I had in my mind a highland cow, looking majestic and beautifully lit in the June sunshine, and with that image fixed in my mind I set off with my Glasgow photographer friend Dave to try and capture it. How hard could it be?
Fort William was a good couple of hours drive away and I knew from past experience that the Glen Nevis National Park not only had a profusion of such beasts, but that they were usually roaming the roads and thus hard to avoid. Quite where they were all hiding on this occasion I don’t know but having driven as far into the park as possible, we ended up turning round and backtracking to the half-a-dozen or so we’d dismissed in a field miles down the road…
Worse luck, the field was boggy, and after circumnavigating the herd waiting for what seemed like an age for the sun to light the scene it became painfully apparent that this was the only part of Scotland stuck in the clouds on what was an otherwise perfect summer’s day. One of the cows slowly wandered over to me as the rest casually chewed the cud and with a curious look allowed me to stroke her face. I went to take a picture in the flat light – pretty much for the sake of just taking a picture and not completely wasting the journey – when she stuck out her tongue and licked her lips, making for a far better shot than I could have hoped for. Sometimes you just get lucky.
Dave was less lucky. Our bovine friend was bored of the attention by now and he felt the sharp end of her horns before she wandered off and we retreated.
Back in the glorious sunshine that the rest of the area was basking in, something on the shoreline had grabbed my attention…
The MV Dayspring, beached at Corpach, did little to dispel my perception that there is a wrecked trawler round every corner in the highlands and islands – which as far as I’m concerned is no bad thing. Having taken dozens of shots from different angles I settled on this one with the mountains in the background to post up here.
You can still see that damned cloud hanging over them…