Physics teacher’s sabbatical

Last week felt like a break from the sabbatical. It’s SQA marking season and so I was busy most of the week marking papers. However, Friday looked like the best day for a walk in the wild, so I travelled over to Crianlarich and bagged a couple of Munros. If this sabbatical has taught me anything, it’s to take my time on the route and enjoy the journey. And this route really had something special at the start.

You will notice from the route that it passes through some woodland for the first 4 km. This pine wood is called Coille Coire-Chuilc, and is a remnant of the original Caledonian Forest. It is filled with Scot’s (also know as Caledonian) pine and is absolutely gorgeous.

There were plenty of plants and creatures to spot too…

As I walked out of the Caledonian forest the landscape opened and give way to birches, and further up, the non-native Sitka spruce.

The river, known as the Allt Coire Dubhcraig, had some beautiful rock pools, erosion formations and even possible physics to think about!

Each of these photos could be an opportunity to talk about different things with young people…fluid physics, positive mental health and geology spring to mind, depending on your expertise.

As I approached the summit, I noticed a bird overhead hovering in the wind.

Using Jeremy Fenton’s wildlife guide, I was able to identify it as a raven.

What I wasn’t expecting was it’s unwillingness to be photographed! As I was taking pictures of it, I was bombarded with poop from on high, hitting my head, shirt, shorts and arms. I am now convinced that the raven has the ability to target poop bombs on unsuspecting humans with finely tuned accuracy. Imagine the physics calculations they must do, factoring in wind speed, flight height and speed, not to mention a comprehensive knowledge of Higher Physics!

Keeping one eye on the skies and one on the trail, I marched toward the summits. Views of Loch Lomond, and across to Ben Lui were stunning.

Chance meetings…

I met two interesting people on the walk, though didn’t catch the names of either. The first was when walking off Ben Oss. He was a man in his mid to late 60s, and after we had covered pleasantries, we talked about bagging Munros. I proudly mentioned I had just completed my 137th. My pride took a hit when he told me that he was on this 6th round of the Munros, and this was around his 100th in that round. Not only that, he was planning on walking out via Ben Lui and it’s baby brother Beinn a’ Chleibh! Just think, that means he’s climbed over 1500 Munros

Curiously, he also told me that he’s made computer programs and surveys relating to favourite Munros etc, but goes on to say that Cameron McNeish wasn’t too keen on the program as it didn’t give any credence to Corbetts and Grahams! I wish I’d got his name, or website.

The second person I met I actually passed twice on the walk, once at the very beginning, as I entered the pine forest, and again at the end as I was walking out through it. He had a camera and I stopped to speak to him. He was interested in ‘Scotland’s temperate rainforests‘, and although this forest wasn’t exactly a temperate rainforest, he was keen to document it anyway. It’s a term I’ve only heard of recently, and you can expect a blog post on it any day now.

I actually met a third person in the car park, who asked did I have a good day.

‘An amazing day’ was my response!