I feel so at home in the Highlands of Scotland and this photograph, is one of hundreds of the Highlands which I have taken over the years. Scotland is a great place to visit, even more so If you enjoy photography. Loch Maree is a great location for landscape photographs, with pine trees all around both alive and dead and the rain flitting across the top of the hill or the clouds being burned off by the early morning sun. Now time is on my side, it sounds like a week in the tent waiting and watching.

Twelve miles long and reckoned by many to be the most beautiful loch in Scotland it certainly ranks among the most scenic. Loch Maree lies in one of the most magnificent mountain areas in Scotland.

From every direction the Loch is dominated by Slioch ( from the Gaelic sleagh, a spear) which affords wonderful views of some of the wildest areas in Scotland. To the south is Torridon with with Beinn Eighe, Liathach and Beinn Alligin, to the north are the Letterewe and Fisherfield mountains. Access to the hills in this area involve very long walks.

I remember well, one very wet week in May hoping to climb Slioch and several other Munros on the way to Shenavall Bothy at Strath na Sealga. We managed Slioch but the weather was so bad we decided to forget the others and head through the glens to Shenavall , From memory around twenty miles or so across some very rough terrain, we new a few pals were in the bothy and were glad to see a light flickering in the window after around nine hours on the hill.

Although Loch Maree is easily accessible, the A 832 hugs the side of the loch for most of it's length as it runs from Kinlochewe to Gairloch, it has the feeling of remoteness.

The Loch is covered by many small islands, the most famous of which is the Isle Of Maree where druids once worshipped. A ruined chapel believed to have been the hermitage of Saint Maelrubha an Irish monk who was one of the early pioneers of Celtic Christianity can still be seen on the Island.

Ben Eighe was the first National Nature Reserve of it's kind in Britain and provides great facilities for climbers, walkers, and wildlife enthusiasts, drive through Glen Torridon at certain times of the year and traffic lights for crossing deer would be handy.