On the next day of our holiday we all piled into the Beaglemobile for a trip to Glen Nevis. It’s a great place to visit on a hot sunny day; easy parking shaded by trees, with lots of sniffy walks among bluebells and mountains. And you’re never far from cooling streams if anybody gets too warm.
Oddly enough on this holiday it was Beanie who felt the heat most, even though she has much shorter and thinner fur than The Bigglet. Maybe Biggles’ thick white fur serves as a reflective insulator, keeping him cooler so long as he doesn’t start generating lots of heat with his muscles?
On the other hand, maybe Beanie was just the more animated of the two; certainly there was very little on the walk that didn’t get thoroughly investigated by the Beanster.
On our return to the Beaglemobile we hooked the pups up to the handle at the side door of our van. By happy coincidence this anchor point – coupled with the length of their leads – again allowed the pups to choose whether to be in the van with us or to lie on the grass outside munching on a cow ear. There was even enough free play for Biggles to nick my seat.
The final day of our break was a little cooler, allowing us to be a bit more active. We took the ferry to Ardnamurchan, and drove for an hour along the crazy single-track roads to reach “Camas nan Geall“.
I’d experienced driving around Ardnamurchan before in the car. Our campervan is of course a larger vehicle, but somehow the elevated driving position combined with automatic transmission made the journey easier. That said, it was still like playing a level of a nerve-shredding video game that goes on too long. You think Doom is intense? Try Ardnamuchan, BFG Edition. I was very happy finally to park up on the hill overlooking our coastal walk and have a soothing cuppa.
After that cuppa and a change of underpants I went a little way down the hill towards the start of our planned walk. Like most remote Scottish locations Ardnamurchan is infested by sheep. Susan had taken great care to find a route that would avoid any woolly encounters and I was keen to see if she’d succeeded. It looked like the walk itself was indeed sheep-free, but the 300m between our van and the start of the walk was a single-track sheep gauntlet. I returned to the van and delivered the bad news, and Susan started up the barbeque so we could consider our options over lunch. The barbecue certainly distracted Biggles from the sheep below us; once the smoke started flowing he sought shelter in the footwell by the driver’s seat. Only when our food was served up did he feel like emerging from his little cave.
I’m not frightened at all. But I’ll just stay here if you don’t mind.
It turns out silica gel dry packs make a decent headrest for smoke-averse Beagle boys.
After lunch we decided to brave the gauntlet. It was just a few hundred yards after all. How bad could it be? Well, amazingly, not bad at all. I’ll probably never know why some sheep send Biggles (mostly) and Beanie into explosive aaarrrff mode while others just get ignored, but the sheep at Camas nan Geall fell into the latter category. On the way out there wasn’t even the slightest loss of composure from either of our Beagles and we were truly able to enjoy our walk along the distinctive – at some times almost alien – coastline.
H. R. Giger was here. And so were Beanie & Biggles.
On the return trip Biggles’ halo almost slipped, but a few well-timed biccies from Susan pulled him back from the brink and we made it through the gauntlet – only to discover that a group of sheep had wandered up close to the van. Again The Bigglet almost lost it, but recovered his composure without any aaarrffing episodes. We spent another hour or so at the same spot with sheep just yards away, and both Beanie and Biggles behaved themselves impeccably.
In the past I’ve always taken something like this as a sign that his Biggleship has finally overcome his problem with sheep. This time around I was smart enough just to be grateful for sheer dumb luck, but I do think that a few hour’s calm exposure to sheep must have done some good.
Gorgeous photos, fabulous stories (Both Part 1 and 2!). The campervan adventures sound marvelous!! Someday we’ll do that as well, although we might have to wait for some future beaglets to be in our family – Ringo is not a fan of riding around in the car. Each of our vehicles always has a “barf kit” at the ready (plastic grocery bag, latex glove, giant wad of paper towels). I laughed out loud about Beanie’s cairn-like poo landmarks, our Jordan (of Mr. Pinky fame) was like that as well. On several occasions, he would lift his leg to pee on a rock, and then in one sweeping motion, swing his leg around to the perfect crouch, and deposit a poo on TOP of the same rock. It was like his work of sculptural poo art needed a pedestal for proper display. I never did have my cell phone handy for a photo, but I do have witnesses if you don’t believe me. :)
Thanks Susan, it sounds like Jordan had both Beanie’s artistry and Biggles’ poo placement skills (The Bigglet can poo through fences)!
BTW there’s part 3 coming when I get a moment to write it up!
Ringo adds another element to poo placement skills … if he’s releasing a rather large load (thus another of his nicknames, “Dumptruck”), when it gets too high for rear end clearance, he actually does a handstand while in squat position (I think that’s a “crow pose” in yoga) ;)
Yoga poos! That’s taking it to a whole new level!