Days 9 and 10: Reindeer ARE real!
Day 9: It almost seems silly to say this, given what I usually value and enjoy, and given all the amazing experiences I’ve had, but seeing these reindeer may have been my favorite part of the trip. They are wild reindeer who wander freely among the Cairngorms, but they are also completely habituated to humans. They come right up to you. Like, right next to a group of humans, and just stand there, like you are one of them. They are completely unbothered and unafraid. There was a buck with HUGE antlers in this particular herd we were with (about 38 reindeer out of the 150 in the Cairngorms). And then a bunch of mothers with new calves, just days or weeks old. And at the very end of the hike, we saw a calf that was hours old.
I say “what I usually value” because I had partially expected the reindeer hike to seem more like a petting zoo. But it wasn’t at all. We did get to feed them, but other than that, which was a very prescriptive exercise led by the guides, nobody touched them. The guides said it was “hands off” except for the feeding, and even though we were a fairly large group of humans, I didn’t see a single person not respect these amazing beasts and treat them with the awe they deserve. It was just incredible. I will let the photos do the rest of the talking (below).
The journey to the reindeer hike also involved some prescriptive steps: get taxi to Reindeer Center, ask taxi driver to wait, pick up instructions to trailhead, ask taxi driver to take me to trailhead, hope for the best for the return trip. The owner of the guesthouse where I was staying was able to secure a taxi (the first company she called said they were booked for 1.5 hours, at which point some panic set in, but the next place had someone). The taxi driver was familiar with the drill: go to Reindeer Center and then to trailhead. No problem. And he was a political junkie! We had a grand time talking US and UK politics. I wished we had had longer.
The return trip was going to be trickier since I didn’t ask the taxi driver to wait 2 hours for me. I could walk the 1.5 miles back to the Reindeer Center, where I could catch a bus to civilization. But I didn’t really WANT to walk that far, especially when rain threatened. I was able to find a young American couple who had a rental car and ask for a lift to the Reindeer Center. They also snapped the photos of me feeding the reindeer! (Thank you American couple whose names I didn’t catch!) The next bus wasn’t for 45 minutes, but I struck up a conversation with some people from London who were backpacking and camping. And it never started raining in earnest. The Universe is truly good to me.
Day 10: This has been a “travel back to Inverness” day and “drink tea while waiting for the bus to Inverness” day and “luckily find a nice lady who helped me with the luggage locker” day and “luckily be able to catch the earlier bus to Inverness because I was so full of tea from waiting” day and “drag my luggage up a steep hill in Inverness because there was no way I could carry it up the 50+ cobbled steps to my next accommodation in Inverness” day and “climb with my luggage to my room on the ‘second floor’ which is really the ‘third floor’ in the US” day and “go to the grocery store to get wine and cookies” day and “do laundry” day. And so it is.
And now, reindeer (click to enlarge):
Not the least bothered by all the humans. They just stood around, ate grass, moved a little, ate more grass. Totally chilling. They knew there would be a treat coming, based on past experience, but they are not hungry because they can eat their natural diet all day long. This big buck Sherlock had the biggest antlers. Eventually they will turn white, But right now they are still growing. They look like they have brown fur on them.
Definitely curious, but not the least bit aggressive. She just waited patiently. And the guide told us that the configuration of their teeth is such that they can’t bite. She just softly licked the grain out of my hands.
”Hello, 2-legged creatures, I haven’t decided which way I want to go yet. I am taking suggestions.”
”We’ans” (as in “wee ones”) getting accustomed to humans. We all gave the mums their space, but they really did not seem bothered by us. The littlest calf curled in the grass was only a few hours old. One of the Wildlife Center’s staff had corralled mum and babe to an enclosure so they can check vitals later. The energy of this whole refuge is gentle and caring and respectful.