Winter Wonderland

I was really in need of a work break sans cooking, sans normal household work, sans the urge to meet the deadline. 


That is vacation for me! The lull such a vacation brings to the mind is unstinted.


And my second motive was to delve my camera.  The new born baby was lying at a silent corner of my room, with no single soul to care for him!  I was frantically waiting for such an occasion to explore and exploit him!  

Chitti is his name!

It was long decided that we have to go to Aviemore to spend the winter vacation.  Being in UK is such a big disadvantage if you want to visit a sunny destination.  You need visa for everything.  I never thought about this before making a move to UK.  It has tied our hands to hop over to a city / village for a weekend break.Aviemore is a popular tourist resort all through the year.  


The backdrop of Cairngorm Mountains is what you can see in every feasible direction.With no agenda in hand, we traveled our way to the heavenly winter destination in Scotland.


The scanty day light time lasted for less than 6 hours gave us more scope to spend inside the hotel. Never in our lifetime, when we travel outside, we have come back to our hotel before 10,00 PM, and never had food on time. But this trip broke the record!  Everything was time specific. 8.30 morning breakfast, 1.30 lunch and 7.00 dinner.  And during our entire stay, we were back to hotel by around 4 or 5 max.  But we did maximize the 6 hours of day light optimally! 

Day 1:

Granton on Spey is a silent village near to Aviemore. Having our hotel at this lovely village gave us more time to spend here. 

We stroll along this beautiful park that dressed up with snow, along the River Spey that's half frozen and flowing.  

It was truly picturesque and glee to one's eyes.  Later we walked until the foot of nearby mountain.

Day 2: 
Cairngorm Mountains is the most famous in Aviemore! And a trip to the top of this mountain is a must!  We reached this mountain around 11.00 just to know that the sledging park and funicular service was suspended until 2.30 due to snow forecast. 
  

And it was awfully breezy there.  Spent one hour there just whiling away our time, and we came down.  


We decided to walk until the Glenmore Forest Park's Reindeer Centre.  It's a famous attraction especially in summer.  There is an organised trekking that happens every day.  A group of 10-15 trek up the hill for 45 - 60 minutes to witness the unspoilt nature and herds of 50-60 reindeers freely gazing on the mountain.  You can feed the reindeer as well.  Ain't that a super fun!  Although we did not trek up the mountain, we managed to see some of these reindeers here.  

Here's one of those relaxing in the snow!

Diagonally opposite is the frozen Lake "Loch Morlich" with the backdrop of Cairngorm Mountains!  This sandy-beach-like-lake is a popular water sport destination in summer. 
   

A long walk along the frozen lake was a total bliss! Our memories were frozen for the day with this lake!


Day 3: 
Made another try to reach Cairngorm mountains, and this time the Varun/Vayu and Snow Bhagavan (Rain/Wind/Snow God) were good on us!  Taking the funicular up the mountain is no easy task especially during this peak skiing season! 


We slogged waiting in a mile's que and about 200 people were standing before us! Then came our turn to ride on the funicular ride....

Had some good time up there with sledging and watching other's ski! 
We enjoyed out lunch at the roof top restaurant there viewing the 360 degree of snow clad mountains!  People around were happily skiing!


Below is the Ariel view of frozen Loch Morlich from the mountain!

And by the time we came down to the town, it was already dark. 


Day 4:
We decided to go to Kincraig National Wildlife Reserve! Aviemore and surrounding villages are full of forest reserves and mountains, and it is indeed one of the most beautiful wildlife parks I've seen so far. And animals / wildlife park is one of the best places to explore camera!  We spent almost 5 hours there exploring the Macro lens and trailing with animals.  There is also a hill and view point within the wildlife park which is worth catching up with.


And so ended our camera trial and vacation!