current equipment.

With the dry weather and the sun the banks of the River Douglas had dried considerably leaving shallow pools for wading birds to sift through for food, the usual suspects were in abundance; Oyster Catcher, Curlew, Shelduck, Mallard but it’s the first time I’ve seen Avocet on my local patch although they do breed at RSB Marshside, Southport which is about 10 miles up the coast.

As for catching birds in flight? These are the best of a LOT of photographs.

Lapwing on flight -probably pushing the lens a little here

Shelducks in flight - sometimes luck is all you need...

I’m pleased with the one of the Shelducks which just flew right past me while I had the camera set up ready to go, although the sky could have been a bit more interesting – can’t have it all I guess. The Lapwing was a bit tougher, they fly very erratically at this time of year and realistically the lens I have (Canon 55-250) isn’t up to the job – hence they’re a bit blurred, although still recognisable.

Still… practice makes perfect.