For the final day of my trip I planned a visit to Montserrat, the ‘serrated mountain’, which is about 25 miles from Barcelona and had the dual attractions of hiking opportunities and a monastery complete with boys’ choir who sing daily. A day on a mountain followed by Vespers seemed the perfect way to bring…
Category: travel
My original plan for today was to walk to Tossa de Mar, which sounds like a fantastic old town and well worth seeing. It’ll have to wait for another trip though as given the terrible weather forecast I ended up changing my plans. Having had a hard time sleeping two nights ago as it was…
The day started off bright and sunny and I took advantage of it for a small potter around the neighbourhood, first discovering the not so native wildlife, in the form of emus and wallabies. I was more interested in finding native wildlife, but the hoped for curlews were not in sight, although I did find…
After a busy morning doing all the housework and admin that had been left abandoned whilst I was on a long run of shifts, I headed up to Aberdeen to take the M/V Hjaltland (aka the North Boat) up to Shetland. After a delightfully peaceful train journey with some lovely views of the coast, I…
One of the strangest things about coming to Canada these days is changing base from New Westminster to Coquitlam. We’re unbelievably lucky though to have a good friend of my mum’s who’s happy to not just host us, but also mother us, whilst we’re here. It’s also been a great opportunity to discover some new…
Our second trip out for the day was with a friend from Shetland to Colony Farm park. Situated on the Coquitlam river, there are great views to the snow capped mountains on one side and the Port Mann bridge on the other with a soundscape of birdsong and freight train whistles. It didn’t take long…
Having joined a couple of Scottish wildlife photography groups on Facebook recently, I’ve been getting all sorts of useful tips on where to find local wildlife. Amongst these was Nature Nuts Photography who run day trips to see mountain hares and beavers (amongst others) and also have a hide, just an hour or so away…
With one of my intentions for 2019 being to get back to wildlife photography, Jen and I went hunting for waxwings, having had a tip about where in Dundee we might find some. It was a beautiful, but very chilly morning, and having skulked for an hour and seen only redwings and fieldfares after the…
To get the New Year off to a good start, Jen and I decided to revisit some unfinished business in Munro form. Last year we visited Ben Vorlich on Loch Earn in decidedly winter conditions. We made it to 677m through knee deep snow before calling it a day and returning home. Conditions this year…
After a huge breakfast featuring homegrown rhubarb with homemade yoghurt and porridge with homemade cream I spent a little time out in the garden on the swing, before getting a lift back down to the airstrip with the guests who were leaving on the first flight. I collared the poor pilot and told him that…