Trip to Glencoe

This trip was a little closer to home, I've been wanting to go for as long as I can remember and just never got round to making it happen - so when Mark put plans in place to go I'm pretty sure I agreed before he'd even asked! 

I definitely should have made this trip long before we did but I'm so glad my first visit worked out the way it did, it's one I'll never forget... 

We drove from Glasgow, so we had roughly three hours before we arrived (I think). Three hours of Spotify playlists, me talking rubbish, miming songs and at one point me having to cope with Mark eating a banana at arms length from me.... If you know me well enough you'll know I can't bear to be near bananas, never mind smell them. But - I managed. Just. 

First pit stop was at The Green Welly - basically was a shop/cafe in the middle of nowhere with a picture of a massive green welly with a smiley face painted on it, funnily enough. We got a well needed coffee, a bite to eat and checked out the cute fleeces, reading glasses and bars of lavender soap in the gift shop....nothing caught my eye in the sale, for once. 

When we arrived, we went down a pathway and came to 'The Kings House Hotel' and I'm almost certain I had one of my most favourite experiences ever. Meet BOB.... 

We got out of the car and were surrounded by the CUTEST deer, who were more than happy to pose for a photo or two. Between the both of us and, at most, three other people - it was nice to just be there and appreciate the surroundings. The views, nature and the perfect dry weather. After Mark had to literally drag me back to the car away from Bob, we continued the journey over to Etive Mòr....

Credit to Mark for all of the amazing photos (that we nearly lost) on the day but how beautiful is this!? 

You've probably seen this mountain plastered all over postcards, calendars and evidently social media but seeing it in real life is something else. 

We made our way over to 'The Three Sisters', parked the car and decided to go a walk, not up the way, but enough to see how beautiful everything was. 

After a 'wee' pit stop on the way up and a near fall from me, we headed back to the car. This is the point I basically saved Mark's life (and all of these photos). 

So,

- Mark sits his mobile phone on the roof of the car.

- Doesn't take it back inside the car with him. 

- Then drives off, 50MPH...up The West Highland Way. 

It was only when we heard a thud on the roof and looked back to see a microscopic sized Samsung doing about 19 backflips down the road that we realised that he never had his phone. Naturally, we stopped. We stared at each other for all of 2 seconds before I took my seatbelt off and started running into on coming traffic with the phone just about in sight. Swear I've never grinded my teeth so much before, every time a car was driving towards it I was hoping it would still be sitting there. 

Truth be told, androids are obviously better than iPhones because it came out of that ordeal without a scratch and all the photos still saved. 

Even the one of me pretending to be James Bond... 

After all the madness we stopped at at a really nice hotel, which I can't remember the name of, probably contracted short term memory loss after doing the first sprint I'd done in 2017, to get well deserved Fish N Chips!

We visited Glencoe, Lochan. It's hidden away below the mammoth mountains on the outskirts of a village. The still water in the loch was a mirror for all the beautiful mountains and trees surrounding it. The walk goes through breathtaking scenery and it's all sign posted and mapped out at the start so you shouldn't get lost easily - even if we did question each other on how we got back to the car.. 

Hopefully this post inspires you to get up and explore somewhere a lot more closer to home - it was, and will be up there with one of my most favourite days of 2017 <3 

Louise xo.