Author: hikeminded

I have this idea in mind that while hiking I can get rid of some mind-bullshit and fill the empty spots with fresh and of course brilliant thoughts. hikeminded.wordpress.com – hiking, photos, thoughts, MYOG, ultralight gear, travel, hikes and trails.

Scottish Highlands: A Walk To Dun Derdail Facing Ben Nevis

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This was our last hiking day and it was rather short. In the afternoon we had to leave for Glasgow because our flight waited on us the following day. From the top of the mountain we even saw the burial ground we passed by two days ago. It’s the last picture and it’s the place next to the river with the huge trees.

So this meant saying goodbye to the mountains and to walking everyday. It was great! We’ll come back!

Steall Falls: I Am Gandalf And This Is How I Came To The Shire

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After that nice foot bath the path left the shore of the river and became intense and steep and when I was ready to take a stop on the top of a hill we had this most amazing view down a huge valley: A gigantic waterfall fell from the mountains down to a green valley with a meandering clear river, some colored points caused by tents, birds singing and and butterflies surrounding us.

Scottish Highlands: From Achintee Farm to Lower Falls

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We wanted to do a small hike today and we chose to walk along River Nevis to Lower Falls. Wonderful views to the surrounding mountains accompanied us and a very mysterious and picturesque abandoned burial ground lays peacefully next to the river.

Next to Lower Falls I got an ice cream from a pink ice cream truck when I saw an old man starring eagerly at the mountains. He said only one sentence to me, but this sentence really caught me and didn’t let me go. Read the story on the bottom of the pictures.

Scottish Highlands: Drumnadrochit And Urquhart Castle

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We went to see Urquhart Castle this day and walked down to Drumnadrochit afterwards. The castle is a very well visited spot overrun by families, busses and instagrammers. The castles history is well explained by a short movie in the movie theater. But the sensation of the movie is the curtains opening at the end of it with a view on the real castle in bright sunshine. With some imagination you can see, how the people lived there.

Battle of Culloden

Culloden Battlefield: We Followed You Prince, To This Ocean Of Flatness And Bullets

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On Culloden Moor on the 16th of April 1746, the English Army of George II under the lead of Bonnie Prince Charlie defeated the weakend Catholic Jacobites in less than two hours. On this ground, where the soldiers of both sides sunk into the mud just until their hips, the Highland Clan Culture came to its end forever.
When visiting places like Culloden Battlefields everyone must become aware of the futility of war. But only nearly 300 years later, on the site where it happened and with a lot of research done by experts, the meaninglessness becomes palpable. Greedy, deluded and immature leaders and a succession of bad decisions led to thousands of dead soldiers in the fog of this place and millions who suffered the consequences of war, years and centuries after it.
Like in all other wars.