Comments on: Meall Dubh - a Corbett spoiled

By: cameron

cameron — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:33:32 +0000

Good point Martin - a number of the turbines on Meall Dubh weren’t working - possibly because of the gale force winds?

By: Martin Rye

Martin Rye — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:33:48 +0000

Awful sight indeed wind farms. I hate them, and a lot of the time they are not working. What good is that?

By: Bob Andrews

Bob Andrews — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:55:12 +0000

Hi Cameron,

Yes we have those B—-y windmills in West Wales as well. They are just an insult and do so little to curb the problems they are supposed to be there for.

Cracking weather down west as well. Not as high as your hills but New Year’s eve on the Preseli mountains was splendid. Streams like iron and views that went on forever.

By: walter

walter — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:14:09 +0000

Ah, that makes sense. The mild spell before Christmas was a bit of a disappointment.

Good to hear you had cracking (literally!) break in the Cairngorms. Must get my Akto up there too! As you say, the ‘Gorms are becoming a haven in more sense than one…

By: Cameron

Cameron — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:40:04 +0000

Hi Walter,
I was actually up there just before Christmas. I spent New Year in much nicer surroundings in the Cairngorms with night temperatures approaching minus 10 and me in my little Akto tent. Marvellous. Clear skies, ice covered lochs cracking and goaning all night long. Pure magic, and light years away from any wind turbines.

By: walter

walter — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 23:55:49 +0000

Aye, Cameron, those turbines are a right disgrace. I think Chris Townsend was complaining about them in a post on his blog back in the autumn. I saw them as I was climbing up to Beinn Teallach (Laggan Dam) in November, and you can also see them as you drive up to Glen Shiel from Glen Garry.

I admire you for going so close up to them so shortly after the New Year. It’d have upset my digestion no end…

Good yarn, anyway. I thought it’d be snow up there actually, the rain down here in NE Fife sounded a bit sleety on my roof today.

And you know what: I watched that Neil Oliver programme on the history of Scotland on the BBC iPlayer today. Plenty of shots of the mountains, in fact, nothing but shots of the Highlands throughout the programme. I mean, Scotland *is* her mountains. And watching those shots I thought, for the umpteen time, this is the most glorious land on earth. Or rather: it was. And now they’re selling it down the river for no purpose at all.

They’ll have to change that old tune about the land of the mountain and the flood. It’s becoming the land of the turbine noo…

By: robert wallace

robert wallace — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 14:57:56 +0000

Cameron

I think you are perfectly entitled to a rant apropros Meall Dubh. These things (wind farms), the efficacy of which are at most dubious, have now joined the Sitka spruce the hydro dam (more doubtful efficacy), and the ill sited pylon as monuments to our crass disregard for our wild land heritage.