Lunch on the Beach

A break in the weather; forecast clear until about 230pm.

We’ll take that; its as good as it gets at the moment.

Not wishing to waste too much time driving around, we head to Inverkirkaig for a walk up the river in the general direction of the waterfall.

There’s a few lochs and lochans up here with views of Suilven too, including Fionn Loch, the provisional picnic spot.

Picnic spots depend on sunshine and shelter from the wind, so never certain until at least two dozen suitable sites are tested!

Suilven doesn’t appear until quite a way along the route, so we don’t know exactly what the views might be today.

Three quarters of the way up to the falls, we head off the path, away from the river valley to find a series of lochans along the ridge.

I’m surprised to see very thin ice up there; I didn’t realise it was that cold, walking in my tee shirt now.


We passed three lochans of varying sizes before getting to Fionn Loch, each one giving us a different foreground for Suilven.


I’m shooting with my Sony A7iii today, fitted with the 24-105 lens (chosen because I already know that I’ll be using the middle to far end of the range with Suilven still a couple of miles away).

I do have a small tripod with me, which I actually didn’t get from a charity shop, despite the assertions of another photographer! 

But most of this I can do “handheld”, so not expecting to use it for a while.

The views are just great, and once again we’re reminding ourselves that we live nearby!

Getting to the larger expanse of Fionn Loch, the breeze picks up, so we’re going to need some shelter for lunch.

And there it is…. a nice little beach near to the anglers’ boats. Perfect.


Tracking a short distance across to the Kirkaig River, we turn back west.

The river is quite full today, so a quick diversion down to the main falls is obligatory.



I’ve got a new gadget to try out; its for springtime really, but I can’t wait for that.

It’s a deep red filter (Hoya R72), designed to just allow red and infra-red light through, so although my photos are going to look red,


they are destined to be converted to black and white.

The filter is so dark, that the exposure is 25 seconds (at F8 and iso 1600), so I finally use the tripod that I didn’t buy from a charity shop.


At the top of the bank, the weather doesn’t look so good anymore and we head about 2 miles back down the path.

It starts drizzling after about a mile, but it doesn’t really matter now.

“Drizzle” being a very important component of the lemon cake that we were given on the way home…..

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