OP
OP
DBK
LIFE MEMBER
We had a gentle day today. After a gut-busting breakfast which included the biggest croissants I've ever seen (from the bakers called Rain in Fort William High Street) no one felt like lunch when the conventional time for lunch arrived.
So we went for a walk instead.
Nevis Range to the North East of Fort William is a sort of outdoor activity centre. It can be reached by bike path from Fort William but we went by car. There is a cable car which takes skiers up in winter and mountain bikers in summer. Several routes for MBs have been created and a World Cup event has been held here. The ambulance drivers from Fort William know the route here well and I will resist making a joke about it as some of the accidents here have been serious, of the life-changing sort.
There are also lots of forest tracks, some of which are shown on this map but they go on further.
There is a large car park which used to be free but this year introduced a charge of around £5 per day for cars and £15 for MHs which want to overnight. I don't think there are any facilities. My brother was told by someone he knows who works here that over the summer they had up to 70 MHs a night staying.
The mountain bikes and walkers are generally kept apart but they do share some of the paths.
Those using the main downhill runs travel up to the top by cable car with their bikes hitched on the back of the gondola.
This is known as the "Stolen bridge" because it was built for somewhere else and was, ahem.. stolen.
We walked for a while on what is known as the Suggy Line. This is a former railway, officially known as the Lochaber Narrow Gauge, which was built about one hundred years ago to transport men and materials up country to a construction site where a fifteen mile long tunnel was being being built. The tunnel would bring water, used to make electricity, down to the aluminium smelter in Fort William. Most of the line is missing but there a few stretches where some of the line remains. It was a 3 foot gauge I believe.
There were some interesting funghi, this is probably Birch bollete with Footus maryii next to it for scale. It was massive. (the funghi, not Mrs DBK's foot)
Orange peel fungus.
Both are said to be edible but "edible" and "nice to eat" do not always go together.
This old birch has several bracket fungii growing on it. These are the large, flat fungi growing out horizontally from the trunk. If you look closer there are several smaller ones which look like little pyramids. This is Hoof or Horse's Hoof funghi. Almost exclusively restricted to Scotland it is uncommon even here. I can find nothing about its edibility but suspect the birch trunk would taste better.
So we went for a walk instead.
Nevis Range to the North East of Fort William is a sort of outdoor activity centre. It can be reached by bike path from Fort William but we went by car. There is a cable car which takes skiers up in winter and mountain bikers in summer. Several routes for MBs have been created and a World Cup event has been held here. The ambulance drivers from Fort William know the route here well and I will resist making a joke about it as some of the accidents here have been serious, of the life-changing sort.
There are also lots of forest tracks, some of which are shown on this map but they go on further.
There is a large car park which used to be free but this year introduced a charge of around £5 per day for cars and £15 for MHs which want to overnight. I don't think there are any facilities. My brother was told by someone he knows who works here that over the summer they had up to 70 MHs a night staying.
The mountain bikes and walkers are generally kept apart but they do share some of the paths.
Those using the main downhill runs travel up to the top by cable car with their bikes hitched on the back of the gondola.
This is known as the "Stolen bridge" because it was built for somewhere else and was, ahem.. stolen.
We walked for a while on what is known as the Suggy Line. This is a former railway, officially known as the Lochaber Narrow Gauge, which was built about one hundred years ago to transport men and materials up country to a construction site where a fifteen mile long tunnel was being being built. The tunnel would bring water, used to make electricity, down to the aluminium smelter in Fort William. Most of the line is missing but there a few stretches where some of the line remains. It was a 3 foot gauge I believe.
There were some interesting funghi, this is probably Birch bollete with Footus maryii next to it for scale. It was massive. (the funghi, not Mrs DBK's foot
)Orange peel fungus.
Both are said to be edible but "edible" and "nice to eat" do not always go together.
This old birch has several bracket fungii growing on it. These are the large, flat fungi growing out horizontally from the trunk. If you look closer there are several smaller ones which look like little pyramids. This is Hoof or Horse's Hoof funghi. Almost exclusively restricted to Scotland it is uncommon even here. I can find nothing about its edibility but suspect the birch trunk would taste better.
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