Glencoe

The Great Scottish Adventure

Day 6
Glencoe

Rained heavy for most of the night. Light rain this morning. We were up reasonably early to try and beat most of the other tourists up to the Glen. Parking all along the A82 through the Glen was said to be very difficult when it gets busy.

This was a big one for me. I had dreamed about photographing the Glencoe area for years, and had way too many locations picked out to catch in one day. So I had to prioritize these down to just a couple.

The first stop would be to park up and hike to the “S Bend Rapids” on the River Coe. Here great compositions can be found with the river creating an “S” curve as the foreground and leading back to the Three Sisters mountains in the background.

I had set a waypoint on Gaia GPS (the topographical maps application I use on my phone) for the location I wanted to shoot. There is no trail to the exact spot, so we would have to find our own way there. We parked at what I thought would be the closest spot to the rapids. I could see a trail down the hillside that looked like it was heading in the right direction and figured that would save some time. Boy was I wrong!

The trail ended up turning to cross the river over a bridge. And I knew the perspective I wanted was not on that side of the river. So… time to do a little bushwhacking. Literally! We were pushing through waist to chest deep thick ferns, all saturated with the nights rain. Should have worn our rain pants, we got soaked! And there were boggy sections that drenched our hiking shoes. After climbing back out of there, all the way back up to the road, we finally found the way.

The location was everything I had hoped it would be and I quickly set up the tripod and composed what I hoped would be some great images. I used my wide angle lens with a 3 stop neutral density filter to drag the shutter speed and capture the motion of the water.

The hike back to the campervan was easy following the edge of the road. If I had only known this to start with! Fortunately, Harmony was a real trooper and didn’t give me any grief about it, but was probably cursing me to herself when we were in the thick of it.

Then we were off to the other main location I wanted to photograph. The Buachaille Etive Mor. Here small waterfalls of the River Coupall set the foreground with the enormous pyramid shaped mountain,  Buachaille Etive Mor, as the backdrop. Another amazing location that has been on my bucket list for years…

We had originally planned to drive down the Glen Etive road all the way to Loch Etive. But knowing it was a dirt single-track road the whole way, I was terrified at the idea. In hindsight, after all the single-track we ended up driving on the trip, I think we should have done it. An interesting fact of the Glen Etive road is the old James Bond movie Skyfall has a scene that was filmed there.

So we decided to make some lunch and just rest for awhile where we were parked up at the Buachaille Etive Mor. That’s one of the great things about this camper, you can be comfortable anywhere!

When we made our way back down the Glen to our campsite, the traffic was nuts! It would have been very difficult to find parking for the campervan at that time of day. Good thing we got an early start!

The usual evening chores back at camp. Charging everything and downloading photos.

There are many images here with the same compositions. I think all are very good, so I couldn’t decide what to leave out. Note the differences in lighting, water flow and clouds. You can decide what you like best!

Looking back, it is probably the one regret I have about the entire trip itinerary. We should have planned at least 2-3 full days, if not more, here in Glencoe. There are so many more locations I would love to photograph!

Guess we’ll just have to go back someday…