I might struggle to keep this months blog inside the Cairngorms National Park as from Monday (5th) this years Enchanted Forest commences it’s build ready for the October show. Though not much will be needing a boat on Loch Dunmore I shall be involved in some of the build. So therefore I am trying to get some interesting subjects going before I start.
2nd. September.
I went fishing for Brown Trout up at the villager club water, way up in the hills above the stocked water at Blair Walker. I love this little pond as I normally have it to myself and though there are some good sized Trout in it most fish average half a pound and about nine / ten inches long, but such fun and wonderful conditioned fish. I of course took my camera up and though I never took a shot of the four fish I caught (honest) I suddenly thought I have not shown you the full extent of Blair Castles hydro electric scheme. So below is a untechnical trip for the water from source to power.
To start off this is water coming down of ditches across the hillside above Sarah’s Pond where I was fishing. This has been dug out mechanically with sides at a precise angle to give a good flow, though over the years of bankside growth you cannot see the angles.
This is Sarah’s pond, named after the factors wife, you have to be fairly accurate with your casting as there is a lot of weed this time of the year and landing your fish can be pretty tricky sometimes, especially once when I had a pound and a half wild fish on.
This is the outlet pipe from the pond where the water starts it’s journey down to the castle.
So the water flows from Sarah’s down to the castle for (as the crow flies) about a mile. The Arrow at the top is Sarah’s and the cross is the castle.
From Sarah’s it falls naturally down the hill and into our stocked lochan known as Blair Walker, or by it’s Gaelic name (as seen on the map above) Blairuachdar.
I include this shot to show you the speed it arrives at Blair Walker, a lot faster than when it left Sarah’s.
Built at the dam end of the lochan is this filter system set at a certain level, which in turn determines the level of the loch. Water during this time is just steadily flowing over the top and the area with all the debris on it is a fine graded metal mesh too stop that sort of material from going into the pipeline and down to the turbines at the castle. This is cleaned off by a castle worker daily and all fisherman are asked to sweep it away if fishing that area.
At the outlet of the filter is an overflow pipe in case of a blockage and all the electronic counting gear, plus of course the broom for clearing the debris.
This is the sluice to empty Blair Walker, I included this shot to coordinate the shot from up the hill looking down to the lochan where you can see the silhouette of the sluice in the water, next to the club hut.
When the water pipe gets down to the castle it goes into this pump house and if you can read the notice on the next shot it tells you the history of this building, going back to the first hydro scheme in 1908 and why the building is painted in green camouflage paint plus the skulls in the following shot.
Look on this board and you will see why the top pond was named Sarah’s.
Once the water has been through the turbine it is channelled through a beautiful brick lined canal ( maybe five metres long and too overgrown to photograph) and out into the Banvie Burn, which joins the River Garry, which then goes into the River Tummell, before joining the mighty Tay.
The Banvie Burn.
As I was going home after photographing the pump house the drive up to the castle was just to good in the sun and full leaf not to include this shot.
10th.
First shot of action for the Enchanted Forest, this huge eight metre diameter circle is going to be some sort of light show on the water. When it has got all the remaining gismo’s on the floating platform I will be towing it out into the middle of the loch (along with some people pulling from the far bank) where it will be anchored to the bottom. I have already cleared half a football pitch of lilies from in front of where it will be so as to get a reflection on the water. The platform behind is the viewing staging for the public to see the display.
Great excitement as we have people laying the fibre optic cable in the field ready to connect us to a decent broadband speed, should be about a month before we are “up to speed”, hooray for that.
13th
It would not be my blog without showing one of the two “Bs” in my vocabulary, Birds or Blooms. Today it is blooms, as it is such a sunny day and last of the blooms before the frosts start killing them off.
Thought it most appropriate to start of with one of the many heathers in the garden that are blooming at the moment, This is a heather that we purchased on a visit to Balmoral many moons ago and is in full bloom at this precious moment.
A couple of others that are looking good at present.
We purchased a packet of seeds that had meadow flowers and bee attractors in it, the cornflowers and marigolds have had some great colour to the garden.
The yellow climbing Mackenzie Clematis that I have showed you in previous blogs has now turned to “old mans beard” seed heads and looks so attractive in the sunlight.
These yellow flowers have bloomed their socks off all summer and still look great.
The rowan’s in the garden are covered in berries and the Thrush is feeding on them already, is this a sign of a hard winter to come? Not sure. But from the second shot you can see that Autumn is affecting us as the leaves are turning.
Left it a bit late in the day to get this shot of the Autumn Crocus as the shade has made this not the best of shots.