16.05.2010 Our first Munro!

This weekend was Cees-Jan's birthday and Iwona treated to a weekend away in the Highlands! More specifically west Perthshire, an area of stunning valleys ('glens'), mountains ('bens') and lakes ('lochs'). Here we're at Loch Rannoch with Schiehallion in the background, at 1083m one of the highest mountains in Perthshire. From here it looks almost like a volcano!

Further down the valley going towards Pitlochry there's a beautiful viewpoint over Loch Tummel called the Queen's View, apparently visited incognito by Queen Victoria in 1866. A bit of a tourist trap but nevertheless well worth it.

On Sunday it was CJ's birthday and to celebrate we decided to climb our first Munro! For those not familiar with Scottish hills, Munros are peaks over 3000 ft (914 m), as opposed to the lower Corbetts (>2500 ft) and Grahams (>2000ft). There are 283 Munros in Scotland and climbing ('bagging') them is a favourite pastime of many Scots.  

We picked a mountain with the unpronouncable name Maell nan Tarmachan for our first attempt, as the track here starts at 470m so we only needed to climb about 600! Nevertheless, after a long lazy winter of enjoying too much good food and drink it was a bit of a struggle. Here is CJ re-energising for the rest of the climb. 

  

And here's Iwona wondering in despair if she'll ever make it. Every little summit she decided it was enough but some hard talk that you haven't climbed a Munro till you're at the top kept her going.

  

But after climbing for three hours we finally made it to the top! All 1044 meters of it! The views were amazing and we felt on top of the world. Little did we know that going down is the hardest part.... Three days later we can finally stretch our legs without it hurting.