Walking on the Wild Side: Granite Highway

This is the fourth of a series of articles that I am writing for the Voice for Arran about Walking and Wildlife on Arran. This article appeared in June 2011. Hope you enjoy!

“Granite….” The name rolls around my gritted teeth. I’m a lover of granite, and just saying the word makes me want to climb mountains and feel rough crystals against my palms.   If geologists are interested in how rocks are formed, mountaineers obsess about how a rock feels to feet and fingers. Granite is a rock for the tactile. Formed deep in the bosoms of volcanoes, a geologist will tell you that the main constituents of granite are quartz, feldspar and various forms of mica. The sizes of the crystals define its texture. It is featureless, massive, and hard.

            My love affair with granite began with wrestling the gymnastic crags of the Cornish coast, before it flourished on the warm rosy slabs of the Alps. Here on Arran it has matured in to a slow burning passion that draws endless delight from perfect pockets, biting cracks and wind sculpted hollows.  At the end of a hard day in the Northern Hills, my hands are stinging from hours of happy tussling with an unforgiving but eternally intriguing rock.

            Today Arran is shining like a jewel in the sea. I’m looking forward to a day walking a tightrope of granite that hangs from the sky like a twinkling curtain from Sannox to Brodick. I will climb quickly, and then hardly descend until I reach Goatfell, my feet treading a highway in the heavens hewn of solid rock.

            Leaving the main path in Glen Sannox I cut up above the glen towards the Devil’s Punchbowl. Shadowy sunless cliffs loom above me, their mood in keeping with the sinister name. Just below the coire rim, a rough deer track cuts under the slopes of Cioch na h’Oighe.  A loose path weaves between steeper sections of scrambling, and I seek the direct route on bare rock wherever possible. I feel my way up creased slabs of cold granite. Thousands of years of rain and seeping vegetation have worn the slabs smooth and I search out grooves and hidden edges for my boots. Already my hands feel sore and black peat is rammed under my fingernails. The way is steep. 

            Breathing heavily, at last I crest the wave of rock, and I’m perched on the summit of the Cioch that curls upwards in to the heavens. A cold wind hits my face and the sudden sunlight dazzles me. My hands look pink and raw. It is time to hunker down between the summit blocks to refuel for the next stage.  I lie back against a boulder and look up at the blue sky. Briefly, the sickle shape of a soaring kestrel arcs overhead before diving in to the rocks far below.

            Beyond the Cioch, a narrow ridge of jumbled blocks and heathery notches forms a bridge to the massive bulk of Mullach Buidhe. Most of the difficulties can be avoided, but it is more fun I think to pick my way over the tottering blocks balanced against each other on the crest. They look improbable, but the colossal friction of hard crystals and their sheer tonnage mean that they have come to an enduring rest in these positions. In between, the wind and the rain have eroded softer sections of the ridge, leaving treacherous scoops of golden gravel, ready to sweep the unwary into Glen Sannox.

            Before long, I’m labouring my way up the slopes of Mullach Buidhe.  The ridge widens, and, the heather gives way to a miniature rock garden of mosses that cling to the loose slopes in the wildest of weather. Mullach Buidhe itself is a broad peak with several craggy tops and a steep west face. A lone raven sits on the highest, and as I approach, the bird flings itself in to the abyss, before shooting back in to view with a raucous cry on an updraft as if fired from a cannon. On this sunny day, Mullach Buidhe itself feels like a rocky meadow floating high above the world.  The grass here is soft and short, and the gentle gradient gives my hands and legs a rest. Looking down and left towards the sea, I can see the village of Corrie shining in the sunlight on the shore, further out, the Caledonian Isles is emerging from Brodick Bay. It is breezy, and even from here I can see the whitecaps skipping past her.

I drop down from Mullach Buidhe, and begin the climb up to the summit of North Goatfell.  Here I get my first glimpse in to Glen Rosa, and the scrambling begins again.   From North Goatfell there is an escape path that runs along the east side of the ridge towards Goatfell. This is a useful route for those who don’t like heights or in poor weather.  The scramble over the top of Stacach ridge itself although short, involves serious situations and one or two “technical” moves.

            I slither down from North Goatfell over granite slabs and turn my attention to the ridge.  A series of blocky tors bar my way and I must seek out the easiest way up, over and down each one. The largest, involves a series of shelves above a huge drop, known as the “Giant’s Steps”. Climbing these is like getting out of a swimming pool over and over again, and I inelegantly heave my way on to each shelf. The rock here is fantastic. Rough slabs grip the soles of my boots reassuringly while I grapple with coarse blocks and flakes. I get a few grazed knuckles, but it is a small price to pay. I take my time, savouring each moment, as Goatfell looms in to view.

            At the highest point on Arran a magnificent panorama unfolds before me. The deep defile of Glen Rosa drops away suddenly, and each of the buckled peaks of the Goatfell Range rises up to meet me. A ribbon of ocean encircles the island, and beyond I pick out Ben Lomond, the Arrochar Alps, and the Paps of Jura.  I know that I can see Glencoe from this point, having spotted Goatfell in a reverse view, but it is impossible to identify the individual peaks amongst the tangle in the north. To the south, I can see Ailsa Craig like a distant cone floating on the sea, and the shadowy shape of Northern Ireland against the sun.

            At last from here my way is down, and I stick to the natural line of my journey taking the bouldery South Ridge of Goatfell for as long as possible.  Finally, I say goodbye to this fine granite highway just before it plunges steeply to Glenshant Hill, and I turn east down a heathery flank towards the main path, that takes me safely to Brodick.  

Tips for enjoying Arran’s Hills:

• Make sure you are properly equipped for changeable mountain weather.
• Always carry a map and compass and know how to use them.
• Take your litter home with you
• Leave a route card with your estimated return time.

Walking on the Wild Side: John Muir- The Call of the Wild

This is the third of a series of articles that I am writing for the Voice for Arran about Walking and Wildlife on Arran. This article appeared in April 2011 to celebrate the birthday on the 21st April of wilderness visionary John Muir. 

My first encounter with John Muir was just two years ago, though he had already been dead for 94 years. While working on the Arran Wildlife Festival, an email dropped in to my jam-packed inbox from Dan Sealy, of the US National Park Service’s Centre for Urban Ecology.  “Ranger Dan” was coming to Scotland, on a pilgrimage to the birth place of his champion.  We welcomed Dan to the festival, and arranged for this unassuming man to hijack a bat detecting evening to deliver a talk to the unsuspecting audience on the life and legacy of an American hero from Dunbar, Scotland. 

Muir was born on the 21st April 1838, and at the age of eleven immigrated with his father to Wisconsin.  His early years were filled with bone breaking labour on the family farm, but he showed signs of genius and eventually found a place aged 23 at Wisconsin University.  Here Muir was set upon the scientific path that would allow him to record and write about the wild places that he visited, but it was his years living rough in the mountains in the 1870s that set his soul on fire. He is lauded in America as the father of the National Parks and it is surprising that he is a relatively unknown figure in his native home of Scotland. The John Muir Trust has done much to re-dress this balance and now owns several remote Scottish estates, working as an advocate for the enjoyment and protection of wild land and promoting outdoor education for the young.  However, most people in this country are unaware of the man or his role in the birth of the worldwide conservation movement.  Inspired by Ranger Dan, I began to read Muir’s writing. What I have found inscribed within those pages is arresting and enlightening.

Muir the visionary

Muir was driven by a compulsion to understand, experience and endure the wild in all its forms. He kept detailed records of the habitats he explored, and sought out extreme and dangerous encounters that brought him closer to the wild nature that he admired. A committed Christian, Muir’s passion was fuelled by an evangelical natural mysticism. He did not see man as the God-given custodian of the landscape, instead he regarded the wild places and their inhabitants as teachers, and he strove to learn by their example.  He wrote often of nature’s “loving lessons[1]”, and compared them to the harsh religious schooling he had received at home. In the complex and miraculous web of nature, he saw the hand of God in action. 

Marvelling at the Sierra forests after a violent storm, he wrote: “But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fibre thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God’s first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn in to cathedrals and churches the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself.[2]”

Muir the conservationist

Muir’s unique spiritual perspective combined with scientific method and exceptional recording skills allowed him to see complex relationships in the natural world.  Way ahead of his time, his writing is a rallying call for ecologists: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.[3]”  Although he married and settled with a family, Muir felt most at home in the wilderness.  He understood the healing power of nature for the body and the soul. He wrote of the importance of wild places for society; “Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.[4]”  This formed the basis of his argument for protecting wild landscapes that ultimately gave rise to the American National Parks movement.

Muir for the modern world

Muir writes about nature in a way that articulates what many who love the outdoors feel, but struggle to express.  We know instinctively that our brushes with the wild are rejuvenating experiences. Most of us who live on Arran have chosen to do so and those that came from outside were drawn here in part by the magnificent natural environment. Nowhere on Arran is untouched by human influence, and yet in the high places, and on the ragged coastlines, nature’s power and intricate splendour thrives in a way that is moving to all who pause to enjoy it.  For me, the joy of living here has been getting to know the details, and like Muir, observing the lives and characters of the island’s wild residents. As each season passes, the delicate piping of the winter redshanks, or the tireless exuberance of meadow pipits in spring, lifts my spirits and roots me in the present.

Muir’s language is luminous, passionate, and fiery. It is a paean to a wildness already long gone from much of America, and it is heartbreaking to imagine what he would make of his native Scotland in modern times. But his work has an even greater relevance to our urbanised world than ever before. There is so little left of wild Britain that we must treasure it. We can begin here on Arran by recognising the value of our natural environment not only to us, but the thousands of tourists who come here each year to experience the healing power of a different pace of life.  If we can go further, as Muir did, and recognise the sanctity and substance of life no matter how small, woody or fierce, we stand to benefit immeasurably from the simple pleasure of finding our own place woven in to this astonishing world. 

Reading Muir: Journeys in the Wilderness:  A John Muir Reader is a paperback containing the selected works of John Muir, with an introduction by Graham White.

John Muir Trust: For more information about the work of the JMT visit the website: www.jmt.org.uk

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[1] The Story of My Boyhood and My Youth.

[2] My First Summer in the Sierra

[3] My First Summer in the Sierra

[4] Our National Parks

Walking on the Wild Side: Magical Machrie Moor

This is the second of a series of articles that I am writing for the Voice for Arran about Walking and Wildlife on Arran.

 

 I love getting to know the layers of a landscape. For me, walking on Arran is an ongoing study in the composition and history of a place. Footpaths and structures are knitted into the land like bones and blood vessels. The walk from roadside to Machrie Stone Circles, for example, passes through five thousand years of human endeavour, lovingly erected from the rock of ages in just a couple of miles of rutted farm track.

My favourite time to arrive at the moor is late in the day as the sun’s rays are at a low angle. I wait until the car park has begun to empty, and cross the stile opposite. The track to the Stones cuts across meadows and skirts the wooded river bank above the Machrie Water. The track shortly bends away from the river and I pass the mysterious “Moss Farm Road Cairn”. This cairn looks for all the world like a stone circle, but is believed to be a kerbed cairn, encircled by a rim of lumpy boulders marking its outer edge.

The track rises through rough pasture and sweet gorse, until I’m at the fringes of the moor. I briefly turn off the path, to pay a visit to a favourite place, a hut circle some twenty feet in diameter, hidden amongst the soft rushes and heather. This was once the dwelling place for a Bronze Age family. Similar structures have been excavated all over Britain. The inhabitants herded their animals and steadfastly tilled the land. Theirs was a time of great cultural flowering, when stone monuments sprung up all over the country. Populations were expanding, settling new places now abandoned even by modern farmers. Today, a raised ring of rushes marks all that is left of their home. In summer, spotted heath orchids grow proudly in the boggy centre of the hut where I imagine there was once a hearth.

Returning to the track, it isn’t long before I reach the first of the stone circles, a double ring of granite boulders. Sixty five million years ago, the rock swirled and heaved in the bosom of a huge volcano. The magma cooled, and the outer crust of lava was slowly eroded to reveal the granite core. Boulders were dragged down from the hills by ancient glaciers, which in turn faltered and melted more than ten thousand years ago, leaving rocks marooned in the landscape, ready for humans to trundle the last few metres into place. This circle is known as Fingal’s Cauldron Seat, and it is said that the celtic giant tethered his great dog Bran to one of the boulders while he boiled water for his supper. The derelict buildings of Moss Farm sit opposite. The crumbling walls are home to starlings and swallows in the summer.

I go through the gate and on to the moor itself. The setting sun is reflected by the orange glow of the sandstone pillars that stand erect like bare tree trunks. The circle builders chose a combination of granite boulders and quarried sandstone. Where sandstone was used, there is a sense that this was with a purpose, now hidden. Six circles have been discovered and of these, four include sandstone as well as granite. All have been excavated, with varying degrees of care. The most recent excavations by Alison Haggarty were published in 1991. It was Haggarty who made the last circle discovery, a sixth secret buried beneath the peat. Who knows if there are more?

Today the moor is a wet and inhospitable place for humans. Crisscrossed by ditches, dense birch and willow scrub, and pocked with hidden mires, the moor is home to fearsome adders and birds of prey. Lines of broken fences confirm sporadic sheep grazing, but the moor feels like a wild place.

It was not always like this. The land of the circle builders used to be rich and ripe. Below the peat and beneath the stones have been found the marks of ploughs etched into an old and fertile soil. Older still are the posts and pits that tell the true age of the site. Haggarty’s excavations revealed that the first circles on the moor were wrought of timber four and a half thousand years ago. Even earlier are fragments of pottery and rough pits left behind by early pastoralists, Neolithic people living five thousand years ago. The story of the moor is of a thousand years of population growth and intensification. Settlements sprang up, and with them sacred places for people to gather together, built first of wood, and then stone. The site reached its zenith some time in the beginning of the second millennium BC, when the people carefully buried the cremated remains of their kin inside the circles with precious implements and hand crafted earthenware.

Eventually, the climate began to sour and the moor became a less friendly place. The weather deteriorated and the peat grew and deepened. The people retreated to the margins of the land, farming the fertile strip between coast and hill. The moor was left alone and the black bog took hold, in places reaching a depth of three metres.

I sit with my back to sun-warmed sandstone and try to imagine how the moor would have felt all those years ago. I picture a settled scene, small hamlets surrounding an area of common land, quilted with a patchwork of crops and pasture. Wooden stakes mark out animal enclosures, and circles of stone stand neatly in the centre of a hive of activity. For a moment I can hear the homely songs of the farmers, but they are lost in the fluting calls of curlews carried on the wind. Machrie moor still brims with life, but it belongs to wilder inhabitants now.
Things to look out for on Machrie Moor:

• Moorland birds including curlew, wheatear, meadow pipit, hen harrier, buzzard, short eared owl and kestrel
• A hole in a boulder in the first circle where Fingal is said to have tethered his dog, Bran.
• Two half-finished mill stones, fashioned in recent centuries from granite standing stones.

Take Care:

• The moor is a working sheep farm. Keep dogs on a lead at all times.
• Stick to the main path to avoid getting bogged down or disturbing wildlife.

Walking on the Wild Side: Winters Coastline

When winter bites the Isle of Arran is a haven for wildlife.  This article is the first of a series that I am writing for the Voice for Arran about walking and wildlife on Arran.

It is a dark blustery day on Arran and I’m walking along a rocky shore. A wet wind stings my face and finds its way through all my layers of clothing. Cold is not the word, bitter seems closer to the mark.  I’m determined to endure this harsh salty world for as long as possible- it’s a daily reality to the birds and mammals that forage along our coastlines.  I’d like to catch a glimpse of the animals that thrive on the bounty our wild coast provides in winter.

I crouch amongst a jumbled rib of rocks separating two sandy bays. On the beach either side I spot groups of bold oystercatchers.  Oystercatchers can be found everywhere along the coast of Arran, with their unmistakeable black and white plumage, long red bill and legs. In spring their indignant cries can be heard up and down the island, as they defend their territories from each other, marauding gulls and careless humans.  Today, they are conserving energy, and my presence raises barely a flutter. They forage in the piles of seaweed strewn across the beach, using their beaks to root through the fronds, hunting soft creatures and molluscs.

Further down the beach, redshanks scurry amongst the foam.  Their little grey bodies tip back and forth in the surf like toy boats. They stab their delicate beaks in to the surging waves. Every now and then I catch a glimpse of their long legs in crimson stockings. I wonder how such a slight and impractically dressed bird can find a living at the waters edge on a day like today.

Concentrating harder, I can see small birds that move like clockwork pebbles amongst the redshanks. Ringed plovers are tiny reminders of the toughness that lies beneath nature’s beauty.  Close up, their striped heads and orange beaks make them look like minuscule clowns.  From a distance, they are almost invisible.

Suddenly they lift up in a flash of barred wings. Alarm spreads up the beach as a female sparrowhawk darts amongst the boulders. She tests first the oystercatchers, then the smaller birds in the surf.  Angry cries are carried on the wind.  She retreats, hunt unsuccessful, to a hollow bank at the back of the beach.  I can see her beady eye watching intently from the dark cover. She will try her luck again. What she is doing away from her usual woodland and hedgerow haunts I can’t say, but perhaps when the weather is cold she too finds easiest pickings on the beach.

When winter bites Arran is a haven for wildfowl and other birds. The temperatures are milder at the coast, and even the blackbirds and the pipits know there is food to be found amongst the rotting seaweed. Many of the birds along the shore are winter visitors. Some like the redshank, come from as far away as Iceland.

My eye is drawn out to sea. A pair of eiders sit amongst the waves.  There is a determined hunch to their backs as they weather the storm. The female is dark like her mallard cousins, but her powerful shape betrays a tough marine existence. She is a true sea duck. The male is dressed in gaudy black and white. Later in the year he will gather with other males in a sheltered bay up the coast to show off his flashy feathers but right now he seems happy to hunker down between the breakers.

Beyond the eiders, I glimpse a strange conical shape. It’s the nose of a seal, protruding out of the water. Unable or unwilling to haul out on to the rocks in this wild weather, the seal is bobbing like a cork in the ocean. Just its nose protrudes, and it will lounge about this way for hours. In calmer weather, seals prefer to sleep on land, and the large boulders that jut out of the sea become luxury couches at low tide. From the snub shape of this seal’s nose, I can see that it is a harbour seal.  Often called common seals, they are anything but. There is a small population here on Arran, but elsewhere their numbers are falling. We also get regular visits from the larger grey seal, and the two will often haul out together.  They can be told apart by the shape of their noses- harbour seals have charming “spaniel” like faces, while grey seals have regal “roman” noses. At 300kg, an adult male grey seal is a very noble beast indeed. 

I’m getting really cold now, my clothes are soaked and I’m ready to go. Just before I turn away, I catch a hint of something- a flick of a long pointed tail. There is another, and a low humped back that rolls through the water. Focussing now, I see more, and a pattern of tails and humps that flow like liquid… one… two… three… A mother otter and her two cubs are on the move. A small, pale face appears and dives.  She catches a wave, and I see a row of brown sausages surfing the breakers. Barely breathing, I watch them, heading west along the coast, until they disappear from view in the gloomy light.

Warmed by the fleeting glimpse of the otter family, I finally stumble to my feet. Time to get out of the wind and rain where luckily for me, a warm fire and hot drink await.

Tips for enjoying coastal wildlife:

• Keep your distance and use binoculars to get a better view.
• Take your time, keep your voice down and dogs on a lead.
• Keep an eye on the behaviour of your subjects- are you affecting them?
• Never disturb or follow animals and birds with young.
• Take your litter home and don’t light fires.
• Look for otter and bird tracks in the sand.

For more information about guided walks with Lucy, visit her website www.arranwildwalks.co.uk or email info@arranwildwalks.co.uk