19th February 2016

So today was our last full day of holiday. The forecast was not great, with heavy rain expected to move in over the course of the day and so we made the effort to get up early and head out for a walk.

We drove about 10 miles away to do a short walk along a river, nothing to strenous or long as we knew it might start raining.

Unfortunately I forgot to start the Strava activity until about 20 minutes into the walk!

Car park

The car park was right next to the bridge which was above quite a fast flowing river. The walk took us up along the river with some nice views of the river and the nearby mountains.

The path was still quite frozen in places and Izzy seemed to really enjoy running over the ice.

After a little while the path took us along a wall and up a small hill into some nearby woods, before joining a road and brining us back down to the car park.

After we got back, the weather didn't get too much worse until later on. But I decided to stay in and catch up on some sleep whilst Kathryn went out with Jan and Eddie to the shopping centre in Aviemore.

18th February 2016

The forecast again was very good for today due to building high pressure over Scotland. Therefore I made the effort again to get out of bed early and try and make the most of it.

This time I took the familiar route up to the nearest decent sized hill in Aviemore that gives excellent views of the surrounding area. The best thing is that there is a car park at the bottom of the hill so you can park the car and literally just walk straight up the hill. The air was quite chilly and frosty but the sun was out and was melting everything away fairly quickly. I had multiple layers on, and had to take most of them off before I got to the top as the uphill walk as fairly strenuous.

These photos were off the initial walk into the nature reserve, and below is the GPRS data of the walk. By the time I reached the top I had every layer back on which was good so I could savour the view for as long as possible. I was able to have a coffee and enjoy the view.

Frost on top of snow

View from top of hill

Breakfast

Left: Footprints in the snow, and Right: Small loch in nature reserve

After I got back we went for some lunch quickly at a very good local cafe.

Then we headed straight off to the Wildlife Park which is a few miles down the road. We chose a really good day as most of this was outside too.

Red deer in main reserve

Clockwise from top left: View from hill in nature reserve, arctic fox, red panda and elk

We were also fortunate enough to be able to book onto a guided tour of the park. The tour guide was really informative and I was lucky enough to be able to sit in the front seat and take some good photos.

Top left, top right and bottom left: Bison blocking the road

Bottom right: Juvenile Bukhara deer

After the park we stopped by for a quick coffee at another regular stop off on our holidays at Loch Insh, and returned to the lodge for a quiet night watching movies.

Boathouse restaurant

Loch Insh

17th February 2016

Today we woke up to the normal highland forest scenery as most of the snow had all but melted overnight as the temperature had been a little warming. Having said that, after waking and having some breakfast I headed out for a quick wander around the local loch at Glenmore. The view was spectacular as the mountains are still very snow covered, and actually quite a bit of the lake was still frozen, but had clearly thawed and frozen several times to create a sort of mosaic appearance it its edge.

I stopped by at the small cafe for a hot chocolate to warm up. Thankfully I had timed it such that it was totally empty as I'm sure most people had headed to the slopes already. i finished off the journey by going to Aviemore to fill the car with petrol ready for the journey home, and also some postcards to send out to my family.

In the afternoon, we had arranged a tour of a local brewery as it seemed a good thing to do in the cold weather, and also something that I've never done before so I was sure it would be really interesting.

We walked up to the brewery at the northern end of the town, as we knew we'd most likely be having a drink or two from the samples. By now the sun had come out and we actually had another really nice stroll up there, although it was a bit colder when we left and walked back.