NE250 #1

It is a shorter alternative to NC500 and takes you around Aberdeenshire coast that offers little fishing villages, high cliffs, beautiful lighthouses and ancient castles.

Me and my boyfriend spent two days exploring the area and barely scratched the surface.

Aberdeenshire has 260 castles. Isn’t that amazing?

Below is shot of Craigevar Castle that is uniquely painted pink. That was to emphasise the colour of granite that the castle was built with but also to show off the wealth of the owner as pink paint was allegedly quite expensive.

I discovered the Polish connection as well. One of the owners, Danzig Willy got rich by trading in the Polish port of Gdansk (also called Danzig). I’m pretty sure there’s loads of other Polidh connections around Scotland.

Llyn Ogwen

I recently went on a trip to Wales and visited a number of stunning locations, here is one of them.

Northern face of Tryfan overlooking Llyn Ogwen. Wonderful sight.

Smailholm Tower

It has been a while since I wrote on this blog. I am not too sure what path to take as far as online presence but I do enjoy having some presence 🙂 I am just not great with words, prefer visual story-telling…

Anyway, I have recently become a drone owner. Aerial photography fascinated me for a long time, and now with drones becoming so popular, it is even more accessible. It gives new perspective on familiar things, too. I do not own lots of expensive equipment so find it hard to compete with people who seem to have been able to purchase quite expensive kit or do not feel gravitation pulling them as hard as myself in the morning. I do love to observe and follow other photographers, though and my hat always goes off to those who can sleep on top of a mountain or get up early in the morning to get those beautiful shots.

Coming back to the drone – it is such great fun flying it and I have enjoyed sharing my images on various social platforms.

Let me present a couple of photos from my recent trip to the Scottish Borders, an area which is really scenic and full of dark history, and yet not that popular, aside from a couple of places. I visited a few spots and learnt about a lot more to visit.

Smailholm Tower is a tower-house/castle near the village of Smailholm, located near a farm but still quite isolated in the landscape and enjoying a great vantage point. There is a pond there that offers loads of great compositions when filled with water, however, this was not the case this time.

I took a couple of shots and clips and I hope you like them.

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Cowal Peninsula

Short trip to Cowal Peninsula, loved it there. With spring really coming on, I loved exploring this area.

Seacliff at dusk

I have not been really active here recently. Things have not started very well for me and my boyfriend this year and my fellow walkers so walking activity has mostly stopped while every now and then I try to enjoy some photography.

I went to Seacliff Beach some time ago just after sunset to catch some waves. It was a nice evening though the waves were strong at times and the tide was coming in so had to run away.

This is one of my favourite beaches ever. I could spend hours there.

 

Penicuik House Estate

Another good walk with the Strollers in an area I would not consider visiting myself, simply because I did not know about it.

Great views of the Pentland hills, brushed with snow as we had some snowfall recently, interesting history and architecture. There are a number of monuments/follies spread around the estate, a ruin of a house that burned down and the current house of the owners which used to be stables. It made for a fine 5 miles in brisk weather.

Hope you like the pictures that I took that day

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Corrie Fee in the Cairngorms

As a geography degree holder, a trip to the Corrie Fee reserve was a must and it took me 3 attempts to find it (usually the problem was that some paths were closed due to tree felling).

The walk takes you along a 2-3 mile wide forestry track to the ‘amphitheatre of glacial landscape’ as it is called in visitscotland website.

Least to say, it did not disappoint. Erratics, moraine, cliffs, meandering river, deeply cut post-glacial valley – must make a good field trip for a geography lesson.

 

Photo locations in Edinburgh – Dean Village

Have you been to Edinburgh? You have…

You probably wandered around the castle, walked the Royal Mile, maybe ventured onto Arthur’s Seat. But here is a little treat…

Not so far from West End is Dean Village. Not only set on the Water of Leith, taking your breath away when you just look at it, but having a wee wander is like stepping in time.

I ventured with a friend on an early Sunday morning hoping for a spectacular sunrise, which did not happen unfortunately, but still we had the place to ourselves.

Here is a couple of photos

Related posts:

Photo locations – Edinburgh part 1

My Edinburgh

Edinburgh

 

Best autumn walks

I am not a great fan of autumn, but it does offer splendid walking and photographic opportunities if the weather is decent.

I thought I would compile a couple of ideas for autumn walking. These are my favourite places for an autumn walk where you can be with nature and experience the great autumn colours to snap a couple of shots.

1. Hermitage of Braid in Edinburgh

Nice and easy to get to if you live in Edinburgh. Great place for a short walk and a coffee afterwards in the café near the entrance. It is not that long, about 4 miles but can be extended by walking onto Blackford hill for great views of Edinburgh.

2. Cammo Estate

One of my all time favourites because it is different in every season and so varied. Walking from Cramond Brig you can see some ponies, great nature, nice old bridges, ruins of a homestead, and of course the estate itself. Plus it is really easy to get to. I have been here many times and it is never boring.

Distance – around 4 miles.

See: Cammo Estate in Edinburgh

3. Water of Leith – Colinton Dell

One of the most popular walks in Edinburgh which takes you through a varied terrain. My favourite part needs to be around Colinton and Spylaw Park.

Distance – around 4 miles.

4. Gifford – Yester castle

I love, love, love this walk! Firstly, Gifford is a lovely little village of the beaten track. It has lovely architecture and cafes. Secondly, the walk to Yester Castle and seeing Hobgoblin Ha’ is an interesting experience in itself. Walk can be expanded to even 8 miles by walking to Garvald which is nice as well.

Distance – between 4 and 8 miles.

5. Hermitage in Dunkeld

I must admit – I have not been there in a long time, but this place is a must in autumn. I have seen photos from other photographers and they were always amazing. Plenty of paths in Tay Forest park, lovely cathedral and river Tay, plus hermitage itself will make a nice day out.

Distance – 2 miles plus

6. Pitlochry to Killiecrankie along the river Garry.

Again, another one I gave a miss for a long time but it is a really really good walk. Plus you get great views from Garry Bridge, Soldier’s leap and afterwards you have Pitlochry to enjoy which is oh so nice!

Distance: about 6 miles.

7. Almondell Country Park

This one is so close to me as I can walk there from my house. The walk from visitor centre to Linn’s Mill is particularly nice and not that popular. And the views are quite scenic and varied.

Distance: about 5 miles.

I have created a map that shows some points of interest:

autumn walks

Hope you like them and will enjoy the walks!

 

 

 

 

Glasgow Mural Trail

Encouraged by seeing a lot of fellow photographers and online communities, and also because my illness would not allow me to have a long walk that I would normally have, I decided to head to Glasgow to discover the famous murals.

Glasgow is not a place that is easy to photograph. It does not jump at you. It could be described as ugly, messy, chaotic… But there are definitely things to discover there.

One of the projects to beautify the streets of Glasgow, was commissioning a couple of artists to decorate some buildings in the centre with murals in hope of attracting tourism. They are amazing, and it is a treasure hunt trying to find them. Some are stunning, some are just ok, some are in not the nicest places or surrounded by bins, or located in dark corners where strange things happen.

Anyway, it is something different and definitely worth doing.

One downside to it is that two of the murals were taken down. View of the Clyde was replaced with windows of a gym and Five Faces (both seemed really cool in pictures) was just taken down by the council.

Needless to say, it was still a bit of walk although all of them are in the centre and quite close to each other.

I used information from here and here

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