Very pretty :-) Did you get a lift in the helicopter? I think one of the things we like best about the highlands is the inaccessibility. The long walk-drive in-out means there are very few people there, so we just have to share the place with the midges, which aren't so bad if you pick your walk with care. On the autumn visit we found the Estate quite reasonable about walking-shooting, and there were no midges at all, which was even better. I only have about three pictures, though -- I never think to take them, even if I remember to bring the camera. But when I'm on the treadmill at the gym, when I rack the angle high and increase the speed, the image I call to mind is of the increasing gradient on a trail heading north towards Loch Torridon from the track beside the Applecross River. I can see the worn pebbles of the sandstone that underlies the path, all shades of red from rust to rose-pink, and the dead grbuttes are gold in the sunlight. I know that when I reach the top the view across the loch to Diabaig and beyond will be wonderful; when I turn around to come back it will all look different -- and ours will be the only footprints on the trail.1 I shouldn't think about it on a sunny day. I want to be there so much it hurts. Strange to have fallen so deeply in love with a landscape like that. We haven't been to Shetland (he confessed to preferring mountains and hills to seaside as I was planning the expedition), but I hope to get to the Outer Hebrides sometime.
Thinking about it harder, the LD is just too pretty, if that makes any sense at all. I like places where the landscape is less... welcoming? The glowering red cliffs of the Torridon, towering above the gneiss. Everything has to scratch a living there, and I like the reminder that I'm in the same situation, if (I hope) better equipped for immediate survival.
I like the Dales, too, where I can see the limestone bones rising up from the soft green grbutt that covers them.
regards sarah
1 Except for the frogs. There were a lot of frogs.
-- Think of it as evolution in action.
