GLEN AFFRIC
30 miles west of Millwood House
One of the most beautiful landscapes in Scotland, with
slender lochs in the valley, well-wooded hillsides and a river rising
among the 3,000 ft mountains at its head. Wild roe deer can be spotted
here in the spring and winter months - look out for them at dawn and dusk
or on the open hill above the tree line. Badger, fox, otter, red squirrel,
stoat and weasel are all to be found. Glen Affric has been greatly altered
by two separate interests.
In 1946 the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board dammed
the River Glass to create Loch Beinn a
Mheadhain. Its power station at Fasnakyle is unobtrusively located and is
faced with local yellow sandstone. It is well worth taking the walk to the
two waterfalls in the narrow Affric gorge - the Badger Fall and the Dog
Fall, the scenery is splendid.
Both sides of the glen are cloaked in Forestry Commission
plantations. A determined effort is being made to help Glen Affric's
remnant of the old Caledonian Pine Forest to extend and regenerate. The
trees here are direct descendents of those which first colonised the
Highlands after the Ice Age, some 10,000 years ago. Forest walks and
picnic places have been laid out beside the Dog Falls. |
