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Monthly Archives: April 2015

Our pick: 10 walks to tidal islands

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Helen Webster

Scotland’s Islands. There is always something magical about visiting them. Usually this means taking a boat – but there are also many islands to which you can walk across the sands or stony shores at low tide. Look at the map and spot all those Isle Ornsays and Oronsays – the name comes from the old Norse Örfirisey meaning “tidal” or “ebb island”. The walks below require a little more planning than most – so make sure you check those tide tables carefully if you want to avoid becoming stranded. Vallay, North Uist, Outer Hebrides Vallay is separated from North…

Posted in Features, Magazine, Our picks

Loch Lomond Camping Byelaws approved by Park Board

Posted on April 27, 2015 by Helen Webster

The board of Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park Authority has today approved plans including a large extension to the current East Lochlomondside summer wild camping ban. The plans which received more than 300 responses from the public, including objections from Ramblers Scotland and the Mountaineering Council of Scotland, will now go to the Scottish Government for a final decision by a minister. If approved, the National Park hopes to bring in the new rules in time for the summer of 2016. The Park Authority say the recommendations, approved by their board, include the creation of four camping management…

Posted in Access issues, News

John Muir Graphic Novel improves pupils’ green behaviour

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Paul Webster

A graphic novel based upon the life of pioneering conservationist John Muir, free copies of which were sent to every secondary school in Scotland last year, has created a statistically significant shift in pupil’s attitudes towards and connection to the natural world, according to a recent study. Muir, a Scottish born inventor, naturalist and writer, spent his life exploring wild places and was the founding father of national parks in America. The novel, entitled John Muir, Earth – Planet, Universe, combined environmental studies with literacy in an innovative way that hasn’t previously been implemented in Scotland, and was intended to…

Posted in Nature

Time to end the selfish greed of the Victorian era

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Cameron McNeish

Cameron McNeish wrote this tribute before the sad news of Dick Balharry’s death, aged 77. I’M writing this article as both a tribute to a close friend who is suffering from terminal cancer and as a rallying call to Scotland’s conservationists, land managers and countryside users to force change in the way we manage Scotland’s wild land. I first met naturalist Dick Balharry in the late seventies when he was the local officer of the Nature Conservancy Council in Aviemore and I was the warden of the local Youth Hostel and a volunteer warden at Craigellachie National Nature Reserve. In…

Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature

Gorse – the yellowest of flowers

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Ben Dolphin

If you had to describe each Scottish season using just one colour, which would you choose? Well, firstly, let’s overlook the fact that every season can feel like October in some years and let’s assume there are the traditional four. Would you perhaps choose the verdant green of grass or trees for summer? The rusty brown of leaves or bracken for autumn? The harsh white of frost or snow for winter? But what about spring? If you had to sum up the season of regrowth in one colour, what would you choose? I’d like to nominate yellow. Not because of…

Posted in Features, Magazine

Peatland project breathes new life into National Park

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Helen Webster

A major peatland restoration project by Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park, which will help reduce the effects of climate change, create healthy habitats for wildlife as well as being used for recreation and providing employment – will be completed this month. The project is part of The National Park’s biodiversity action plan, ‘Wild Park 2020’. The £120,000 of repair work, funded by Scottish Natural Heritage’s Peatland Action, at Beinn Dubh above Glen Luss and Auchtertyre, near Strathfillan, has involved supplies being flown in by helicopter and conservation workers enduring two-hour hikes in high winds and snow to reach…

Posted in Nature

The Writers’ Path: across the hills to Moniack Mhor

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Linda Cracknell

Linda Cracknell is an-award winning Highlands-based writer known for her creative approach to exploring wild places and man’s interaction with them. Her Walkhighlands’ essays cover the cultural aspects of the Scottish landscape on a quarterly basis. Always keen to make my travel interesting, I arrived as guest reader on a travel writing course at Moniack Mhor having made a four-day journey on foot. I chose a route which began with an east-to-west crossing over the Corrieyairack Pass from Laggan to Fort Augustus through the Monadhliath mountains, and then walked north along the Great Glen Way. There’s something about Moniack Mhor.…

Posted in Features, Magazine

Half-way point for footpath improvement project

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Helen Webster

Over 10 miles of new or upgraded footpaths and cycleway have been provided as Scotland’s first National Park’s £8.7 million Outdoor Recreation Plan reaches its halfway point. Visitors and local residents are now able to reach more of Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park following extensive restoration work on miles of new paths, cycle routes and bridges, as well as the launch of an extended waterbus service. The major development work by the National Park Authority and its partners is part of its Outdoor Recreation Plan which supports 32 different outdoor activities including kayaking, canoeing, fishing, horse riding, mountain…

Posted in Access issues, News

Official opening for Affric Kintail Way

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Helen Webster

Scotland’s latest long distance walk has today been officially opened by Cameron McNeish. The Affric Kintail Way runs from Drumnadrochit in the east to Morvich in Kintail, just a stone’s throw from the sea on the west coast. The starting point at Drumnadrochit means it can easily be extended with a first day’s walk along the Great Glen Way from Inverness creating a satisfying coast to coast, cross-Scotland route. The 71km route is traditionally walked east to west and split into 4 days, but there are any number of options for walkers willing to be flexible in terms of transport…

Posted in Access issues, News

The Cairngorms Nature partnership

Posted on April 15, 2015 by Charlotte Milburn

Charlotte Millburn of the Cairngorms National Park Authority introduces ‘Cairngorms Nature’ – a partnership project between people and organisations that wish to safeguard and enhance the special landscapes and natural heritage of the area. The Cairngorms National Park is one of the last wildernesses we have left in the UK. It is a place of sheer abundance having more high level mountain ground than anywhere else in Britain or Ireland, the largest Caledonian forest, some of the UK’s purest rivers and it also hosts 25 per cent of the UK’s threatened species. The Cairngorms National Park is a place of…

Posted in Magazine, Nature