Loch Ard walks
It’s nice to get away for a bit of relaxation between Christmas and New Year – even if the weather doesn’t always co-operate. This year we stayed at the Forest Hills Hotel in the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park. The first day was dull and damp, but good enough for walking, so we drove to the Loch Ard car park and followed the red and green loops on the map. This totalled about 8 miles / 11 km so we did quite well!
This is Loch Ard from the red route:
However, I preferred the green route to Lochan Spling where we found some fabulous sculptures, and a bench to admire one of them from (which I did). The Dragonfly, the Pike and the Osprey are all by Rob Mulholland, and the inscription on the bench says “Sitting by the Spling in Spring makes you feel like a King”. Wrong season and wrong sex, but I suppose Winter and Queen wouldn’t rhyme.
When we got up the next day, we discovered we were trapped! There is only one way out (the road the other way ends at Loch Katrine) and it was both flooded and blocked by abandoned cars. We looked out at the torrential rain and imagined a day with our books, but after breakfast there was a dry spell so we pulled on our boots and set off to walk again. We ended up going even further than the day before – I’m not sure my feet like hiking two days in a row any more.
This is the waterfall in the hotel grounds on day 1 and day 2, which shows how much extra water there was.
From the hotel, it was about a mile to the village of Kinlochard. They like a good sign here!
Nothing wrong with this sign in itself – but we felt they might need a boat to get to their boathouse.
The fields were flooded too (that’s not the Loch you can see).
Undeterred – it still wasn’t actually raining – we climbed up into the forest behind the village and followed the path down to Loch Ard until we almost met the walk we had done the day before. We found more benches:
We saw our hotel on the other side of the Loch and climbed to a fabulous viewpoint.
At this point, the rain returned with a vengeance and we got drenched on the way back – but we had a nice, cosy hotel room to dry out in. And what about the road? It reopened the next day and we were able to get home (although being trapped an extra day wouldn’t have been a huge hardship).
Linked to Jo’s Monday Walks – maybe some of her other contributors have sunnier walks to report on? I hope to provide something sunnier myself next week…..
The Glasgow Gallivanter 
Hey, that sounds like an adventure!
Lovely place. And I love the scuptures 🙂
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Yes, I really liked the sculptures too. Being trapped by floods was ok for one day when we didn’t actually have to go anywhere. I’d have been a bit worried if it had continued!
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A beautiful walk Anabel and I love the Pike sculpture!
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Thank you! I loved that too.
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Looks like a lovely wee break…and waterfalls are certainly winners in this long wet winter of ours! I’m so happy the sun actually returned last week…was beginning to forget how to use my camera 🙂
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Returned briefly! Now looking at rain again 😦 Thanks for visiting.
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This weather is very frustrating for us photographers but at least the waterfalls are impressive just now! Good to hear you had an enjoyable break and got out for a couple of walks!
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We did, thanks. Much prefer the dry cold we have today!
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It looks like you had a wonderful time Anabel, albeit a little wet on the second day! 🙂
I love the signs, especially the ‘We are not open, because we are closed!’ sign!!! 🙂
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Just a tad wet! Is suppose the sign displays a certain kind of logic.
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It certainly does! 🙂
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Love those signs. 🙂 The waterfalls are amazing. 8 miles is a pretty good distance to walk.
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Thanks. Two days in a row don’t forget! My poor feet.
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You do find some marvellous places to stay in. Glad you managed to get out and capture those views for us, but actually sitting indoors and reading by a log fire would make me happy too 🙂
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This one’s less than an hour from home! It’s just nice to have a change and be pampered.
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I think it is a great idea to do that, even if it is close to home, gives you time to relax and explore. I have a feeling we will be doing a lot of this once we get down to Cornwall. We may never exit the south-west again!
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I can understand that! Just watching the sea could occupy all your time.
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So long as I am not cold or wet. I hate being cold. And wet.
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Oh wow-what a great walk. I love those benches and the gates-funny:) I love waterfalls also-something so mesmerizing about them. I also love the sculptures and am happy that mosquitoes are not that big
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Ha ha – thanks Birgit!
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Wonderful tangled osprey, and slightly scary second waterfall. Glad you braved the weather so we could have a nice virtual walk!
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Thanks Susan. I think the osprey might be my favourite – it looked so dramatic against the sky.
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Lovely walk…nice pics. (Suzanne)
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Thank you! It’s a beautiful area.
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Love the open/closed sign on the gate, though I think it sounds more like Irish logic rather than Scottish 🙂
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Maybe so, but it gave us a smile!
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Beautiful post, amazing pictures 🙂 You chose a gorgeous place to spend some good time
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Thank you – it would have been even better if it hadn’t been so wet!
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An intrepid walk Anabel! Glad you got back to the hotel in one piece – a boat might have come in useful by the look of things!
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It was almost necessary!
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That’s what I like! An intrepid lady who says ‘never mind, we’ll go UP hill’ 🙂 🙂 The sculptures are lovely, Anabel- especially the pike. You are obviously all set to take over Jude’s bench challenge 🙂 Thanks for the link!
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Benches, benches everywhere! Just can’t stop seeing them.
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