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Kitty Abroad >> | |
| | | Subject: Autumn Drive
Posted Oct 29, 2009 by Moonhogg - Captain Coffee Break. Season's Greetings!
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1
 | | It was one of those lovely mornings for a drive today. Usually my commute is four miles, which I do on my bike. It's a main road through a built up area, and is the usual nose-to-tail crawl into the city. There is an on-road cycle lane, which means I can make the trip in 20 minutes, rather than about 45 if I use the car.
Today, however, I am at the virus lab, which is situated 12 miles away, on the edge of the countryside. Before the urban sprawl of the 20th century, this was an isolation hospital, for suffererers of infectious diseases. Now the city has just about reached it. However, my route skirts the city, and takes me through the countryside first.
This morning was beautiful, a real crisp, autumn day. As I left the city, there was mist hanging low over the fields. There is an estate with several high rise flats on the edge of the city which gave a curious effect, as all that could be seen of it was the top floors, appearing out of the mist, with no sign of the city around them.
The trees on the way showed a wonderful mix of autumnal colours, everything from the last of the rich green leaves, through golden yellows to deep flame reds - if there had been a breeze, it would have looked like the trees were on fire!
It's the school holiday this week, which means the road was much quieter than normal, so with a near empty road, my music on the stereo, and one of those wonderful mornings that make you feel glad to be alive, it was something of a disappointment when I arrived at work.
A small compensation was seeing a squirrel and several rabbits hoppping about the lawn as I walked in from the car-park...
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| | | Subject: Autumn Drive
Posted Nov 1, 2009 by Moonhogg - Captain Coffee Break. Season's Greetings!
This is a reply to this Posting
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19
 | | I've never had the pleasure of travelling through there in the early hours. When we go through, it's usually later in the morning, about 10am. It's usually been somewhat soggy going across there, http://tinyurl.com/ygc8z76 (the next photo is also of Rannoch, and includes a Land Rover, just for ST! ) but The Glen is spectacular, no mater what. It's one of my favorite parts of the drive up. By getting the worst of the motorway driving out of the way through the night, we reach the "scenic" parts by mid-morning, before we hit too much traffic. As a result I usually see most of the scenery at 60mph, and it's limited to what's pretty much ahead of me. Next year I want to make more stops up there - we usually reach our destination by about midday, so we'd have plenty of time to stop.
On the way home last year we made a brief stop at the famous waterfall in Glencoe - http://tinyurl.com/yzvq2pt - but much of the road around there is not condusive to stopping. Any decent places to park are usually full of coaches! Next time I want to leave the main road, and go down into Glencoe Village via the old single track road by the Clachaig Inn. While I admit the new two-lane roads are a huge improvement over the old single track roads that were so typical of the Highlands, as a driver I miss so much of the scenery. I've a shot here - http://tinyurl.com/ydzvs45 - The Missus took, which shows the "new" road through Glen Tarbert, which also shows a glimpse of the old twisty road which my parents would have had to endure when they took me up there as a child!
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