Sussex
Scrapbook ~ Nature walks throughout the year
Friday 9th October - Friday 16th October
Dumfries & Galloway and Argyll -
Scotland.
I found out last week
that I had finally passed my PhD and when it becomes official I will able to call myself Doctor. That
brought a great sense of relief to both of us and also a feeling that we should
do something to celebrate. As if in answer to our wishes, our friend Terry
called the same day to tell us that he had won a local raffle and he wanted to
donate the prize to us... 2 nights' stay in a cottage on the peninsular of
Kintyre in Argyll on the Scottish west coast . We needed no second asking, especially as
our friends Simon and Jetta are always asking us to come and stay with them in
the borders. Combined with a further couple of nights' stay with Terry on Kintyre
we suddenly had a weeks holiday in Scotland ahead of us.
Scotland in autumn is fantastic; the colours of the trees on the mountains are
beautiful, the wildlife is outstanding, plus there are not too many midges about
either (very important if you are motorcycling).
We expected to see lots of birds, seals too plus we hoped for other marine
mammals as well, but our
main wildlife target species for Kintyre was definitely the Eurasian Otter (Lutra
lutra). Neither of us had ever seen one and personally I've been dying to
spot one ever since I became aware of their existence as a small child. Even
though Western Scotland is their stronghold, seeing one would not be an easy
task and we were prepared for disappointment.
We rode in perfect weather for 400 miles to reach Dumfries & Galloway, where Simon & Jetta's
smallholding is a remote hideaway every day for them and a great little holiday retreat for us
too. They are very keen on self-sufficiency and produce much of their own food and drink and we were
treated to home-reared pig and homemade wines, both of which were excellent.
Simon is a forester on the estate and we were treated to a guided walk around
the area, which took in parts of the pine plantations, burns, becks, dykes and a
beautiful river named The Water of Milk. We'd hoped to see Red Squirrels (Sciurus
vulgaris) around, but were told that since our
last visit three
years ago, the grey squirrels had taken over and all of the reds had gone.
Several hours later we were back in front of the fire sipping Simon's Vino dela
luna and putting the world to rights.
Simon surveys his domain
The turkey surveys his domain
Pru.
The turkey AND Simon had better
understand - It's HER domain!
Pru took us for a lovely walk around her estate.
The Water of Milk
Shaggy Scalycaps growing on an old tree stump over a river
Simon plays Radio 3 to the chickens, which they seem to like and which also keeps the foxes away. The next morning, after being woken by the cockerel we blearily ventured out into the brilliant morning sunshine to behold the sight of rolling downs and the sound of Vaughan Williams blaring across the yard. It was enough to make any true Brit shed a tear.
After our second night of sound sleep in their
lovely warm cottage (it's so quiet
there), Simon cooked us a huge breakfast that was designed to see us the 200
miles up to Kintyre, and which insanely included puff pastry!
We arrived safely at the idyllic Bán Draoicht cottage after going straight through Glasgow, up past Loch Lomond and then onto the incredible A82 and A83 roads. We just had time to dump our luggage and take a short walk to the beach to watch the sunset before heading back to an open fire and the sleep of the dead.
The next morning saw us off, a little later than planned, to do a 16 mile walk on the utterly remote Mull of Kintyre, made famous by that Paul McCartney hit from 1977. There was no "mist rolling in from the sea" today, as luckily we had perfect conditions for what would be a very strenuous, very hard walk across strength-sapping peat bogs. We parked up at Machrihanish and started off south towards the Machrihanish Seabird and Wildlife Observatory. No sooner had we left the town behind when we started seeing Grey Seals in the sea. There must have been 5 or 6 of them bobbing up and down in the sea about 100m from us. Suddenly Gill says "That's not a seal, that's an otter"! Sure enough there it was, swimming amongst the seals. We watched it through our binoculars while it swam around and were entranced by its long tail which could be seen sticking in the air whenever it dived under the water. We quickly set up our telescope and got even better views. We could see its wet whiskers glinting in the sun, its pale belly and sleek chestnut fur and several times it rolled onto its back to examine something it had in its paws. It was like a dream come true to see it there happily going about its business in front of us, but after a minute or two it dived and we lost sight of it. A magical moment that neither of us will ever forget. The buzz from that helped to keep us going as we wearily made our way to the walks end at the small village of Southend nine hours later, where Gill urgently needed reviving with a 15 year-old single malt whiskey.
Twite (and a chaffinch) seen from the
observatory.
Then it was off on the infamous
last section of the Kintyre Way into the wilderness and the mountains.
Peat cutting is done here, several miles out from Machrihanish.
Then it was out into the middle of miles of peat bog
Feral goats at the Largiebaarn Nature Reserve - miles from anywhere and anyone!
Thankfully the
Kintyre Way
is very well signposted with these blue posts.
Looking across the Mull of Kintyre to Sheep Island and Patterson's Rock.
We finally made it back to the cottage at
11pm and stayed up into the small hours in front of the fire.
Some parts of this walk were very steep and nearly all of it was boggy underfoot. It is very well marked although the path itself is not at all evident in places. In bad weather this could be very treacherous and in foggy weather quite dangerous around the Largiebaan Reserve cliffs. There are no facilities, houses or anything man-made, so take whatever you need yourself. You should let people know where you are going and what time you expect to reach the end. We left Machrihanish at 10:30am, had a short stay at the observatory and arrived worn out at the Argyll Arms at Southend at 8:30pm. A 10 hour walk that will certainly test your metal.
Our hosts Linda & Ian told us not to rush to leave on our last day, so it was about three in the afternoon that we finally arrived at Terry's cottage, half an hour away on Tarbert quay. Straight outside his door the seafood is unloaded from the small fishing boats that go out onto Loch Fyne. Terry had to go back to work after we arrived so we took a short walk around the quay and along the White Shore Way.
Grey Wagtail with perfect camouflage
We thought that this could have been an
entry in
Scrapheap Challenge and thought it looked superb.
It turns out it's the boat that collects the scallops that Terry delivers!
Hiya lads!
Back to the cottage for dinner. This little lot were just some of the
ingredients in a delicious homemade paella.
.JPG)
The next morning we took a whistle stop
tour of the town, first heading uphill behind the cottage to the remains of the
13th Century castle.
The Victorians took most of the stone from the ruined castle to build the town,
including the house we were staying in.
And then across to the large Victorian
church
Terry got the half day off and took us on a chauffeur driven tour of the area northwest of Tarbert where the Crinan Canal separates the peninsular from the mainland.
We also went to one of the many places thereabouts that has standing stones and ancient burial sites, most of which are 5000 years old.
The standing stones and cairn at Temple
Wood
We needed a dram of this later on and can vouch that
it's extremely good!
Then home past several lochs
The next day we were off again, heading south, to stay the night with Simon &
Jetta again on the way home.
We made a few stops on the way home, the
first was in the Argyll Forest at a place called Ardcastle
Picturesque Inverary
This point is called 'rest and be thankful' and comes after a long climb up into
the mountains.
Firkin Point on Loch Lomond
These delicious little treats were part of our packed lunch provided by Simon.
They are cheesy pastry which is then fried.
They were to be our last taste of Scotland for this year.
Many, many thanks to Terry, Simon & Jetta
for their kindness, generosity and hospitality, and for showing us around their
own little bits of bonny Scotland.
XX