Saturday 7 June - Craig Dunain

This morning we hopped in the car and took a ten minute drive to Craig Dunain. We easily found the parking area near the duck pond and headed off on the circular walk. The tall trees sheltered us from the sprinkling of rain as we began our upward climb, but as the path took us into the firebreak between the trees I decided to pause a moment and put on my rain-shell. (Many thank you to Kerry for loaning me her rain-shell). A quick look back over our shoulders we could see a lovely view under the light rain.

We continued, and followed the path back under the trees. This section was pine trees, and the ground was soft with the cover a pine needles and so quiet. We reached the top of the steepest zig-zag path and the rain had stopped too. The path took us up to the Craig Dunain peak, but the trees had grown tall obscuring the view. We stopped for a drink before heading back down to the circular track.

We would pause every now and again to take in the sounds, looking about the trees to try to find the birds, they were so active. Will's app would identify the bird sounds and identify the birds it could detect showing both the name and an image of the bird. At one point it identified the woodpecker. We could pick their sound out of the other bird chirps, and were able to locate the couple of trees they were in, but seeing them eluded us. As we walked on a little the woodpecker stopped chirping, then just past the couple of trees, then stopped again. The birds called once more, and then we spotted a woodpecker flying and watched as he swooped into the tall pine. Much bird chirping as he was greeted by another. They were quite high and in the tree were merely shadows against the bright sky, but we worked out there was at least 3 if not 4 woodpeckers.

We moved on, enjoying the delight of seeing such a beautiful bird. The trees and views were lovely, and we also saw several mountain bikers enjoying the smaller tracks cross-crossing the path.

Our walk lasted about 1hr 45min and brought us back to the duck pond. We sat on some large rocks to enjoy a pain au chocolate and watch the ducklings, ducks and one lone seagull, before heading into Inverness.

We parked the car along the River Ness and took a short wander along the river to the Ness Islands. This little walk was quite lovely and was being enjoyed by a few locals walking their dogs. It wasn't as busy as we expected for a Saturday, but lovely all the same.

Ready for something to eat we made our way to the Inverness Botanic Gardens café and I enjoyed a lovely minestrone soup with fresh sourdough bread. Delicious! We took a little stroll through the gardens and then walked back to the car.

On our way home we stopped at Tesco to pick up a few things, including some laundry detergent so I could do a load of washing. We hung out in the lovely Nany Bambi's Highland Hoose for the rest of the afternoon and concluded the day with dinner at the Innes Pub at the other end of the street.