A month of two parts - firstly a gentle start to the new year (there must be some bonus to being retired!), followed by a return to the Cairngorms to revisit some old walks and to walk a bit of the Speyside Way.
Reporting Days: 31
Location: Mostly Oxford plus a few days in the Cairngorms
Miles Walked: 192
Miles Driven: 807
Gardens Tended: 2 (a little bit of labouring, plus frequent bird feeder refilling)
Photographs Taken: Hundreds (an awful lot of trees!)
Oxford-based
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| Cold, Clear & Flooded, Port Meadow, Oxford |
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| RSPB Otmoor |
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| London Day Trip |
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| Old Oak, en route to BBOWT Sydlings Copse |
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| The Windmill @ Great Haseley, Oxfordshire |
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| Freezing Fog, Bury Knowle Park, Oxford |
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| Just Freezing, Bury Knowle Park, Oxford |
Revisiting Aviemore
I've lost track of number of times I've visited Aviemore. There were lots of family visits there in the 1970s, there were several student-days visits in the 80s and more recently I visited every month in 2015 and several times since to photograph the annual sled dog races and to walk in the Rothiemurchus Estate and into the Lairig Ghru. It has been about four years since I visited, so I decided to stop off in Aviemore for a few days en route to Shetland - stayed in my favourite wee hotel (The Rowan Tree) and did four walks - up into the Lairig Ghru from Loch an Eilein, up to the Ryvoan Bothy from Glenmore (both walks I've done many times before) and north from Aviemore to Boat of Garten and south to Kingussie along the Speyside Way.
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| Loch an Eilein, Rothiemurchus Estate |
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| Ryvoan Pass, Glenmore Forest |
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| On the Speyside Way, heading into Boat of Garten |
