Roman Images » hills

How windy can it get?

Roman — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:35:06 +0000

Sandra & Alfredo decided that the wee pimple that is Arthur’s Seat would be fine to walk up one evening. Thing is they didn’t reckon on the wee breeze from Scandinavia which was cold and very, very strong.

Sandra had all three ‘vestitos’ on, plus a fleece and wind jacket and still couldn’t believe this was our summer. Well it wasn’t typical was it?

Well down the path and over to the Dunsapie Loch things got much better and we could even manage to get out of the car and see sunset over the city. There was a queue for the perfect photospot as all the budding snappers wanted to get the city at sunset. It was just too cold for Sandra – she retired to the car.

Should Munro Baggers have these?

Roman — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:19:34 +0000

This is a typical waymark post in the Italian Alps, also seen in Slovenia, Austria and possibly all European mountain areas. You’ll find them at crossroad paths, trail start/end points; in fact, everywhere. If you get lost in these countries, you are either blind or the weather is really bad (happened to me, but another story).

In Scotland we have none of this. We have cairns which some people hate so much that that they kick them over. Those that like the cairns have a tradition of adding another stone or two, onto the cairn so that it grows in time. The thing with the cairn is that when you come across one it just sits there and looks at you. It does NOT tell you which way to go. The only intelligent cairns are summit cairns and they tell you to go home.

Natural tones

Roman — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:23:20 +0000

No trickery here, just natural light on three landscape formations. Strangely, the trees in the foreground compliment the two notches in the hill tops. The image was taken on a walk passed a hamlet called Lealt, on the NE part of Skye, just a few miles from Staffin Bay. This was our third attempt at this walk – the first was cancelled because of strong winds, the second because of rain and strong winds. Both times we hardly made it over the cattle grid some 100 metres from the road.

Walk in a straight line inland and keeping the river to your left and soon you’ll find a wee lochan with a convenient picnic table. Here was the mine which supplied Diotomite. Beside the rough road and to the right is a dismantled railway, which was a 2 foot gauge tramway. In a description from 1905 the line was worked by manpower and gravity, later it appears to have had a locomotive.

It ran from Loch Cuithir (where the Diatomite was extracted from the lochbed and initially dried on wire nets) to the clifftop at Invertote where there were storehouses. At the foot of the cliff was a drying and grinding factory where the diatomite was kiln dried, ground and calcined (roasted). An extension of the line ran from the factories to the pier. A second facility carried Diatomite from Loch Valerain by aerial ropeway to Staffin Bay. Between these the Skye Diatomite company extracted 2000 tons. Today the line and works are closed and ruined and Loch Valerain is worked out.

The Diatomite was converted into kieselguhr which was used by Nobel Explosives at Ardeer to mix with nitroglycerine to make Dynamite. Diatomite has many uses and is still prepared in many parts of the world.