Eriba Man

This is night No.24/2019 living in my caravan. This is my second night at the Speyside C&CC Site near Archiestown in Speyside. Slept well, and got up around 0600. Took the dogs around the on-site dog walk, then after breakfast we headed into Archiestown to walk a forest trail. It's probably around 2 miles to Archiestown, but it's along a fairly fast road with no pavement. The forest entered from the village is enormous. We took a route which I later learned was one of the long ones. I just kept following yellow way marks! Followed a sign which took us to the summit of Cairn Cattock. Spectacular views from here across Speyside. Returned to the van and after lunch I had my eye on a forest walk just outside Craigellachie. It is part of the Speyside Way, which I've walked before, and I wanted to experience just a short section. Plans changed, however, when I spotted a track side cairn. I checked the map and reckoned that headed to the summit of th...

This is night No.17/2019 living in my caravan. This is my second night at Dingwall C&CC Site, an 'urban' site on the edge of the town. Slept like a log, and got up around 0630 to a fairly bright start. Took the dogs for a run around next to the nearby stadium, then after lunch walked the dogs down to the picnic site on Cromarty Firth. This stretch of the firth is a huge mudflat when the tide is out. Looking back down the silted up canal. If I recall correctly from my book about Telford, he argued that unless the authorities paid for the construction of a lock at the firth end of the canal, then the canal would be silted up and become useless. That's exactly what happened. It's like a massive channel of mud heading into the town. When there's a high tide it looks fine though. Later in the morning, we headed the short drive through Strathpeffer to Contin to walk the longer of the fine forest trails. I've walked this many times before. The t...

This is night No 64/2018 living in my caravan. This is also my second night of this trip at the Culloden Moor C&MC Site near Inverness. This was very much a day of walking in Forests. This area is fantastic for good walking forests, all within a fairly short distance of the site. I got up around 0600 and our first walk was round the forest adjacent to the site. Entry is through a gate in the site fence and really handy for early morning and late evening walks. It was a bright morning, it did remain bright and showery for the remainder of the day. Quite cool too, at around the 15c mark. Occasionally there is a fairly harmless 'Mexican Standoff' at breakfast time! Good opportunity to use my first real indulgence of this trip, a new Black and Decker Dustbuster hoover for the van! Was reduced by £25 in the nearby Tesco. Works a treat on a small space like this van. After showering and some breakfast, we headed for a short drive to Culloden Moor Forest. A...