Banchory Veterans' Hill-walkers

The choppy weather had forced all the boat operators to cancel the trips out to Staffa, which had been our original plan for the day, so Ken came up with Plan B again, which was a couple of beach walks with a break for lunch at the local pub/restaurant. Before that, however, a few of us were up early enough to take a look inside the Abbey before it officially opened for business. They were ready for Sunday service: Setting off towards the north of the island, the first task was to climb the only significant hill on Iona - all 300 feet or so of it. A bit like going up Mount St. - only greener: From there it was down to the beach: We could spy Staffa and Fingal's Cave in the distance, almost taunting us: After our walk round the coast, we headed across fields towards a sign which indicated the direction back to the main road and another one towards the hostel. We took the latter, slightly shorter route and came across our first grumpy islander, apparently resident...

Coastal/beach walks were planned for today and, after we checked out of our hotel, we drove through Glen More towards the west of Mull. Spectacular scenery with fairly precipitous drops meant there were waterfalls everywhere: A fairly typical scene was sunshine as we drove through the glen below, with Ben More constantly covered in low cloud: We had to do a bit of fine manoeuvring through a narrow estate road and at the car park at the end before we all lined up for today's team photo: We were walking along a coastal path under steep cliffs, trying to dodge some heavy showers, but eventually came to a large sea stack where we stopped for elevenses: We turned round from here and headed back to our cars. It had been a short but interesting walk - just 4 kms -  http://www.mapmywalk.com/routes/view/713290291 We had lunch in the pub at the ferry port where we discovered the local predilection for half a bowl of soup. Stewart's was only a couple of spoonfuls and...

Everyone was frantically checking the weather forecasts over breakfast, although the poor wi-fi in the hotel didn't make it easy. Our leader quickly concluded, however, that the planned walk up Ben More was a non-starter due to the low cloud hanging over the top of the mountain - plus the forecast heavy rain. Never one to take no for an answer, Ian, however, was still determined to give it a go and John agreed to go with him. We thought it would be best to go round to the foot of Ben More anyway to check the actual conditions, but this merely confirmed Ken's fears. So it was that we split in to two separate groups. Ken would lead us on a low-level walk around the adjacent island of Ulva and we would meet up with Ian and John later. It's a very short ferry ride across from Mull to Ulva - and it's done on a "call-up" basis using the sliding panel on the building on the Mull side: The Ferryman duly arrived: He's been doing this job for...

An early start last Thursday but we all got to the Mountain Cafe in Aviemore around the 9 am mark for breakfast/brunch and a chat about what lay ahead of us. The first obstacle was a road closure just west of Newtonmore, but Ken navigated us safely round that and soon we were all winging it towards the Fort William area. Ken had previously given us 4 options for the Thursday walk, depending on weather conditions, timing etc. Three of these options involved Ben Nevis some way or other and as the weather looked to be set fair, we all agreed one of these would be fine. We were motoring along in bright sunshine when, all of a sudden, Ken and Dave in the lead car turned sharp right off the main road in to a car park. We all thought something must be amiss, but it transpired that Ken had spotted some coastal cloud in the distance and decided that the Ben Nevis options might be a bit risky after all, and the Creag Meaghaid glen walk was a safer bet. So it was that we lined up for our firs...