I Love travelling and the past years have been good to me especially when I came to Scotland where I can get to see the Scottish Highlands in all its glory. I joined my university’s photo club last year and we have travelled to many incredible places, some of my favourites are Glencoe, Glen Etive, Kylesku, Applecross and Achmelvich bay. Friday morning, we set off for a 3-day weekend trip into the highlands, our bags filled up with food and camera gear. We set off to get to out first location to stay for the night which was a lodge in the middle of nowhere right next to Loch Assynt. The view while going there were quite insane, we stopped at many places on our way there. In the UK we don’t get a lot of sunshine, but we were blessed with sunsets all the three days (you can see below as to how the sunsets were). The sun was setting between the mountains and the loch on our left side as we reached our lodge to stay for the night, got a quick bite to eat and then we all went to the camp fire next to Loch Assynt. Sitting together, joking around, and just having a great time all together. I left a little earlier to get some sleep before we get off to very early sunrise mission
We hardly slept but we woke up to a very cold morning. Got some nice photos and saw a castle ruin which near Loch Assynt, it snowed for a 5 minute or so and we ended up seeing a very swirly road right next to a mountain, this road led us to Kylesku where we stayed for a while before deciding to come back to our lodge to get something to eat before our big day of travelling. We all set together for a long drive looking over the white beaches and the rich aqua/blue waters. Deer’s and Highland cattle are quite a natural sight when you go through the highlands, the highland cattle are the most beautiful creatures I have ever seen, the long fur covered body boasting sharp looking horns on their heads. Yet these beautiful creatures are not hostile but very friendly. The light was fading away and we approached Achmelvich Bay, clean blue water and pink sunsets were all I wished for and that is what I got, a huge beach pink light over the clouds and good people made this the best sunset of my life. We came back to the lodge again, took some rest and then went off to do some astrophotography, but this time there were more people and we went to same place as in the morning. It is incredible to see the same place covered with clouds in the morning and then the same places covered with stars.
The next morning was the last day of our trip and again the weather was acting bipolar just like every other day in the UK, it was snowing a little bit and the clouds covered the mountains, it was a very cold morning, we left the lodge and we had a very long drive ahead of us. As we left the lodge, the snow started crashing down and we were loving the views we were graced with. As we moved on, the sun came through the clouds and we approached a place called Loch Glascarnoch. The water was perfectly still, providing us with insane reflections. Unfortunately, the reflections were disturbed by the wind and we got on our way back. We stopped for lunch and then we set off to Applecross though Bealach na Ba, which is a winding single road through the Applecross Peninsula and it is the third highest road in Scotland by Height (626m). we stayed there for a while looked over the mountains and the Applecross Peninsula. We all knew that we were up for a great sunset in the mountains and that is what we got, soft pink light touching the white snow on the mountains looked like a scene straight out of a movie. We came back to Glasgow after a very tiring weekend but if you would have asked us if we would like to go there again the next day, we would all have said yes, just shows how great Scotland is.
Great people and incredible views in the mountains can never get old. Travel more, get out of your house, take some friends with you and you won’t regret the time spent in the mountains.
All images © Abdul Rehman
