Category Archives: Scenery

Falkland, Fife

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Falkland, Pond, Fife

This year is going by in a flash and it’ll be September soon, but I’m casting my mind back to a sparkling day in March when we visited nearby Falkland. The photo above is of the lodge house at Falkland House. This used to be a favourite haunt of ours when we had wee ones in the family, before we even had our own kids to take there it was loved by our niece because at that time the pond was full of ducks and all sorts of water fowl. For some reason you never see any at all nowadays. The lodge house looks idyllic, but the water flows underneath it so that will be noisy and chilly I imagine. Below is a photo I took of crocuses but they’re dark purple so quite difficult to see.

Falkland Crocuses ,Fife

From Falkland Pond, Fife

To the left of the field above the ground slopes up to the Lomonds, I’ve never gone up that way, it looks too steep.

But walking over to the right from there you get onto a woodland path which leads eventually to Falkland Palace orchard. The wee waterfall below and the bridge are close to a popular children’s play park.

Falkland Waterfall , Fife

The view below is looking over towards the villages of Auchtermuchty and Dunshalt  from the footpath which leads to Falkland Palace orchard. Nowadays Falkland is probably best known for being used as a  location in the TV series Outlander.

Fife Hills, near Falkland, Fife

In this post that I did way back in 2016 you can see the village when the film people converted the shops to look like they were in the 1950s.

Knaresborough, Yorkshire

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Knaresborough Castle , Yorkshire

It was way back in November 2022 when we visited Knarseborough in Yorkshire. I’m way behind with blogging about places we’ve visited. We had never been there before but I had read about it, probably in a magazine or The Guardian. Anyway, obviously quite a lot of people had also read about it, it’s a pretty destination, but was quite busy, even in November.

Knaresborough Castle , Yorkshire

As you can see Knaresborough Castle is still imposing despite being a bit of a ruin, it dates back to around 1100.

But the viaduct is probably more well known than the castle is, it’s very high.

River Nidd Viaduct, train, Knaresborough

Knaresborough is hilly and as you can see you get an even better view of the River Nidd from higher up. We had our lunch in the town, it’s a good place to stop off. We also visited Tadcaster, Thirsk and Harrogate on that trip, but for me this was the most scenic place.

Knaresborough, River Nidd Viaduct

 

Some Fife scenery

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It was my birthday fairly recently, but as we had been travelling a lot I decided I didn’t want to stray far from home on that day. We just went out for lunch to a place nearby, and after that we went for a wee walk and I took some photos along the way.

Fife scenery, Scotland

The field is close to the historic village of Falkland.

Fife scenery, Scotland

Fife scenery, Scotland

Fife scenery, Scotland

Then it started to rain so we went home. I had a good day though.

Fife scenery

Craigellachie Bridge, Moray, Scotland

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We just had to stop to take photos of Craigellachie Bridge before we drove over the modern bridge. It isn’t a stone bridge, apart from the ends, it’s iron but very elegant anyway.

Craigellachie Bridge, from modern road, Moray

It’s near the village of Aberlour in Morayshire, north-east Scotland. The bridge was built by the famous civil engineer Thomas Telford  in 1812, it took two years to complete it.

Craigellachie Bridge end pillars

Craigellachie Bridge spans the River Spey, famous for salmon fishing in the past but nowadays it’s very much a catch and return policy. Salmon are so scarce and have to be conserved.

Craigellachie Bridge, Aberlour, Moray

 

Scenery, Perthshire, Scotland

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We were away up north a bit for a day out a few weeks ago. These are just random photos of our short break. The photo below is of a very misty and moody Loch Earn, it’s a freshwater loch.

Loch Earn Mist, Perth, Kinross, Stirlingshire

I think the river below is the River Earn, it’s flowing through the village of Comrie in Perthshire. We stopped there for our lunch at a lovely wee cafe. It was used by locals – always a good sign.

River, Church, Comrie, Perthshire

River ,Church, Comrie, Perthshire

And this is the River Earn by Inverpeffray Library.

River Earn at Innerpeffray

River Earnand Sheep at Innerpeffray

River Earn and Trees at Innerpeffray

It was a great day out if a bit misty.

Firth of Forth, Bridges and South Queensferry

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A few weeks ago we drove to South Queensferry on our way home from – I can’t remember where! I thought you might like to see some of the photos I took.

Forth Bridge stitch, Scotland

The photo below is of the Forth Road Bridge which dates from the 1960s and if you look carefully you can just see the white struts of the new Queensferry Crossing behind it.

Forth Bridges, South Queensferry

These photos were all taken from almost exactly the same spot, it’s not often we walk out to the edge of the river, so I don’t think I’ve taken any photos of South Queensferry from this angle.

South Queensferry , Scotland

The houses aren’t quite so quaint looking from the back as you can see, but the Jubilee Clock stands out well. It was built to commemorate one of Queen Victoria’s jubilees of course.

South Queensferry , Scotland

The tide was out on the Firth of Forth, that always makes things look a bit messy. South Queensferry is where the better off people of Edinburgh used to go for the weekend to escape the smells and muck of Auld Reekie, now it’s just an afternoon jaunt for people.

South Queensferry , River Forth

If you click on the photo below to see it enlarged you will be able to see through the bridge arch an island although it might not look like one to you. The island is warship shaped and I believe that during WW2 they built structures on it which made it look even more like a warship – in fact the Nazis claimed to have sunk this ‘warship’ several times. It was used defensively with men stationed on it as there was a lot going on in this area during the war as the Victorian Forth Bridge which was the only one there at the time was a major target for the Nazis and they had their submarines skulking around too.

Forth Bridge , Firth of Forth, island

If you’re interested you can read a bit about South Queensferry here.

Loch Leven, Perth and Kinross.

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Way back in July we visited the Loch Leven area of Perth and Kinross to have lunch and walk off some of the calories after that. It’s close to an airstrip that’s used by people for gliding. A nearby hill produces good updraughts.

Glider, Loch Leven,

Memory is so weird as I remembered this as being a really blue sky day, well we did have a really good summer, so I was surprised to see that the sky was really quite grey and moody looking.

Gliders, Perth and Kinross

We decided to go for a walk to the loch, the photo below is a stitch.

Loch Leven stitch, Perth and Kinross

We walked for ages, but didn’t seem to be getting any closer to the loch.

Loch Leven

So we ended up turning back and walking towards the Bishop Hill and Scotlandwell.

Bishop Hill, Scotlandwell, Perth and Kinross

Dumbarton Castle – Tom Weir

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On TV recently I’ve been watching a lot of programmes which feature people walking in the countryside. I do enjoy walking but mainly in good weather not so much in the winter, that’s armchair travelling time. The first such programmes I watched would have been those by the late great Tom Weir, but I hadn’t realised that there are a couple of his films on You Tube featuring Dumbarton Castle, my old stamping ground. The photo on my header was taken from the top of the castle and the film shows Tom making his way up there.

If you’re interested you can see a previous blogpost of mine about the castle here.

After Harry and Meghan’s wedding (or maybe just before it) it was announced that they had been given the Scottish titles Earl and Countess of Dumbarton, and apparently everyone in the town got quite excited because that would normally mean a royal visit from them, but it was not to be. It seems that the historic name of Dumbarton which means fort of the Britons was seen as an insult because the word dumb is in it. Well – what can I say?!
You can read more about the town here.

Boxing Day walk near Errol, Perth and Kinross

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Christmas this year was hosted by one of our sons and his wife so we travelled to rural Perthshire on Christmas morning, the small twisty turny roads were fairly empty. It was lovely not to be doing all the cooking and a good time was had by all. On Boxing Day we went for a crisp walk around the countryside which surrounds the nearby village. It was a wee bit icy underfoot in parts.

Winter Walk, Errol, Perthshire, Scotland

The photos below are of the wee village of Errol, if you want to see them enlarged click on the photos. The church in the photo dates from 1833 so it’s quite new, but the bells still ring out the hours and one of them is cracked. It sounds quite charming somehow. My strange looking shadow is towards the right of the second photo.

winter Walk, near Errol, Perthshire

Winter Walk, near Errol, Perthshire

All of us in shadow form. We’re shy!

Winter Walk, near Errol, Perthshire

From these photos the area looks fairly flat but in the photo below there is a snow covered hill which I think was probably a Pictish hill fort thousands of years ago. The River Tay is not far from the path we were walking on and that of course is famous for salmon fishing, but nowadays any salmon caught must be put back in the river – carefully.

Winter Walk, near Errol Perthshire

Well we walked off some of our Christmas dinner calories, I hope!

Merry Christmas

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Happy Christmas!

Christmas Card

If by any chance you are feeling at a loose end – well it looks like there’s absolutely nothing on TV worth watching – you could go down that rabbit hole called You Tube. If you don’t fancy doing an actual walk it might be entertaining to do a virtual one, kicking off with the Aviemore area below. Have fun!