Up this tiny single track road, with passing places we wriggled up into the hills again. And as we did, the weather started to turn. It had been so good this morning, we actually had a view for most of it. Driving along we kept stopping for photos, or to ask a pig if he was meant to be crossing the road on his own.
Luckily, the farmer came trotting out and lured him back up to his pen with some pig nuggets, but not before I got this great photo!
The sun was just about managing to rise, but only high enough so it’s rays could sneak down between the clouds and the land. It was clear and golden all morning. It was also a lot colder, evidenced by the dusting of snow on the mountain peaks.
But it was raining as we pulled up at the car park. An absolutely massive car park on the side of the valley overlooking the walk up to the Fairy Pools. Expensive too, but you do get all day for your money so you can go for a nice long walk. However, after 2 days of walks, both Daito and Kayto were tired and seemed quite happy to chill in the van while we had some lunch and waited for the rain to pass.
Finally the best of the weather seemed to be appearing over the ridge so we decided to set off. At the same time, some brave fell runners took off around the edge of the valley in nothing more than shorts and t-shirts. We were wrapped up in full waterproof and down jacket layers, not trusting the blue sky that was taunting us to wear less.
The track leading up the valley along the river had been laid wide and flat with crushed rock. This meant that unlike other mountain walks, you could actually spend your time strolling and looking at the scenery, rather than watching your step picking your way over rocks. It was a very civilised stroll into the wilderness. Again we were surprised by the number of people out in bad weather in December. But I guess we aren’t the only daft people holidaying at this time of year.
The Fairy Pools are a collection of eroded holes and pools down the length of a river fed from the surrounding mountains. There are slow bits and fast bits and waterfalls into deep gorges. There was one curious pool a waterfall was filling that seemed to have no outflow. We guessed the water must have cut a softer rock below and exit further downstream. After looking at some online photos later we found that there is actually an arch of rock carved out under which the water flows.
Nearly the “top” of the trail, or at least as far as we wanted to go, the fell runners were joining the track. The weather opened up and gave us an incredible view of the mountains. The snow and clouds whipping across the black peaks made it very dramatic. And it mostly stayed dry on the way down giving us a beautifully developing sunset down the valley.
As it was dry, there was just enough time for a quick drone flight with the Flywoo Flylens 85 2S cine-whoop. It’s made for cinematic flights so this would be a beautiful location to film, but Santa has not visited so I’ve not got a high definition camera for it yet. Also, I really need to get a GPS module and work out how the Return To Home rescue mode works incase i lose signal while flying. Then i could fly all the way up the valley and be less worried of losing it. For now, I’m limited to tooling around the carpark.
As it was getting dark we arrived at our new lodge for a couple nights. Aimi had booked places on Skye months ago, but then I had cut my finger off and they all needed to be moved. We ended up with a 3 day gap without accommodation which we had thought to spend in the van, but the weather is really harsh up here and Daito is a big boy. Together, this makes long periods of time in the small van a little cramped. We need a bigger van.
