Saturday Morning Bike Ride

Chasing rainbows...

The Autumn Watch weather forecast predicted clear skies this morning, it was wrong! It did seem quite promising when I set off...

The early sunshine casts a lovely tree shadow on the green field. There is a hint of a rainbow behind the tree. There are certain trees I photograph fairly regularly and this is one of them. I like how it stands at the centre of the four different coloured fields. This view of it is obtained from the cycle path.

I don't stay on the cycle path for long though and am soon heading into the countryside along one of the many unclassified roads we're lucky to have round these parts. The sun also doesn't stay out for long and I get caught in a couple of heavy showers.

Puddly fields.

Recent strong winds have stripped many of the trees of their leaves. The oak trees seem to hang onto their leaves longest.

(I took very few photos of this section of the ride as it was raining too heavily much of the time.)

By this point I've been back on a different section of the cycle path. Here's a shot of the bike on another bridge, the water which can be seen in the the background is not a loch or even a pond, just a huge puddle.

This is the view from the other side of the bridge showing the road I'm about to take.

Several miles and a couple more rain showers and rainbows later...

I visit the remains of Duchal Castle. The castle is built on a little outcrop of rock which is surrounded on three sides by a ravine. Parts of the ruins are thought to date from 13th century (information from here)

This time the rain is falling in the distance.

Another favourite tree to photograph.

A sheltered spot, and some beech trees are still managing to keep hold of their leaves. On the other side of the road...

...a highland cow.

Distant purple grey hills and woodland.

It doesn't seem all that long ago that this view was lovely and green. Some sections of the countryside seem to have very quickly taken on their washed out winter colours.

After writing that last comment I thought I'd just check when I was last this way and it was actually away back in July. Here's the post - it's interesting to see what a difference four months makes to the countryside. I covered quite a lot of the same ground then as I did today and you will notice that I do often repeatedly photograph the same things. So if you checked out the July post you'll know that coming up next are...

...the roman soldiers.

Here they are from the other side just as the sun came out again briefly. There is also another faint rainbow (the fourth I saw today - two were just too faint to photograph well) arching from the tree in the centre and over the farm.

Then home (no muffins!)