On Wednesday I visited Inveruglas, which is about an hours drive from Glasgow and is on the banks of Loch Lomond. It is the site of Sloy power station, which is part of the Loch Sloy hydroelectric scheme. Started in 1945 and finished in 1950, the scheme involved the construction of Sloy power station, damming of Loch Sloy and connecting them with pipelines to carry the water from the dam to the power station. It was a huge civil engineering project involving workers from all over Scotland. The foundries, steelworks and engineering shops on the Clyde turned their production from war time manufacturing to provide the pipes and machinery. Granite to clad the power station came from Aberdeen. At its peak 2100 people were employed on the site. Construction cost the lives of 21 men and some of the workforce in the early stages consisted of German prisoners of war. It supplies electricity for Glasgow at peak times and can reach full capacity in five minutes.
My walk took me through a valley between two munros (Scottish mountains over 3000 feet), Ben Vane to the west and Ben Vorlich to the east. I climbed some of the way up Ben Vorlich, however there are no paths above a certain point and the clouds were so low I couldn’t see far enough to find a route up. It was very wet the whole time; at one stage I had to seek shelter under a rock in order to let my camera dry off!
Matthew Denniss 