It’s just over a month since we travelled over to the west of Scotland to visit a Doors Open weekend, we managed to fit in a visit to Loch Lomond too. The photos here are of Balmaha which is a place that I had never visited before despite growing up nearby. It’s a dead end as there’s one road in and out!
My idea of heaven would be to be puttering around on the loch, even in a rowing boat, but one of these ones might be better at my age. It’s a good long while since I rowed my cousins around on Loch Long. I got the job of rowing as I was the country cousin and they were the city kids. Actually it was 50 years ago and when I think about it now I go quite cold as I don’t think any of us could swim and in those days nobody used life-jackets.
It was September the ninth and the place was full of visitors, it was a golden evening and quite warm, probably the last day of summer weather, I had my sun hat on. It’s an awful lot chillier now. The tourist information page recommends arriving by boat as parking your car can be difficult, but we managed with no problem, I imagine that in the summer months it will be heaving with people.
At the Balloch side of Loch Lomond in the photo below there were people doing various water sports. Sadly people drown every year in the loch, it’s very cold and I think that shocks people, even good swimmers.
You can see lots more images of the area here.
These photos bring back such good memories for me of a September several years ago when we visited Balloch and Loch Lomond. It was already cold outside, so we never tried to find out the temperature of the water. Do you know what the temperature of the water is during the summer? Do many people swim there in the summer months?
Paula,
Apparently it was 48 F today which seems not too bad to me, but it won’t be much warmer in the summer. I’ve only been in in the summer and I coudn’t stop shivering when I came out, and I wasn’t in for long. People drown in it every summer, the problem is they can be walking along happily when suddenly they fall down a hole, it’s not always flat as you would expect. It also has currents , coupled with the cold which can bring on cramps even fairly good swimmers get caught out by it. Also they decide to swim out to one of the islands and don’t realise it’s further than they thought. In Scotland we make sure we have something sweet to eat when coming out of the water, it’s called a ‘chittery bite’ as it is supposed to stop you from chittering/shivering!
Looks glorious! Thanks for sharing your photos!
kaggsysbookishramblings,
I’m glad you enjoyed it!