out and about - 2016
24 November 2016 ............ Up the Knock
This big freeze maybe awfy cold, but it is producing some amazing pictures.
Today I walked up the Knock to see what I could see, and the first thing I found that, very sadly, someone or some people have ridden horses right up the footpath that goes right up the Knock, and completely destroyed it.
The surface is all broken up and lumpy, and as soon as it thaws and the rain comes it is all going to turn into a horrible muddy mess.
What a stupid, irresponsible, and selfish thing to do to - there are miles of hard dirt roads all round the Knock that they can use.
Scotland`s access legislation may have been the best in the UK when it came out, but they made a big mistake when they included people riding horses as allowed under the access rules.
Horses destroy paths.
There is no way to deny this - many many footpaths are footpaths because they have been used as footpaths for years, there is no substrate, just a firmer surface.
The environmentalists go on that walkers shouldn`t use walking poles with spikes because they pierce the surface - what about horses that rip up the surface in big chunks ?
When the legislation came out there were far more complaints about the way horses were destroying paths than there have ever been about walkers. Landowners were prosecuted for trying to block horses and save their paths from being destroyed - they were forced to open them up, and now the paths have been destroyed.
It would be nice to think that the Scottish government might take this on board and revise the legislation - but I don`t suppose they will, money talks. And anyway, the Scottish government seems to have given up doing any form of governing, they just live in cloud cuckoo land in an independence fantasy world.
Every now and then the Welsh government comes away with some new consultation about access in Wales, but nothing ever seems to happen as a result. If they do actually manage to produce some access legislation that opens up access in Wales, I do hope that they don`t make the same mistake of allowing horses on footpaths that can`t support them. Horses have bridleways.
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Up on the Knock just as the sun was beginning to set, and there was a good view away across to the west, with the Turret hills just catching the last of the sunshine.
The Knock rather suffers from having too many trees on the summit, and they interfere with the views - this is looking through a gap in the trees towards some of the mountain ranges out to the west - Ben Vorlich and Stùc a` Chroin on the left, and Ben More and Stob Binnein on the right.
A closer view of Ben Vorlich and Stùc a` Chroin against the lighter sky -
A closer view across to Ben More and Stob Binnein -
At this time of year the sun sets too far round to the south, and gets hidden by the trees, so after I floundered my way across the deep and very frozen heather I could finally see it.
It was very bright, and didn`t try to photograph it, as the camera could not have handled it - so I waited fo it to drop down a bit and be less bright, and I waited, then suddenly it was gone. There was no gradual reduction - it was there and very bright, then it was gone.
So no photograph of the setting sun - just one taken seconds after it had gone.
I didn`t fancy going straight back down, so headed onwards, then curved around, and joined the dirt road that comes right round the Knock, and started down that.
Then through a break in the trees I suddenly got a superb view across to Ben More and Stob Binnein away in the distance.
Eventually this dirt road comes down to a sort of observation area, with an information board in the corner - it was covered in frost - not snow, just frost.
And in the corner of the board - a bit about The Big Freeze.
That`s clever - most information boards have information about things that have happened in the past - this one was predicting the future !
You do get a most excellent view from this observation area away out to the west, and by now there was a most excellent sunset afterglow in progress.
I am not sure if I really can say anything useful about them, so here are loads of pictures taken over quite a long period of time, as I stood there freezing to death. It was superb.
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