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98 days left to my return to the Scottish hills and I'm starting to feel the first worries about being walking fit enough
I can't bike due to snow and ice but I can walk no matter what the circumstances, so that's just what I did this weekend. I also managed to squeeze in my very first camping trip in the snow! Ok, so I only made it one night instead of the two planned, but still I'm feeling rather proud and self-sufficient
For this trip I went South instead of North or East, so a new part of the country for me. I found a cute little campsite that's open year round and is right in between two nature reserves, one a large stretch of wet moorland, called 'de Kampina':
DSC03391 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr
and the other full of forest and fens:
DSC03477 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr
I thought it rather nice to be able to visit two such extremely different areas in one go. They're literally only separated by a small country road!
Of course you know by now that there's no hill to be found in this report, but if you're also a member of the tree appreciation society as I am, there might still be something in it for you
Here's two I particularly loved:
DSC03404 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr
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Eleonora F, on Flickr
Turned out I was the only one camping (not that surprising), but there's some group accomodation on the grounds as well and I had my own fully heated bathroom facilities there (and the groundskeeper gave me a key just in case it got too cold at night and I needed to come in, which was very sweet!
). They all thought I was mad, but with two sleeping backs and lots of layers of ice breaker thermals I was fine. It was rather convenient that I didn't have to worry about my food going off, though my water freezing was a little annoying.
DSC03444 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr
I walked the snow-covered moorland in the afternoon on Saturday. I did meet a few other walkers close to the town side of the area, but further back I was quite alone. Well, not quite alone as there's a herd of big cows that they have roaming around to keep other plants from overgrowing the heather. I don't much like cows if there's no fence between me and them, but I have to say that this herd was quite impressive; I could hear them from a few miles away, the sound echoing across the empty moors. I'm just glad they were moving away from me by the time I got to where they were!
DSC03411 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr
The sun was fighting to shine through, and I even had a few minutes of blue sky, but the snow clouds soon took over.
DSC03403 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr
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Eleonora F, on Flickr
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Eleonora F, on Flickr
I would have a loved a sunny winter's day, but the light under these snow clouds made for an interesting atmosphere. It did something to the colors, as you can see in the pictures of some of the trees. Almost unnatural as dark as they seemed!
DSC03376 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr
DSC03381 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr
As already mentioned, this is one of the largest 'wet' moorlands. I know that in Scotland most anyplace with heather tends to be a soggy affair, but here we actually have a lot of dry heather on sandy ground. I'm not completely sure why this here is so wet, as it's well above sea level, but perhaps the sandy top soil rests on clay? I do know that a very long time ago winds blew away sand, and the hollows filled with rainwater to form the fens, shallow pools really. I guess they'd be lochans in Scotland. They made for pretty pictures in between the (grass-covered??) moors:
DSC03400 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr
DSC03423 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr
The water eventually drains via a couple of small streams:
DSC03355 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr
Soon it was time to head back so I could get to the tent before dark. There wasn't really a sunset, but the approaching darkness did make the trees and ice look extra cold:
DSC03431 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr
I went to bed VERY early, because it wasn't like I could sit around and enjoy the evening reading outside the tent. In fact, it was too cold to read in the tent as that would mean not having my hands tucked in the sleeping bag. It was near -10 that night. As a result, I was up awake way before dawn. Made myself 'lie in' till 6 and then spent over an hour in the heated bathroom facilities as it was so warm and toasty!
As soon as it was not too dark anymore I went off to the other nature reserve, the forest. I was very surprised how little I needed the head torch! The snow reflected so much light I only needed the torch to read the map. I got to the first fen in the woods just before sun up:
DSC03454 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr
This pine forest was originally planted for commercial purposes but was one of the first woods to be 'reclaimed' by conservationists and they've been selectively felling pine to give room for other trees to come in for many decades. Now there's birch and beach and some other trees as well. And the pine that are still there have been given more room to grow into slightly more natural shapes. Very beautiful actually! Pine:
DSC03457 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr
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Eleonora F, on Flickr
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Eleonora F, on Flickr
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Eleonora F, on Flickr
And some other funky tree:
DSC03510 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr
Beech, my all time favorite tree species!:
DSC03514 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr
Anyone seen that movie Norwegian wood? This stretch of forest reminded me of it:
DSC03515 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr
I didn't see many animals (no deer at all), but I did catch some very colorful birds. I had to do quite a bit of googling to figure out that these two are bullfinches, as I've never seen them before:
DSC03507 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr
And a cute little tree creeper; I think you call it a nuthatch in English?
DSC03489 by
Eleonora F, on Flickr