Sunday 8 June - Ord Hill and Loch Lundie

What a glorious day it's going to be today … the sun is shining, and it's predicted to be this way until late afternoon. Last night we decided to plan a longer walk today. We found on my AllTrails app a circuit that started at Ord Hill carpark, starts on the Ord Hill circuit then diverts across to a loop around Loch Lundie, tracks back and completes the circuit of Ord Hill including up to the top of Ord Hill and the ancient site of the Iron Age hillfort.

When we arrived at Ord Hill carpark, there was plenty of free parking, a map of two trails and good signage. We said hello to a 10month old Border Terrier who was very timid but did come up to me for a little scratch and his owner gave me a small treat to give him. He was very sweet.

I started the AllTrails map to record our walk as we headed off at about 10:30am. The woodland is so beautiful, the birds were chirping and the sun was shining. Before long there was a sign to divert off towards Loch Lundie, and the path took us through a gate onto a pine tree (Christmas tree) farm. We made our way through the slightly overgrown path, avoiding the prickly bushes to the other side of the farm and through an open gate onto the road. Down the road a short bit was a sign to join the Loch Lundie trail.

We wound our way through the woods that abutted a farm with cows, commenting that one was watching us. Will's app picked up the sound of woodpeckers again, and we paused to see if we could find them. But their chirping stopped and we could spot any movement in the trees. Although we did hear and see several ravens overhead.

The path come up to the end of Loch Lundie and walked right alongside the water, a misstep would have you in the crystal clear water! The view across the Loch was stunning, with green pasture on the other side, dotted with sheep, lambs and cows, swallows darting over the reeds at one end and punctuated with a gorgeous house at the top of the Loch.

Towards the top of the Loch, we went through the gate onto the farm land, passing the sign requesting walks to stick to the public path. However, the 'path' was hard to find, actually we didn't find it, but followed as best we could using the AllTrails app. Here in the UK if a farmer owns land with a public path, they are supposed to maintain it and allow the public to pass through their land on the public path. This one wasn't maintained very well. So we wondered the paddock, tried our best not to disturb the sheep with their lambs. The view however was beautiful across the pasture and back towards Ord Hill and the River Ness.

Heading back towards Ord Hill, I was leading the way with Will behind me and Kelly at the back, when we came close to a cow who stared at us. For a moment I panicked, cows are big! Then I remembered fear isn't useful, so I said aloud "walk like you know what you're doing" and confidently walked on passed the cow who stayed where she was and promptly went back to eating grass.

At the bottom of the paddock there was a gate and a stile on the side fence that went into a small fenced area that runs alongside the paddock we were just in. Here was a sign for the path. But we hadn't found our way back onto the path earlier. So, we opened the gate and exited the paddock. As we were closing the gate a couple of walkers with their Springer Spaniels arrived. They used the stile and continued along the signed path.

Back out on the road on the way back to the Christmas tree farm, I saw a bird box in a tree and something fluffy caught my eye. We stopped and discovered a baby Tawny Owl was peering out at us! He was super cute, and fluffy, staring at us while we soaked in the moment, took a photo of him and used the binoculars to get a better look. This is the first owl Kelly and Will have seen on their many, many walks. Such a privilege.

Back through the Christmas tree farm we rejoined the Ord Hill circuit and decided to stop for a snack of crackers and cheese, plus our pain au chocolat. When we set off again we realised we'd passed the path up to the top of Ord Hill, so we back tracked a short distance and found the path. A very steep path. A path some puffed and sweaty runners were using to practice hill climbs.

Up we went and it was steep! But so rewarding and fun. We reached the top and enjoyed the view of the woodland, no clear lookout as it was quite wooded but gorgeous just the same.

We then had fun finding our way back down to the main Ord Hill circuit getting a little off track, although the AllTrails app with the live tracking was so brilliant and kept us in the right direction even if we weren't specifically on a proper path at times. We walked along several paths, found a lookout over Beauly Firth and the Kessock bridge (linking Inverness with Glack of Kessock), walked through Craigton, back up into the woodland to another scenic lookout and wound our way back to the carpark.

All in all, a 6.6mile walk over 4 hours.

Once back at Nanny Bambi's Highland Hoose on Innes Street, we chatted, reviewed our photos, charged our drained phones and just relaxed for a bit. We headed out into the centre of Inverness for dinner at Coyote's Burgers, followed by some ice cream at an Italian gelato shop (yummy honeycomb ice cream in a waffle cone), then wandered for a bit stopped in a souvenir store I bought a cute Highland Coo soft toy, and headed over to the train station. Will hopped on the Caledonian sleeper train to Euston London.

The rain started so Kelly and I waved to Will and walked fast back to the house, neither of us had coats or an umbrella. We chilled out on the couch watching a movie. Before going to bed at 10:35pm, I took a photo down the street with the street lights only just coming on, but it was still light enough to not need them.