My family and I are currently on holiday on the West Coast of Scotland, staying in the place that we normally do. It is beyond mobile phone coverage and most of the house is without wifi as well. Luckily (in my eyes, anyway) mine and my sister’s bedroom is one of the few places we can get a wifi connection.

Today my dad and sister announced that they were going to walk up to the cairn – a great big ugly rock at the top of a humongous hill. Mum and I weren’t entirely keen, but we decided that we’d at least go part of the way with them. As it turns out, dad hadn’t meant the cairn, so instead we headed to a vantage point that gave us a truly spectacular view and mum and I actually walked the whole way with them. This was no ordinary hill though; we’re in the highlands of Scotland and the hills here are seriously heavy duty.

It was definitely very much hard work for my poor calf muscles, but the view from the top was more than worth the pain. It was just absolutely breathtaking because the landscape up here is just so stunning. I was ever so glad that I’d taken my camera with me because I was able to take some great photos, but as ever it doesn’t quite do it justice.

Here are some of the photos I took so that you can get the general idea of how spectacular it was:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

And on top of the brilliant views, my trustworthy app tells me that I burnt 1013 calories on the walk, which is one huge added bonus in my eyes!

However, it’s all been quite emotional here this year because this has been a family tradition since my mum was 7 and the family that own the house we stay in have sold the house. The new buyers move in 2 days after we leave! No one’s really sure what they’ll do with the place and so we might not get the chance to come back again. So it’s been really lovely to do this climb and get such lovely photos to remember it by.

We’ve still got another week here and I intend to keep taking as many photos as possible. Other than that, I’ve not done a lot else except read. It’s very very peaceful here and I do really love it; it’s been such a huge part of my childhood and I will miss our holidays here.