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Author Topic: Scotland  (Read 15873 times)

t6b9p

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Re: Scotland
« Reply #20 on: May 03, 2012, 06:27:49 pm »

Thanks to all for the helpful info.

Quote
The AE ridge - scary stuff in those conditions. So many people do it so that they finish at the Pap of Glencoe end, but the descent there is really nasty at the end of a long, tiring day. The ridge is not for the faint-hearted.

I was actually considering doing AE in the reverse direction for that reason, plus stopping to shoot photos can eat into the time and descending that in poor light is something we hope not to get caught with.

We will keep the route on the other side of the Glen as a back plan.
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crisdesign

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Re: Scotland
« Reply #21 on: May 12, 2012, 03:00:37 pm »

I went last year and with some help from members of this board and Fred Miranda it was a great trip.

Consider that you can easily spend 5 days just in Skye, the Quiraing walk with the Old Man of Storr is impressive, the route from the Cullins to Elgol beach simply beautiful.
You could easily include the Eilean Donan castle and the Torridon, may be passing trough Applecross.

You can find soem tips here: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=54422.0
and soem of the picture i took here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/crisdesign/sets/72157627217923184/

Cris
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markadams99

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Re: Scotland
« Reply #22 on: May 12, 2012, 11:06:08 pm »

Afternoon view from the Applecross peninsula to Skye across the Inner Sound:

Ian99

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Re: Scotland
« Reply #23 on: May 14, 2012, 04:33:10 pm »

The Cuillins from Elgol

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Ian99

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Re: Scotland
« Reply #24 on: May 14, 2012, 04:44:17 pm »

I don't know why, but it looks like you will have to log in to see my pic of the Cuillins.
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hotubei

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Re: Scotland
« Reply #25 on: May 18, 2012, 12:15:12 pm »

Just got back from Skye where I spent 6 days (just me, my camera equipment and the Island ;)

Highly recommend the place, it is sort of essense of Scotland, though on the way to/from Skye I saw some real nice sights and objects. Just to mention those moss-cloaked trees that would go for Ents! Did not see those on Skye...

Anyways, great location, did a small blog on this trip www.hotubei.com, just in case you want some "aperitif" before your own trip :)
« Last Edit: May 18, 2012, 12:18:44 pm by hotubei »
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Rob C

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Re: Scotland
« Reply #26 on: May 18, 2012, 04:31:09 pm »


7.   Then back to Glasgow. Take a bus tour around the city centre, there is a splendid variety of architectural styles, but not much else. The poorer districts can be dangerous for rich tourists.



As a fellow Glaswegian who escaped, I think you have it down to a T.

Regarding 7: that goes for anybody not from the area; it also makes me wonder why anybody not obliged to live in those places would visit. But don’t assume the villages are much safer: booze there is a menace too, and at night the farm boys go out to play, along with the work-shy and the genuine unemployed. Explosive mix.

I think the worst memory that I have from visits we made back – the food offered pretty much anywhere in British establishments was lousy; often lousy and expensive, just to rub in the pain. We used to get there (Scotland) by driving from Spain via the middle of France, where the chains were indeed very inexpensive and the chow offered usually rather good, especially in the Logis members’ places where rooms came in at around 30-35 pounds per room, not person, and with dinner à la carte or from one or the other of several set menus, around a hundred quid in total (room and food etc.) for my wife and I per day.

Making direct comparisons like that between France one day and the UK the next, it becomes easy to see why Brits flock abroad whenever they can; weather is only a part of it. As for the motorways, God bless the French and the Spanish! Were the Brits not so bolshie, they’d realise that paying tolls for motorway usage actually provides a far better service and experience than having them free, underfunded and in permanent states of disrepair.

Rob C

P.S. I never did eat well in Florida, either, so perhaps my tastes are different, in which case, I suppose U.S. trippers will be perfectly happy in Scotland.
« Last Edit: May 18, 2012, 04:44:16 pm by Rob C »
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Chris Pollock

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Re: Scotland
« Reply #27 on: May 18, 2012, 06:56:58 pm »

I think the worst memory that I have from visits we made back – the food offered pretty much anywhere in British establishments was lousy; often lousy and expensive, just to rub in the pain.
Actually I thought the food in Scotland wasn't bad, but that's largely a metter of personal taste. The fish and chips at least were much better than what you get in Australia. The prices were good compared to Australia, but that's probably the case just about anywhere these days.:(

As for the motorways, God bless the French and the Spanish! Were the Brits not so bolshie, they’d realise that paying tolls for motorway usage actually provides a far better service and experience than having them free, underfunded and in permanent states of disrepair.
I didn't notice anything wrong with the motorways, but I've never driven in Europe so I guess I just don't know what I'm missing.

Some of the roads in the Highlands were an interesting experience. The surfaces were actually pretty well maintained, but there are still long stretches where there's only a single lane for both directions. The road widens every so often so that the cars can pass each other. It makes for tiring driving - you have to constantly stay alert, and stop for cars that enter the single lane stretch before you.

Some of the larger roads in the highlands were great driving - the sort of thing you see in sports car commercials.
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GuzziRob

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Re: Scotland
« Reply #28 on: May 18, 2012, 07:28:23 pm »

The roads just take a bit of getting used to  ;)

Here is a quick shot of Orkney to show you what it is all about!



And a wee bit of Perthshire:

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Tony Jay

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Re: Scotland
« Reply #29 on: May 18, 2012, 08:18:03 pm »

For images potentially as good as those posted I would put up with much worse.

Regards

Tony Jay
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Ian99

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Re: Scotland
« Reply #30 on: May 18, 2012, 08:21:34 pm »

GuzziRob:  Brodgar and Loch Tay ???  Excellent pics.

Hotubei: very nice views from Skye. Great job.

RobC:   Everyone who has left Scotland has mixed feelings – from the deep down gut feeling of “homeland”, which the Welsh call “hiraeth”, balanced with the stark reality of a very difficult life. In this I do not think that the Scots have any exclusivity and many  different peoples have faced the same choice –stay or go. The Scots made truly magnificent contributions to modern life, but failed to capitalize on them. Of the many things the Scots excelled at, gastronomy was not one of them.

I wish I could vote in 2014.
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Chris Pollock

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Re: Scotland
« Reply #31 on: May 18, 2012, 10:37:42 pm »

Everyone who has left Scotland has mixed feelings – from the deep down gut feeling of “homeland”, which the Welsh call “hiraeth”, balanced with the stark reality of a very difficult life.
I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. Scotland certainly has its problems, but I don't think life there could be fairly described as very difficult for most people. I think the majority of the world's population would consider it a life of ease.

Of the many things the Scots excelled at, gastronomy was not one of them.
Evidently their cooking is good enough. Most of the people that I saw seemed to enjoy their food - in fact they looked like they enjoy it a little too much.;)
« Last Edit: May 19, 2012, 12:10:41 am by Chris Pollock »
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Chris Pollock

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Final resting place
« Reply #32 on: May 18, 2012, 10:45:11 pm »

Here's something a little different. It's near Bowling railway station, on the north bank of the Clyde.
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Rob C

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Re: Scotland
« Reply #33 on: May 19, 2012, 04:26:04 am »

I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. Scotland certainly has its problems, but I don't think life there could be fairly described as very difficult for most people. I think the majority of the world's population would consider it a life of ease.
Evidently their cooking is good enough. Most of the people that I saw seemed to enjoy their food - in fact they looked like they enjoy it a little too much.;)




That's the point and also its consequence: it's generally crap.

Both my mother-in-law and my wife were excellent cooks; my son trained as a professional chef and worked in some top places in Glasgow until he packed it all in in order to get a life where he was allowed friends of an evening! The three of those people said the same thing: crap in - crap out. In other words, you can't create astonishing food from rubbish, and I'm afraid that the bulbous people you see walking the streets have not allowed themselves or their families the better choices in life. I don't for a moment accept that 'good' raw products are out of reach: when you can smoke the paypacket away or give it to the bookies and off-licences, you could, if you chose, buy top-class food and learn to cook it.

My wife had the further advantage of my mother - half-Italian - and she learned much from her, too, and best of all, she enjoyed making things out of whatever was locally available and in season. Chuck-its in buckets never crossed our doorstep.

Thirty or twenty-five years ago, there were lots of dinner parties held out here, and we usually went to one another’s homes to enjoy them. Now, the majority of people don’t even dream of spending time on their ‘friends’ anymore; they depend on the credit card and a restaurant instead. I may well be a dinosaur, but in my view, that degrades friendship terribly – it becomes nothing but another expense and no personal input enters the equation. There is no way that any restaurant captures the friendly, personal atmosphere of a home, the absolute lack of pressure to get up and leave so the staff can go away. Frankly, I’d rather stay home and play at LuLa. But there you go – different times, different commitments and little sense of values and worth.

I don’t recognize any feeling of nostalgia about returning to any ‘homeland’, though: were that in my soul then I don’t expect I’d have left in the first place. In the end, ‘home’ is a tiny place where love lives; a little house full of wife and, with some effort, kids. That you can take with you anywhere on Earth if you really want to so do. Then, when time passes and that entity is destroyed in one of the many inevitable ways, you face what? Yourself? That ‘self’ will follow you wherever you think you can go – you can’t escape it; it’s you, your own built-in destiny.

Ultimately, what difference Spain, Scotland, Ireland or even, God help us, Wales? If that sounds bleak, it’s because it is.

Rob C

Chris Pollock

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Re: Scotland
« Reply #34 on: May 19, 2012, 05:28:23 am »

My comment about the number of non-slender people in Scotland was tongue in cheek, as you probably guessed. I realize that being fat doesn't mean you eat good food, it just means you eat too much food. It's worth mentioning that overweight people aren't exactly rare in Australia or America these days.

I'm a Scot by birth and ancestry myself, but I left when I as four years old (it wasn't my decision), and have only been back a few times since then. My first visit as an adult was for 3 weeks in 2010.

In my own experience it's not hard to get a good meal in Scotland if you want to. Admittedly my tastes are simple, and I was always happy to eat a good old-fashioned haddock and chips if nothing better was available. Too much of it would make you fat, but no more so than typical American or Australian food.

No doubt you're right that a lot of people eat crap because they smoke and gamble their money away. I suspect the same thing happens in other countries too. I was impressed by what was on offer in Scottish supermarkets at reasonable prices. The fresh berries in particular are vastly superior to what you get in Australia. Australian strawberries look good, but sadly that's all you can say in their favour.

I would love to try living in Scotland for a few years, but sadly family commitments and probable lack of employment opportunities make this unfeasible. Perhaps when our babies have all left the nest my wife and I can spend a few of our declining years in the land of my birth. Until then I expect to head back occasionally. If only someone would invent an aircraft that could cruise at supersonic speeds, burn little fuel, and be cheap to manufacture and maintain...
« Last Edit: May 19, 2012, 05:30:28 am by Chris Pollock »
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GuzziRob

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Re: Scotland
« Reply #35 on: May 19, 2012, 05:54:31 am »

Yes, Brodgar (which is a very special place to me - Hoy is and always will be home) and Loch Tay - I was involved with building the crannog back when I was an archaeology student in the mid 90's.

As for the food - I think RobC has very coloured views.  There is a lot of excellent food in Scotland - and it isn't just the top end stuff in the cities that I am talking about either!   Yes The Ubiquitous Chip in Glasgow is truly special or The Witchery in Edinburgh, but so is The Three Chimneys on the Isle of Skye or The Lade Inn at Kilmahog in the Trossachs.  Little places are springing up everywhere which offer very good quality and reasonably priced food. 

The populous of Scotland are also getting way more inventive and are entertaining at home a lot more too, and some of the Bed and Breakfasts offer absolutely stunning evening meals especially in the more remote parts of the Highlands and Islands. 

I only moved away 3 years ago and there is a lot I miss about the place (and yes, I know I am only an hour south of the border!)
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Rob C

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Re: Scotland
« Reply #36 on: May 20, 2012, 04:08:23 am »

Yes, Brodgar (which is a very special place to me - Hoy is and always will be home) and Loch Tay - I was involved with building the crannog back when I was an archaeology student in the mid 90's.

As for the food - I think RobC has very coloured views.  There is a lot of excellent food in Scotland - and it isn't just the top end stuff in the cities that I am talking about either!   Yes The Ubiquitous Chip in Glasgow is truly special or The Witchery in Edinburgh, but so is The Three Chimneys on the Isle of Skye or The Lade Inn at Kilmahog in the Trossachs.  Little places are springing up everywhere which offer very good quality and reasonably priced food. 

The populous of Scotland are also getting way more inventive and are entertaining at home a lot more too, and some of the Bed and Breakfasts offer absolutely stunning evening meals especially in the more remote parts of the Highlands and Islands. 

I only moved away 3 years ago and there is a lot I miss about the place (and yes, I know I am only an hour south of the border!)


Loch Tay. Agreed; spent our honeymoon there, from which an ancient Kodachrome can be seen on the website below in the Biscuit Tin gallery, image 76 of 153. (Loch Tay? Honeymoon? Yes, we were young, poor, but in love.)

Very coloured views? Somewhat broadly-based ones, in fact, from having spent many years living in a series of other countries. Actually, some very good meals were enjoyed at my sister-in-law’s Scottish home, where she, a very busy lady with senior work responsibilities and little free domestic time, manages to create wonders from personal adaptations built upon a baseline of Marks & Spencer offerings. That is an art in itself, and probably far more valuable, in the real scheme of things, than photography! Perhaps I jest – I’m not sure.

Entertaining at home. More than they are abroad, then, I’d hope. (This time, I think I do jest.)

To sum up: it’s a nice place if you get good weather and have the roads to yourself, both rare events. In fact, to illustrate the point, even back in the 50s when I first began to drive, the only time we’d go to the Trossachs, up the Duke’s Pass etc. was on a rainy day: you could then probably park in one of the very few lay-bys that was available. You got wet from above, from the side, in every direction if you had to go pee, but you can’t have everything.

;-)

Rob C

GuzziRob

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Re: Scotland
« Reply #37 on: May 20, 2012, 06:06:25 am »

There is a lot more parking up the Dukes Pass these days, but yes... it can get busy in the honey pots near Glasgow and Edinburgh!

And I have to agree on the weather!  My last visit home was a couple of years ago on motorbikes.  In the fortnight that our tour de ecosse lasted I think we had 1 sunny day, and 13 that were a variation on the wet/windy/sleety/foggy scale of things.  That was in July/August!  Get the weather though and it is truly one of the most stunningly beautiful places on Earth (my parents are up on Tiree this week and it is looking like they may be getting some fabulous weather up there so I am really quite envious!)

Still... at least I have the Lakes to enjoy and a new Nikon D800E to put through it's paces ;-)
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