The past fews days have been excessively cold. The patio slabs around the home have been like a mini skating rink, great if I had a toboggan, but high jeopardy when traversing them to fill up the bird feeders each day!!
The day started cloudy but began to clear from the south west as the morning progressed. Knowing the forecast for the rest of the week was rising temperatures and rain, I decided to uncover the car (frost protection!) and head off with my son to track down some views in the winter sun. The wind levels were low, but insufficient I thought for much expectation of loch reflections.
The winter sun remains really low in the sky for the ~6.5hrs between sunrise and sunset, providing great lighting, especially when we encountered very hard frosts as we headed north into the winter wonderland of white frost laden trees.
We continued to head north and were very pleasantly surprised to find Loch a Chroisg lying totally calm and tranquil with fantastic reflections - for which we pulled over immediately for soaking in with the cameras!
There were further super views at the north end of the loch.
As we descended down the glen towards Loch Maree, from a distance it looked like we wouldn’t encounter any reflections on that loch.
How wrong I was. As we headed to my favourite ‘jetty spot’ it was obvious we were in for a treat - what a day it was turning out to be.
Onwards we travelled, heading for Torridon and the views across Upper Loch Torridon before the sun set.
En route we pulled into the car park in Glen Torridon where there is a ‘resident’ deer that I can only assume is fed by tourists! Along with its companion.
We came around the south side of Upper Loch Torridon and were treated to more reflections on the sea loch.
Reaching the car parking location above the loch, the sun started to sink low in the skies with wisps of cloud (which we hoped would change colour!) blowing across the mountain tops leaving clear skies before we started to make the return journey home.
What a road trip it turned out to be - way beyond my expectations. As we journeyed back and the skies darkened, there was one last opportunity for a few photos, fitly closing the day with beautiful colours as darkness closed in over a frozen loch.
