The scenery around the Spey is spectacular wherever you look but we always had our favourite places, the places we used to and still do  try to visit on the first day of any stay in the area. Our three lochs are special and stand out from all of the hundreds of lochs, lochans, rivers & burns that liberally sprinkle the area.  Whilst we are on the topic, this profusion of Lochs & rivers do suggest that there is a lot of water around, and that sadly it mostly comes from the same place, the sky !  Yup it rains a lot, no getting away from it, Scotland really does know how to stage a downpour.

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LOCH GARTEN.

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Its hard to say what the appeal is here, it is a small loch situated in a saucer shaped depression with the much higher hills and mountains to the South and East. It is totally surrounded by the remnants of the old Caledonian Forest, with the small road wrapped around the northern tip of the loch and close to where road and loch meet is our rock.  

 

Yes I did say OUR rock and I claim it as part of the Duffin Family's cultural identity. Everyone who matters has been photographed sat or attempting to stand on our rock. Hard to explain why but it's just what you do, every holiday, first morning, go sit on rock.  It's a ritual, it's important and if not done the sky would most definitely fall in. It is in the perfect spot to sit and contemplate what a stunningly beautiful place it is, and what a God-awful shitstorm Boris Effing Johnson and his moronic cronies have manoeuvred us into.

 

Next to our rock there used to be a huge pine tree that had  blown over in some long forgotten storm. The tree itself had been cut off, but about 10 feet of trunk were still there parallel to the ground, with the enormous root-ball up in the air.  I am not quite sure when it disappeared , one of those quirky memories, I clearly remember climbing up onto it when I must have been very young, and it is there in early photos, but it ain't there now.  So with a careful and very well educated guess I reckon it must have been removed roughly between  1960 and 2010., That narrows it down a bit !

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Being surrounded with pine trees the whole place is filled with that slightly resinous smell you get in pinewoods.....and giant *****wood ants!   Sit still and quiet for a few minutes and the locals will emerge from their holes and burrows to come and take a look at what has invaded their personal space. Little red squirrels will pop their heads up over branches and if you are lucky and in range, they have been known to lob the odd pine-cone at you.  Old Scots Pines have small hard cones, just right for throwing if you are small and red. Its sort of squirrel-ese for "bugger off and leave us alone ".  The local fox population makes little effort to hide unlike the Pine Martens, which are most definitely there but unless you are a budding Chris Packham will most definitely not be spotted by the likes of us.

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Of course the most well known of the locals are the Ospreys. Each spring they move into what is left of last years nest. Usually Mr Osprey  gets on with the DIY stuff fixing up the nest, checking out the support tree and suchlike. Mrs Osprey goes to chat with the neighbours, asking around what happened to that young Turk who tried to build a nest just down the tree from theirs. What a nerve, she & Mr Osprey have been nesting in their tree as long and anyone can remember, and his Mum & Dad before him, then this guy just wanders along and starts gathering sticks !!! Like...hoozee think he is,  an endangered species or something ?