I don't normally put up a report on my days out but this one trip does
deserve a recommendation.
The four of us, all retired, joined up at the edge of Stirling at 9am
and drove up to Bridge of Orchy in an hour. That gave us comfortable
time to have refeshments in the Bridge of Orchy hotel and join the
train at 10.44 on its way north to Mallaig. Rather surprisingly a
significant number of the seats even at this point of the train's
journey were booked, but all was explained when we got to next
station, Rannoch, where something like 50 got on from a day trip on
old buses !
At Corrour, most of this party got off and it was like waiting in the
queue to get off a plane ! Good for the railway's business, but I
wonder how often the train has to stop for 10 minutes at this isolated
outpost - there are no public roads to Corrour and Loch Ossian.
The weather forecast was reasonable and we knew there was going clear
but with to be a cold wind. Anyway we were away from the station at
11.30. Along good quality estate roads to the bottom of Ben na Lap
where an obvious walker's path lead us up to the ridge line and hence
the summit in an hour and a half. What we hadn't reckoned on was the
mini blizzard that then hit us and chased us all the way down the
steep south side of the hill to about 2/3rds the way along Loch
Ossian. Such squalls hadn't been forecast and persisted all day in
between lovely warm bright spells .
We had plenty of time for the 18.28 train back so we walked round the
loch, passing the modern shooting lodge at the east end of the loch -
it's well worth going to see - and then back down the track on the
loch's south side. A quick visit to the Youth Hostel there - all very
eco-friendly with wind generation of electricity, etc.- and then back
to the station where a fine little restaurant supplied another round
of refreshment.
The trip back across the moor was just magic with a low sun
silhouetting the western mountains and colouring everything with a
golden glow. We did envy the train driver his job on a day like this,
and hoped he wasn't the soulless type who was not inspired by such
natural beauty.
Dinner in the Bridge of Orchy hotel rounded off an extremely pleasant
and somewhat unusual day. Strongly to be recommended.
Rob