266 feet, is that a lot of elevation? I was Done In by the end. And no, 266 feet is, according to Gemini “a very small amount for a hike, equal to climbing about 26 flights of stairs.” And how it feels depends of course on how quickly you make the elevation. But Gemini, please, I do not climb 26 flights of stairs!
The shore-side path.
And now heading Into The Woods.
We ran into so many dogs everywhere. I can’t remember going anywhere so far and not finding dogs.
One of the very few hand rails along the way.
I asked AI what is this and can we eat it. The reply: commonly known as Dryad’s Saddle or the Pheasant Back mushroom, you can eat it, but you won’t want to since at the size of this specimen it will taste like a shoe.
This plant has a lot of names in Scotland all for a reason – Rosebay Willowherb, Fireweed, Bombweed, even Singerweed.
We were headed here, to Hillend Tavern because it looked cool in the pictures, and it was cool inside too, and they had all the beverages, but sadly, I didn’t check the menu, which was probably because they don’t have a menu, because they don’t have any food, except you can buy a bag of chips! So we had our pub beverage and then had to move on for food.
This dog came by to ask for pets. There were several other dogs in the pub too.
So we continued on to The Compass where they were serving Sunday Roast, a Sunday tradition in the UK (and UK influenced countries). It was much better than the picture! They even went ‘in the back’ to scrounge up some cranberry sauce for the turkey. From the top – Yorkshire Pudding, parsnips, an odd square of dressing, potatoes, peas, broccoli, turkey, creamed cauliflower, and gravy. And we shared a Sticky Toffee Pudding for dessert.
The exhaustion of the walk and the huge meal meant we were totally not up for a walk back. Since it’s almost impossible to get transportation on a Sunday and particularly where we are out in the hinterlands we were so lucky that one of the guys working at the restaurant knew a guy he could call and in 20 minutes or so we were back at home-sweet-home ready to run a load of wash and pack up for tomorrow’s move into the city.