Wednesday 21 to Saturday 24 May 2025 - Montrose

The Limes Guest House, our home for three days in Montrose. It has its issues but we were thankful not to be turned away.

The Park Hotel (fully booked when we tried in January) was again, for the 45th year, the signing in venue for the TGO Challenge. 

Here's a view towards an award at Thursday evenings dinner.

Some 270 participants completed their walks by many and varied routes across Scotland. They sign in at the hotel, and Sue and I helped Mike in his mission to ply all the finishers with tea and biscuits.

One of the later arrivals was our good friend, the ever youthful John Burt. He does well for an 85 year old.

Saturday morning found a number of Challengers at the local parkrun. It used to be just Sue and me, but at least two more turned up after this photo was taken. 

Over 180 took part, and there was enough cake for everyone. I had a very chatty jog with Gayle.

Some of us adjourned to Charleton strawberry farm, where the sparrows are particularly cheeky.

Then Sue and I drove to Sconser on the Isle of Skye.

Wednesday 21 May 2025 - Branklyn Garden, Tealing House Dovecote and Tealing Earth House

Sunshine on Ben Lomond, last night - our last at Tarbert in the 'Lochview' apartment. It was a good place to stay. We enjoyed it there.

From Tarbet we travelled on to Montrose, stopping first for coffee and cake and a wander around Branklyn Garden, near Perth.

What a wonderful place.

After being back in the car for a while, we stopped for lunch at Tealing House Dovecote  where the chickens were determined to share our meal.

An interesting spot.

About 100 metres from the dovecote was Tealing Earth House, an ancient (2500 year old) structure discovered by a farmer in 1871.

In Montrose we said hello to the TGO Challenge Control team before adjourning to The Limes Guest House, where we contrived to lock ourselves out of our room even before unloading our vast amount of luggage into it.

Never mind, whilst a spare key was being located we enjoyed a cuppa in the conservatory with a couple of ladies who are on a bike ride from Aberdeen to Edinburgh.

Tuesday 20 May 2025 - Meall Buidhe

I dropped Sue off near Crianlarich so that she could nip up a couple more Munro summits, Ben More and Stob Binnein, bringing her total to eight over the last few days. She has just one easy summit left to go up in this area.

I've been up these Crianlarich hills a few times (albeit not recently), and I'm rather slow these days, so I opted to drive on to the car park at the head of Glen Ogle, from where Meall Buidhe offered a nice little excursion.

There was lots of Broom beside the nicely graded forest track.

Before long, the track emerged from the trees on yet another lovely sunny day.

There were good views back to Ben More and its slightly less lofty neighbours.

The track ended after an hour, at a communications aerial, where I enjoyed my elevenses before slogging my way up the remaining 130 metres or so. The lack of recent rain gave me the bonus of a dry walk over what in more normal times would be a very boggy trudge.

Here I am at the 719 metre summit.

More views towards Ben More, and the Ben Lawers summits. 

Someone has built a comfy seat near the summit, overlooking Lochearnhead and the conspicuous summits of Ben Vorlich and Stuc a'Chroin. A great spot at which to enjoy a leisurely lunch.

After that it was a fairly easy stroll across to the slightly lower summit of Beinn Leabhainn, from where there were similar views plus a good look down Loch Tay.

I then took a direct line to reach the aerial, where I finished my lunch before strolling back down the forest track to the car park.

Wood Sorrel was still in flower here.

As was Cuckoo Flower.

Here's my route. Just 8.8km, with 450 metres ascent, taking 3.5 hours.

Then it was back towards Crianlarich to pick up Sue and return to Tarbet by mid afternoon, leaving plenty of time for me to compose this diary entry and for Sue to wash her sweat off in Loch Lomond.

Monday 19 May 2025 - A walk up Glen Fyne

Today Sue went up another 'new for her' Munro summit - Beinn Bhuidhe, from the head of Loch Fyne. En route to drop her off we got delayed for half an hour by the closure of the Rest and be Thankful road, requiring a time consuming one way system on the old military road. That scuppered my plan to return over the pass and do a walk near Helensburgh. So while Sue dashed off up the glen, I took a scenic stroll up it, taking lots of pictures of flowers as I went.

This is the home of the Achadunan Deer Farm, pictured above. Well cropped grass but no sign of any deer.

The first of today's flower pictures is this Ribwort Plantain. I'll add captions to the others when I get home, and will probably do a separate 'flower' posting.

I was planning to walk up the Glen as far as the start of a steep ascent to the Munro summit, then walk back down and wait for Sue. In the event, I encountered some mountain bikers who were heading up to a nearby reservoir. That looked attractive so I followed them up.

The reservoir looks fairly full, despite the lack of rain.

It was cooler today, with some high cloud. I wasn't complaining. 

Is that Ben More through the gap?

I joined the mountain bikers for lunch. A jolly lot, they are from a mountaineering club in the West Midlands. "You must come and do the Dudley parkrun" they insisted. "I know, my friend Colin Davies keeps telling me that."

After a lengthy break, I headed back down, away from the dam.

The cyclists soon followed. I was rather envious of their speedy 3km descent. It took me rather longer on foot.

Sue's hill crept into view, as did a message informing me that she was near the summit.

Descending to the main track up the glen, I took my time. Lots of flower photos were taken. They need to be edited when back at home.

Loch Fyne was visible in the distance for a while. 

I was soon back in the main valley. There were even a few people about today. Probably on account of Beinn Bhuidhe being a Munro summit.

Passing the deer farm - the inhabitants had come out of hiding. There were lots of them.

Arrival at the Loch Fyne Brewery was most welcome. Let the rehydration commence. I spent a happy hour drinking tea in their courtyard, watching the staff readying themselves for the imminent onslaught of 3,000 visitors to a music festival that starts very soon.

Then Sue arrived and we stayed a little longer before making our way back along the old military road to Loch View in Tarbet, and a nice salmon meal.

Today my route, shown below on a thin blue line, was 17km with 300 metres ascent. I was out for six and a half hours, including a long lunch, lots of short stops, and a lengthy spell in the Brewery café.