Ecosse and Beyond: April 2012

28 April Saturday

Beinn Tarsuinn – snow overnight!

I decided to visit the Museum in Brodick, which is very good.

The big ones are big. Clydesdales

A telephone exchange

Petrol measures (2 + 3 galls)

Types of Arran potatoes developed by Donald McKelvie. Maris Piper is a decendant (not of McKelvie but of some of his Arran potato types)

On the way to Lochranza I stopped at Corrie -

- worth while for the sheep and for my first siting of the year of a black guillemot, first the sheep

then the guillemot

Lochranza

The camp site

The golf course

The kirk (with bell in situ)

I saw a weasel and heard a cuckoo. Oh, and I forgot to say I saw a hare last Monday….

Staying at Kildonan a second night, I visited the hotel adjoining the campsite which was rather depressing – I decided the owners were hanging around the wrong side of the bar and a couple of youngsters were rushing round serving them first and the not many customers second. I ordered mussels which were a starter and with the amount on the plate the description almost should have been in the singular.

The harbour at Blackwaterfoot

Today I heard a cuckoo. I saw gannets flying and diving and a flock of greenfinch. Also cormorants (or shags?). And the smell of gorse.

This is a Tertiary Drumadoon sill (geology).

The lump at the end of Mull of Kintyre is called The Bastard

The King’s Caves (middle distance) – a raised beach (geology) and supposedly where Robert the Bruce studied the spider. I’m not sure that any self respecting spiders still lodge there

and it is Spring….

Another milestone

My view tonight

26th April – Thursday

Kildonan:

Pladda and Ailsa Criag

The only brick built house – built for the Clarks (shoes)

The church bell – moved and now in a rather ignominious position

The War Memorial is a pile of rocks

An interesting take on antlers:

A seal

Kildonan

Is this an eagle??

Ailsa Craig

Looking west

Eider ducks

While the weather was wet and windy I saw lots of wildlife: as well as the eider duck I saw shelduck, a heron, curlew (or whimbrel?), ferral geese, red breasted merganzers (a first for me), a flock of goldfinch. And the lovely smell of gorse.

A milestone – the road around the island is 56 miles

25th April, Wednesday

Moving on from Cordon, I went first to Brodick Castle.

The entrance to the Castle

The current castle is a Victorian nostrum. Part of it, at the back, dates back to the C15th – and Robert the Bruce was there.

Arran was given to the Hamiltons by an early James (III?) and in 1895 inherited by the Duchess of Montrose, a Hamilton daughter. One of the Hamiltons was a collector – some fine china – even to my untotored eye, lovely claret jugs in the shapes of birds and animals and, for Harry Potter fans a Bezoar stone in a gold cup with a chain (used for checking for poison). No photos allowed – and, a loss of opportunity, no post card of the item. In fact the post card collection in National Trust of Scotland properties is a major failure.

However I did manage to sneak a picture of the following:

But the Bezoar stone got me thinking what the J K Rowling connection was…. I’ve found out subsequently that her great great grandfather, a minister of the kirk, is buried in Lamlash Kirkyard.

I could take pictures of the Bavarian summerhouse

Inside walls and ceiling lined with pine cones

There are red squirrels in the castle grounds but they did not come out for me. However the dinosaur in the wood carver’s garden was on guard …

as was his dog.

The wood carver’s gate.

Further down the coast at Kingscross, a Viking burial and fort, overlooking Holy Island and Robert the Bruce crossed to the mainland from here.

Looking back at Lamlash

Walked up to Glenashdale Falls from Whiting Bay – I think this is an geological fault but there is no explanation. (I’ve since found out the water falls over a Tertiary composite sill)