The full days pics are through a click HERE

Day 8 - Sunday and a day to relax. It was a slow get up for the day. Still had time to make my porridge though and as I had picked up some brown sugar at the Highland Wildlife park that is what I had on it. We had some lazy time around the house until about 11am then decided what we were going to do for the rest of the day. Chris had some work to get on with so Mich and I were going to accompany him up to the main house, do email and then walk back as he needed to go to Ardgay for Carol. I made beans on eggy bread with cheese for the lads and I had tomato instead of beans.

Then things got fun - we packed up the things to take to Alladale lodge so that I could do some email... then drove to Alladale, then opened my bag to find I had left my power supply behind and had next to no battery... so I got to check the email headers, saw there were some important emails from work and the Wolf Trust then the power went, so I could do nothing else!

Oh well... Probably for the best anyway as it meant I would spend more of the day outside and less on the computer, which is what I came to get away from...

So today ended up being pretty much a study in taking photos of the river Carren that goes up past Deanich. We also saw a hiker and someone on a bike... the first non estate people that I have seen on the land since I have been here, even though people are so hot on right to roam!

The walk up from Alladale to Deanich is about three hours to do the seven miles as it is all up and down and it is nice to take it easy - as you can see from the photo of Mich - the weather was very nice today, 16 to 18 degrees and sunny, certainly a lot nicer than the same time a week ago when we did the same walk.

There are a few curiosities that I have had when driving up and down the glen and I finally worked out today what it is. From the road they looked like standpipes, but I could not understand why they would be along the glen. Then today when I looked up close I could see they were not taps, but spikes... thinking back to my time in Poland and some comments that had been made I realised that these poles are used to hang hay on to feed the deer through the winter. The reason this is necessary is due to people putting fences across the land (not just in Alladale) which stops the deer from migrating toward the coast for the winter.

There is really not a lot more to say about the day. We got back to Deanich and got the fires started to warm the place up. I then set about making tea for the two of us (Chris and Ben were down the pub waiting for Carol to get back from her weekend back home). I made venison burgers with added bits - tomatoes, apple, onion.

I then typed up some notes, watched the 'Whole nine yards' on DVD and then went to bed about 11:30 to be woken about 12:15 with the people arriving back from the pub. We sat and chatted for a while, then eventually all went to bed about 1:15 am! Hope it is not stalking tomorrow I will be shattered!

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