We will be having our meal at the Balavil Hotel, Main Street, Newtonmore. The meal will served from 16:00 and I would anticipate that we would be leaving the hotel by 19:00 at the latest.
If you are going by car then there is a car park immediately opposite the Hotel, and hopefully, the coach will be parked there too.
The two likely walks for the day are: The Wildcat Trail and Creag Dubh. I’ve attached maps and likely routes for these 2 walks below. However, you are of course free to do whatever you like – just make sure that you are at the hotel by 15:45.
The pickup points and times are Elgin (8:00), Forres (8:20) Nairn (8:40) and Inverness (9:00). Even with some roadworks at the Slochd we should arrive at Newtonmore by 10:00/10:15. I am anticipating that those wishing to do the Wildcat Trail will be dropped off on the Main Street in Newtonmore and those wishing to do Crag Dubh will get dropped off at the car park beneath Creag Dubh. The coach will then return to the car park across from the Hotel.
You should aim to be in the hotel between 15:45 and 16:00. The meal will deserved from 16:00 and will be followed by the presidents speech and our annual awards. We would then leave the hotel at 19:00 at the latest, to enable us to get back to Inverness by 20:00 and Elgin by 21:00.
I’ve previously emailed out the maps/routes and menu choices.
I would be grateful if you could confirm that you are going and your menu choices by Sunday 9th December. (It would be a disaster if I had to cancel this bus meet due to lack of interest!)
Caving was the choice of Dan, Jenny Smith, David and Luke who headed for the Allt nam Uamh stream cave. The heavy rain overnight meant that there was some water flowing down the usually dry stream bed outside the cave so there were some slight concerns about the conditions inside. They had a good rake around and found that the mud sumps were pools of water on this occasion so they missed the pleasure of a long and very muddy crawl. The entrance to the Farr series also has a very low crawl and the pool of water at the lowest and tightest spot was rather deeper than on previous occasions. Only Jenny and Luke braved this to go about half way up this passage, while Dan and David presumably studied stalactites or something for half an hour.
Evelyn, Susan and Simon drove to Lochinver and found that there is now a walkers car park about a mile up the road to Glen Canisp lodge which cuts out much of the tarmac road. Evelyn and Susan walked up to the lodge and over the hill to the river Inver. They enjoyed the spectacular autumn colours of the birchwoods and the even more spectacular waterfalls which were in full spate. Best of all was that the path came out just by the pie shop.
Sheena and Dan report as follows – “Cul Beag may not be as high as other hills, but it is pretty steep on most aspects and it affords magnificent view of some of the finest scenery in Scotland. We parked on the minor road a few kilometres short of the Stac Poillaidh car park and walked along a good stalkers’ path and then steeply up to a small bealach on the north ridge, before the final climb to the summit. Very little wildlife on the hill today, apart from a few deer that we disturbed on the descent.”
Date: 18 November 2018