Heading West

At the campsite we watch the setting summer sun drop down behind the purple moors of Kintyre, and in Lochranza, the coast of this mainland peninsula is closer to us than any villages of Arran apart from Catacol. Back in the days of seafaring peoples, in the fifth and sixth centuries Arran, Kintyre, Knapdale and Bute were all ruled as part of the sea kingdom of Dalriada which encompassed Argyll and Northern Ireland. In this way, the summer ferry between Lochranza and Claonaig continues a longstanding relationship, and this year Calmac are offering a Kintyre link between Brodick and Campbeltown too, making round tours of Arran and Kintyre an appealing possibility whatever your mode of getting about.

The closest point between Arran and Kintyre is the three mile stretch of the Kilbrannan Sound between Imachar on Arran’s west coast and the picturesque fishing village of Carradale half way down the east coast of Kintyre. When Nigel and I paddled this route in our kayaks earlier this month, we were delighted to see a large sign pointing to a hilltop tearoom as we hauled our boats up onto the beach. We hadn’t expected to be able to sit munching homemade cakes in a sheltered garden with a croquet lawn whilst enjoying views of bulky Beinn Bharrain and the Arran hills. The tearoom, by the way, was The Green Tearoom and Observatory (www.greenroomteas.co.uk).

Our second day out this month found us and Nigel’s motorbike on the Lochranza-Claonaig ferry with a view to touring some of the long, remote peninsulas in this part of Scotland. The fourteen miles of rough single track road between Claonaig and Carradale couldn’t have been a prettier start to the journey with cascades of colourful wildflowers tumbling down the banksides.

We know that many of you who stay with us travel on to Carradale Caravan and Camping Site. It has a delightful approach alongside a river which glides under leafy, mature trees. The site itself is tucked behind sand dunes and next to a south-facing beach, with views of our Arran mountains again. It turns out that Carradale hasn’t got just one café that offers fabulous home baking but two, and we enjoyed lunch at Nellie’s café at the west end of the village where you can also find bikes and buggies available for hire so that all generations of a family can get from one end of the village to the other with ease (www.carradalebikesandbuggies.co.uk).  

Though towns like Tarbert have all the fun, bustle and business of small ports, some parts of Kintyre seem almost more serenely remote than some islands. And Kintyre might be mainland but it’s only just hanging on by a thread of rocks between East and West Loch Tarberts. Yet great names of history have stood in this place before you including Somerled Lord of the Isles, St.Columba and Robert the Bruce. (Oh, and Paul and Linda McCartney.) A profuse scattering of standing stones, hill forts and Neolithic burial cairns across the landscape add to a sense that important events of long ago times are only a little beyond reach.

If you’re planning to explore Kintyre you can read more about it in some of my earlier blogs:

What do Campsite Wardens do on Holiday? Oct 2012

Isle of Gigha  April 2012

Meeting the Neighbours  June 2011

A Perfect Day Out  June 2010

Of course Kintyre also offers an alternative, relaxed and scenic route to reach the Isle of Arran.

One Day Clad in Mist……

 

It’s been a busy bank holiday week for me here so instead of writing a blog I thought you might enjoy a couple of extracts from old literature about Arran.

The first extract is from The Isle of Arran in the Beautiful Britain series. It was written in 1912 by Rev. Charles A Hall and it’s available at The Book and Card Shop (on the seafront in Brodick) as well as at the Isle of Arran Heritage Museum:-

Rev. Hall comments how “One who knows the island intimately and is under its spell can readily sympathize with that Arran devotee who, nearing the end of his earthly career, prayed, “Let me die with my face towards Arran”.”

He also describes the island’s changing moods: “Arran is a sea-girt land, clad in greys, purple, russet, and green, with its rugged granite peaks, its noble glens, its cadent burns and comfortable-looking whitewashed cottages……. One day clad in mist; another bathed in sunshine; now gloomy and threatening; to-day warm and grateful; to-morrow gale-swept, with the erstwhile trickling burns so swollen by torrential rains that they rush thunderingly, carrying boulders and debris in hurrying, scurrying haste to the sea.”

Some of the vocabulary in “The Isle of Arran” has become dated, but the picture of Arran painted in words remains very recognisably the Arran of today whilst much of the human planet has changed beyond recognition since then. The sinking of the Titanic, the First World War and votes for women (in Britain) all lay in the near future in 1912.

Malcolm Higgs stayed here last summer, and now lives on Bute. He shared his interest in ancient history by passing on to me an extract from the Lyra Celtica, an 1896 collection of translations from early Gaelic poets. The introduction to the Lyra Celtica describes Arran as “Arran, no longer Arran of the many stags, but still one of the loveliest of the Scottish isles, and touched on every headland and hill with sunset glamour of the past.” As you know, stags feature strongly in daily Lochranza life so it is interesting to learn that this was not the case 117 years ago.

The following extract is from a translation of the Lay of Arran by Caeilte, an Ossianic bard:

“Arran of the many stags- the sea impinges on her very shoulders….. Skittish deer are on her pinnacles, and blackberries upon her waving heather; cool water there is upon her rivers, and mast upon her russet oaks…..

Smooth were her level spots- her wild swine they were fat; cheerful her fields, her nuts hung on her forest hazel’s boughs, and there was sailing of long galleys past her…… at every fitting time delectable is Arran!”

I have left out the blood thirsty bits about hunting but viewing landscape from a perspective of food supply is a surprising one today.

Finally, it strikes me in reading these old texts that the superlatives of 21^st century tourist literature are nothing new: Arran was making writers strive to do justice to its beauty in the long distant past too.

The Big Five

2013: Lochranza Wildlife and The Year of Natural Scotland

VisitScotland and Scottish Natural Heritage have recently launched the Big 5 campaign as part of the Year of Natural Scotland. The idea is to encourage discussion of Scottish wildlife and they would like to hear your views at www.scotlandsbig5.co.uk

The five species selected to spark off the debate are: the harbour or common seal, the otter, the golden eagle, the red deer and the red squirrel which happen to be creatures we see almost daily in Lochranza.

The common seal is actually much less common in Scotland than the grey seal. They can be seen basking at mid-tide on the rocks off Newton shore.

Otters can be seen almost anywhere round the Arran coastline but predicting just where or when is no easy matter. I was canoeing last week and saw one scampering along the loch shore beside the road. Drivers, please be aware!

If you’re a regular reader of this blog you will know how much red deer feature in Lochranza life. During this chilly spring most of them have stayed high up on the hillsides as the grass down here is only just beginning to grow. I really thought the old stag with a damaged eye must have gone to meet his maker after the rut, but he’s back, soaking up the sun in quiet corners of the golf course.

In Lochranza the golden eagles are probably watching you far more than you know. Hares are their main food on the island.  The eagle look-alikes, the buzzards, hunt the lower slopes of the hills around the campsite, often calling as they fly. They’re actually only half the size of a golden eagle. If you want to know more, Jim Cassels keeps meticulous records of birdlife on Arran- see: www.arranbirding.co.uk.

There are no grey squirrels on Arran and the reds range from fiery orange to almost black. Look out for them in the trees along the burn or crossing the road to village gardens early in the morning- another good reason to drive slowly. They tend to stay under cover when it’s raining.

Missing from the current Big Five list is the basking shark- they cruise between Lochranza and Pirnmill, and are a sight that fills everyone’s hearts with joy, every September. It is not unusual to see them from the Calmac ferry. We also have badgers, adders, bats and toads in Lochranza, but, like the rest of Arran, no foxes, weasels or moles, and no magpies, rooks or tawny owls.

Sometimes it can be very rewarding to explore the natural history that doesn’t run, swim or fly away. The island has a positive treasure trove of mosses and lichens in the native woodlands, not to mention the unigue Arran whitebeam trees of Glen Catacol. However, it is the rocks of which Arran is composed which are one of the island’s most famous features. Whoever thought up the phrase “solid as a rock” should visit the Isle of Arran Heritage Museum where you can find out just how dynamic and well-travelled Arran rocks are!

Where can I see:  A guide on where to find some of Arran’s best wildlife is produced by the Arran Natural History Society and costs £4 available from many island shops.

(The otter photo was taken by Mr Berry and the deer photo by Lance Ostler.)

I wrote this blog for the Arran Mountain Festival website: www.arranmountainfestival.co.uk   The booking lines have been busy lately but some places remain on this year's walks May 17th-20th.

The Arran Hills: Many Shades of Grey

Certain to get your heart racing and your knees trembling, Arran’s exciting mountains take your breath away. Whilst Munro-Baggers may whizz up the M74 without turning left, missing out the Arran hills because of their lack of a few metres is a bit like getting married without the wedding night.

So what makes the Arran hills so seductive?

1. A magnificent profile: from all approaches, the distinctive mountain skyline of Arran commands your gaze, with its soaring peaks and pinnacles. The towering east ridge of Caisteal Abhail is known as the Sleeping Warrior- see the photo. (He’s wearing a helmet and he has a firm chin!)

2. In a vigorous embrace: Arran is only ten miles wide so wherever you are, you’re never far from the encircling presence of the waves. From the summits, you can get 360 degree sea views- to Northern Ireland, the Kintyre peninsula, the Paps of Jura, Mull, the Arrochar Alps, Cowal, Bute, Ayrshire and Galloway.

3. No boring introductions:  you won’t find long walk-ins on Arran. Unless you keep going in circles round the coast, the only way is up, but taking things one step at a time you’ll be amazed at the height you can achieve in a relatively short time. The apparently vertical climb up Cioch na h-Oighe is a good example of this- it’s still a walker’s route though a head for heights and sure-footedness will help.

4. Fill up your senses: waterfalls stream over Arran’s shoulders, sliding down chutes and plunging into deep, ferny chasms. The background music of water accompanies every Arran walk. Glen Catacol especially is a great place for waterfall hunters.

5. Hands-on experiences:  once you’re on the ridges you won’t be able to resist some exciting hands-on scrambling on the satisfyingly rough-textured  tors of pale grey granite.

6 An untamed character: whilst the Gulf Stream caresses Arran with warm currents making palm trees flourish round its coastline, the mountain tops are survivors of fierce battles with Atlantic weather. Apart from Goat Fell, the hills of Arran are uncrowded and perfect for walks on the wild side.

7. A fascinating past:  walks on Arran reveal hints of the ancestors in ancient cairns, stone circles and the remains of prehistoric hill forts. The echoes of Viking rule are in the names of the coastal settlements.

8. Beautiful creatures: Arran’s most famous wild creatures just happen to be very good looking ones too: there are the pure-blooded, elegant red deer for example, as well as majestic golden eagles, tufty-eared red squirrels and lithe, playful otters to select but a few.

9. Fulfilling: Arran walks are adventurous and the end of adventure satisfaction factor as you enjoy your meal in one of Arran’s independent restaurants is off the scale overwhelmingly good.

10. Enduring and elemental: Arran enjoys worldwide celebrity status in geology circles for its amazing rocks. The island represents a coming together on a titanic scale of highland and lowland. The mountains themselves burst into being as an exploding volcano.  Today, the hills are a rocky heaven with pebbles, boulders, outcrops and crags in every imaginable and lovely shade of grey.

Arran’s Week of Fame

At 1 am in the morning of Friday 22^nd March Nigel and I were driving back up the west coast of Arran, from Shiskine to Lochranza, after a First Responder callout. The wind was tossing wheelie bins about but that was nothing unusual and it was dry. Once home, we quickly fell asleep and when we woke up five hours later all the damage was already done: the two pylons on the Kintyre mainland peninsula which supply Arran had been mangled by wind and ice, all Arran’s power was off and all life outside the window was obscured by a fierce unseasonal blizzard.

Of course, without electricity or phones, and unable to go outside for 36 hours because of the blizzard, no one had any idea what was happening to anyone else. Now we know that the scale of the damage to the power supply was unprecedented according to Scottish Hydro, who had 60 miles of poles to replace and connections to restore in truly extreme conditions. It would take the next eight days for them to get Arran back on a mains electricity supply.

As I understand it, this must have been one of those unforeseeable destructive natural events. A freak conjunction of temperature, moisture in the air and strong wind must have been conducive to a massive and rapid build up of ice. The first thing Nigel and I noticed when we headed out on the Saturday was that power and telephone cables, all thickly encased in ice, were broken and draped everywhere. Our wire fencing was also sagging under the weight of ice, with each strand of wire having an ice casing 5 or 6 inches in diameter. We kicked the ice hard to remove it before it pulled the fences down altogether.

It struck me that 100 years ago the blizzard would not have had the same impact. The Arran people of the time would have sat it out, stoked up the fire and relied on their food stores in the same way as now, but phones, TV, central heating, the Internet, and cars, for most people, still belonged to the future. 100 years ago there was far more coming and going of boats in Lochranza than now. However, the survival of their stock would have been a matter of grave concern to the people of that time, and this year’s blizzard could not have come at a crueller time for sheep farmers with lambing so imminent. Last week was tough for all-electricity households, and even more so for those at Pirnmill without water due to their supply being pumped by electricity. It’s clearly good planning to never be without a means to create heat or have some water and food in reserve.  I would say that a bottle of Arran whisky definitely needs to be in the emergency box too.

As so often happens in crises, there were many examples of quiet heroism, by which I mean when someone automatically assumes responsibility for someone else in difficulties, and they do everything they can to help. The praises of Scottish and Southern Energy and Scottish Hydro EPD have been widely sung for their unstinting efforts and I can only add to that. I was in the Lochranza Hotel when it was the village hub of food and warmth having been provided with a generator, and I could overhear the conversations of the power workers, snatching a bite to eat in a long day. All the conversation was about how fiercely determined to not rest till electricity was restored they were. I was very impressed that, in such a big organisation, every member of staff was so committed and caring.

A week ago Lochranza was a flurry of activity with hundreds of power workers, helicopters, lifeboats, mobile catering, the police, the Arran  Mountain Rescue Team and many individual helpers. We understand that every generator north of Watford was brought to Arran. Each day saw progress. As time passed, the television reports started to sound embarrassingly tragic for a resilient community as life got back to normal. Footage of Brodick with little snow kept being shown whilst a few miles west, cottages at Machrie had been buried under snow drifts. All this winter Arran villages have seen no snow or wintry conditions when most other parts of Britain have, and that’s normal. How strange to make the headlines because of too much of them!

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The Boguille

 













The Boguille: even nowadays, on long dark winter nights of swirling fogs, the locals won’t cross it alone. At such times it is still the mountainous barrier it used to be…. separating Lochranza from the rest of the island.

If you travel to Lochranza from Brodick (rather than on the Lochranza ferry from Claonaig on Kintyre) you will have to travel over the Boguille to get here, unless you go the long way round via the String Road and the west coast.

The Boguille is marked on the OS map at G.R. 974483 as a high point of the road at 204 metres. Given that most Celtic place names describe natural features with precision, I have always assumed that boguille means a watershed. Another interpretation is that a boglie in local folklore refers to an elf or fairy (and not necessarily a kind one!). There is a layby close by the high point, on the west side of the road, which gives superb views of the Sleeping Warrior ridge.

The wide and windy expanse of high moorland now crossed by the Boguille Road, was a barrier until 1843 when the road connecting Lochranza to Sannox was built and it meant that most visitors to Lochranza came by sea. Travelling from Brodick, your climb begins at the bridge next to Corrie Golf Course where the island’s perimeter road turns inland from the coast and you have the sharp-fanged jaws of Glen Sannox to your left. At night at this point you leave behind the distant orange glow of the towns of the Ayrshire coast and travel into dark sky country. If you’re lucky, you’ll see the moon rising above the Ayrshire hills making a gleaming path across the Firth of Clyde. Stags will leap out of the glare of your headlights.

As you climb out of Sannox you will see the ruins of old clachans which fell into disrepair after the Clearances. Buzzards, golden eagles, and hen harriers hunt these remote hillsides. It is 1.6 miles from the bridge crossing the rushing burn at North Glen Sannox up to the top of the Boguille. It is then 2.6 miles down Glen Chalmadale, and downhill all the way to the Distillery at Lochranza. If you’re a cyclist do take care: the bends at the Witch’s Bridge and just past Ballarie Farm have seen many incidents. An off-road alternative for walkers and cyclists is to look for the old way into Lochranza on the opposite side of the burn. At least it’s a grassy landing on that side!

Whilst the locals treat the Boguille with wary respect, the local hill sheep enjoy sleeping on it at night. Don’t expect them to move out of your way, just be cunning and whistle- they will think that they have heard the farmer come to feed them and they will charge in a herd down the road to find him.

Something old, something new

I thought you might like to see this photo of our new toilets cabin arriving on the campsite (made by Wintech Ltd and very nice indeed). I wonder what the eagles made of it all. In this wild and natural part of the world, life often throws up such strange juxtapositions of old and new. Recently, I visited Dumbarton Castle which is situated on a fortress rock in the Clyde. Nowadays its parapets overlook Dumbarton’s football pitch- and prove useful to those who’ve left it too late to buy a ticket.

In the three years I have lived in Lochranza my perception of time has undergone a paradigm shift. This may be because of all the exciting geology in the area which confronts you in measures of millions of years, such as the footprint trail of the giant millipede across the rocks at Laggan from 250 million years ago. The past is here in the present.

Of course we are all living in exciting times of scientific discovery about the entire universe, and when Brian Cox presents new theories they come in trillions of years. No wonder that when the 500 year old skeleton of England’s Richard the Third was found, it seemed as if his final battle was a recent event and we almost knew him! Another exciting debate of our time is that regarding Scottish Independence. Applying geological time to this matter tells us that it’s a mere 700 years or so since the Scottish/ English border was defined (roughly the age of Lochranza Castle) and only a few thousand since the island of Britain did not exist but was joined to mainland Europe. The 300 years since the United Kingdom was formed is less than ten generations away.

As fast as new discoveries are made, old theories are demolished. For example, experts now say that Britain was actually never covered in woods which were quickly cleared by humans. In fact, careful human management of the forested areas by such practices as coppicing helped them to survive. Most of the landscapes we celebrate for their apparent wildness look as they do due to the activities of humans and their grazing by farm animals. Around Lochranza, black cattle used to tread the hillsides keeping intrusive vegetation at bay, crofters dug a network of lades to drain the boggy ground, and also built dry stane dykes. It all helped to create varieties of habitat which in turn attracted more varieties of wildlife, and shaped our favourite landscapes.

It’s good to keep moving so here’s to new theories – and the next time that you feel the earth under your feet shift a little just remember that it’s quite possible in Lochranza.

Here’s the enduring face of the Sleeping Warrior, sentinel of the north end of Arran, weathering the frost and ice…… at least for the time being.