The seals sunning themselves on the rocks above the high tide provided some interest for the passengers on the bus. ‘Gets our seal of approval’ said our wag. We ignored him but it caused some amusement among the rest of the passengers and he was pleased enough with himself. We were pleased with ourselves as well for nine of us were on the bus travelling the coast road northward from Brodick towards Lochranza; we were for another day on Arran, this time for a lower level walk round the coast from Lochranza to Laggan Cottage and Sannox. And this time the sun was shining. (See 01/07/09)
We had taken the 9:45 ferry from Ardrossan and the connecting bus service in Brodick and found ourselves travelling along the coast, over the pass of Boguillie to Glen Chalmadale and disembarking at the golf course in Lochranza.
Apart from the seals spotted from the bus, we also saw deer, red deer, as we came over the pass from Sannox, groups of fours or fives browsing the heather slopes above us. But this was nothing to the numbers we saw on the golf course of Lochranza, not fours or fives in this area, but tens and dozens in different groups along the fairways completely undisturbed by the hackers trying to play through. An obliging stag came close to the road and posed for our cameramen. It will be interesting to see who took the best photo, that is if they don’t all turn out the same. We will wait and see.
The deer provided the topic of conversation for the next few minutes. The wildlifers extolled the beauty of the stag, while the golfers wondered about the ruling if your ball stuck somewhere on its anatomy.
Such conversation took us to a sign designated ‘Laggan Cottage’ pointed us up a gently sloping track. We wandered up the track leaving the floor of Glen Chalmadale and the golf course behind us but we weren’t on this too long. Another signpost saying ‘Laggan Cottage 2 1/2 miles’ directed us up a well constructed path, a steeper path but not unduly so and we climbed casually with it through the heather.
Our wildlife spotting continued with insect life. An iridescent blue damselfly darted across the road in front of Davie but remained unseen by the rest of us. Nobody could fail to see the butterflies, though such were the numbers. Red Admirals, Peacocks and different species of Whites flitted in the heather around us, landing to feed and sun on the maturing blossoms. We also felt the need to feed and sun ourselves. So, beside a wee bridge over a wee burn, on an outcrop of sunlit rock, we stopped for coffee.
We stopped, but the wildlife interest didn’t. A buzzard could be heard but not seen on the far side of the glen and a dragonfly, a Common Darter, dashed past us into some bracken as we sat. And we sat for some time; it was a day for that.
When we roused ourselves after coffee, we continued to climb with the path. It rose more steeply now and lifted us high on the side of Glen Chalmadale. The high, rocky peaks of the north Arran mountains began to show on the far side of the glen - Suidhe Fearghas (Fergus’s Seat), Ceum-na-Caillich (Witch’s Step) and Caisteal Abhail (The Castles) with the Goat Fell ridge behind. And the view improved the higher we got.
We rose beside the Allt Chailean. Some suggested we were rising in the allt for the path here ran with water. After the kind of summer we have had, this was less than surprising but that didn’t stop the hydrophobes complaining. However, this was to be the only wet bit of the day and we were on drier footing when we came through the pass of Tom a’ Buidhe and found ourselves high above the sea, looking out to the Isle of Bute and the north Ayrshire coast.
As the relic of a sea cliff of glacial times, the ground fell steeply away from our feet to the raised beach some seven hundred feet below but the path slanted much more gently down the flank of the steep. The path was narrow but well constructed and graded, and feet could be placed with confidence. This gave us ample opportunity to look about us. The view was mainly to the seawards for the ground sloped equally steeply above us but what a view it was to the seaward. The low-lying ground of Bute lay immediately across the water and to the south of this the cliffs of the Wee Cumbrae stood out; the coast of Ayrshire ran away southwards and in the north the ‘lum’ of Inverkip power station marked where the Clyde Firth turned towards Greenock. Superb.
Gannets fished just offshore and amused us no end by plunging arrow-like into the sea only to bob to the surface a few moments later swallowing their catch. They continued to amuse us, especially he with the binoculars, as we dropped down the slope towards Laggan Cottage.
A young couple came towards us up the path. Recognising one of our number as a former teacher of theirs, they stopped for a blether. While teacher and pupil reminisced, the rest of us walked on and waited out of earshot. The gannets kept us amused until the blethers rejoined us. Then it was downward yet, to the cottage at Laggan.
Three pinkish grey and black ‘hoodie craws’ lifted from the ground as we approached the cottage adding to our wildlife for the day.
Lunch was called at the cottage and we settled down in the sun once more. A man was already there when we arrived and a few minutes later he was joined by a woman*. ‘Did you find them?’ he asked her but she answered in the negative. Then she asked us which way we were heading. When we told her, she asked if we could keep an eye out for a brown leather spec case with a pair of specs inside. Being the obliging kind of folk we are we promised to keep a lookout for them. She thanked us in advance and left contact details with Allan who promised to leave them in the ticket office on the pier at Brodick. ‘They’re either beside a large boulder where I stopped to spend a penny’, said she, ‘or in the ladies toilet at Sannox’. There was no shortage of volunteers among us for a search of the ladies toilet. ‘Also, keep an eye out for the basking sharks’, said he changing the subject, ‘There’s two of them near the fallen rocks’. Then they thanked us once again and went on their way towards Lochranza.
We however, turned our steps southward along the raised beach towards Sannox and we were to stay on this raised beach for the rest of the walk. The going was level, dry and easy and we strolled along the path looking seaward, ever hopeful of spotting sharks. Holly played water-sticks with anybody who could throw the stick as far as the sea. Down the shingle beaches she ran, over the slippery rocks she clambered and all the time splashing into the sea and swimming to retrieve the stick. How we wished we had half her energy. But we had energy enough to wander along that path taking pleasure in a rare day of warm sunshine.
We approached the Fallen Rocks with still no sign of specs, or sharks. A sudden yell of ‘Shark!’ had us all stopped looking seaward at the blue-black dorsal fin slicing through the water. This disappeared and reappeared, shrank and grew according to the swell. It was occasionally joined by a tail fin. We estimated the distance between dorsal and tail to be around three metres, giving a total length of around five metres – a fair sized fish and, had Rex been with us, he would have been calculating how many shark steaks this would have made. Then another dorsal appeared some twenty metres away. There were at least two sharks patrolling that stretch of water.
Not only were there sharks here but, as we watched, a large salmon leapt from the waves adding another sighting to our wildlife list for the day. ‘We just need a snake or a lizard and we’ll have covered the five orders of the animal kingdom’, said the naturalist, but we felt this was just asking too much, considering what we had already seen.
We left the fallen rocks and the fishes behind and came into the trees of Sannox Wood. Here, on the arm of a bench was the missing spec case complete with specs. Allan collected it, texted the owner and promised to leave them with the ticket office. Then, feeling that we had been of some use to humanity, we walked on though one or two were disappointed that we wouldn’t get to search the ladies toilet now.
A break was called when we reached the toilets and car park at the foot of the Sannox Water. A man with binoculars stood looking out to sea. We thought perhaps he was looking at more sharks but the two spots we could see turned out to be two more seals, heads up looking back at the man with binoculars. How disappointed we were that they were only seals.
Robert said, ‘We don’t need to go onto the road. There’s a path round the shore from here’. Yes Robert, there may well be a path round the shore but good as we are, we haven’t yet mastered the walking on water bit. We had to turn back a little, come up the side of the river for two or three hundred metres to find a bridge and come back down the other side. We were now only forty metres from where the master spoke but he was right - there was a path round the shore.
The path took us under high sandstone cliffs where some of our number learned the techniques of abseiling. But that was before time and beer added a few more pounds to their frames and we wondered if there would be an abseiling rope strong enough to hold them now. They chose not to hear this thought and walked on.
We emerged from the scrubby woodland surrounding our path at the bus stop. We had five minutes to wait for the bus back to Brodick. The five minutes was taken up by measuring the length of a basking shark in the gravel (there are at least three sizes for the same fish depending on whose stride length you believe) or by planning future outings on the high peaks. Two walks have been added to our ‘to do’ list - The Witches Step and The Castles from North Glen Sannox and The Ben Nuis horseshoe. Before any more could be added, the bus arrived.
The bus took us to Brodick in time for the 16:40 ferry to the mainland. We didn’t think it would so we got off the bus before the pier to take FRT in Mac’s Bar. But then we saw the ferry and made a dash for it. Such was our hurry that Allan very nearly forgot to leave the found specs and had to make a hasty trip back to the ticket office. But he managed the ferry just in time.
FRT was taken on the ferry on the way back to the mainland and next weeks walk was ‘planned’.
*The lady in question was Judy Angel and the man was Henry Ferris both of whom have placed a comment on the blog under arrangements for the next walk. All we can say is that it was a pleasure Judy and despite our appearance and misogynistic approach to women in our group, we really are nice people.
We had taken the 9:45 ferry from Ardrossan and the connecting bus service in Brodick and found ourselves travelling along the coast, over the pass of Boguillie to Glen Chalmadale and disembarking at the golf course in Lochranza.
Apart from the seals spotted from the bus, we also saw deer, red deer, as we came over the pass from Sannox, groups of fours or fives browsing the heather slopes above us. But this was nothing to the numbers we saw on the golf course of Lochranza, not fours or fives in this area, but tens and dozens in different groups along the fairways completely undisturbed by the hackers trying to play through. An obliging stag came close to the road and posed for our cameramen. It will be interesting to see who took the best photo, that is if they don’t all turn out the same. We will wait and see.
The deer provided the topic of conversation for the next few minutes. The wildlifers extolled the beauty of the stag, while the golfers wondered about the ruling if your ball stuck somewhere on its anatomy.
Such conversation took us to a sign designated ‘Laggan Cottage’ pointed us up a gently sloping track. We wandered up the track leaving the floor of Glen Chalmadale and the golf course behind us but we weren’t on this too long. Another signpost saying ‘Laggan Cottage 2 1/2 miles’ directed us up a well constructed path, a steeper path but not unduly so and we climbed casually with it through the heather.
Our wildlife spotting continued with insect life. An iridescent blue damselfly darted across the road in front of Davie but remained unseen by the rest of us. Nobody could fail to see the butterflies, though such were the numbers. Red Admirals, Peacocks and different species of Whites flitted in the heather around us, landing to feed and sun on the maturing blossoms. We also felt the need to feed and sun ourselves. So, beside a wee bridge over a wee burn, on an outcrop of sunlit rock, we stopped for coffee.
We stopped, but the wildlife interest didn’t. A buzzard could be heard but not seen on the far side of the glen and a dragonfly, a Common Darter, dashed past us into some bracken as we sat. And we sat for some time; it was a day for that.
When we roused ourselves after coffee, we continued to climb with the path. It rose more steeply now and lifted us high on the side of Glen Chalmadale. The high, rocky peaks of the north Arran mountains began to show on the far side of the glen - Suidhe Fearghas (Fergus’s Seat), Ceum-na-Caillich (Witch’s Step) and Caisteal Abhail (The Castles) with the Goat Fell ridge behind. And the view improved the higher we got.
We rose beside the Allt Chailean. Some suggested we were rising in the allt for the path here ran with water. After the kind of summer we have had, this was less than surprising but that didn’t stop the hydrophobes complaining. However, this was to be the only wet bit of the day and we were on drier footing when we came through the pass of Tom a’ Buidhe and found ourselves high above the sea, looking out to the Isle of Bute and the north Ayrshire coast.
As the relic of a sea cliff of glacial times, the ground fell steeply away from our feet to the raised beach some seven hundred feet below but the path slanted much more gently down the flank of the steep. The path was narrow but well constructed and graded, and feet could be placed with confidence. This gave us ample opportunity to look about us. The view was mainly to the seawards for the ground sloped equally steeply above us but what a view it was to the seaward. The low-lying ground of Bute lay immediately across the water and to the south of this the cliffs of the Wee Cumbrae stood out; the coast of Ayrshire ran away southwards and in the north the ‘lum’ of Inverkip power station marked where the Clyde Firth turned towards Greenock. Superb.
Gannets fished just offshore and amused us no end by plunging arrow-like into the sea only to bob to the surface a few moments later swallowing their catch. They continued to amuse us, especially he with the binoculars, as we dropped down the slope towards Laggan Cottage.
A young couple came towards us up the path. Recognising one of our number as a former teacher of theirs, they stopped for a blether. While teacher and pupil reminisced, the rest of us walked on and waited out of earshot. The gannets kept us amused until the blethers rejoined us. Then it was downward yet, to the cottage at Laggan.
Three pinkish grey and black ‘hoodie craws’ lifted from the ground as we approached the cottage adding to our wildlife for the day.
Lunch was called at the cottage and we settled down in the sun once more. A man was already there when we arrived and a few minutes later he was joined by a woman*. ‘Did you find them?’ he asked her but she answered in the negative. Then she asked us which way we were heading. When we told her, she asked if we could keep an eye out for a brown leather spec case with a pair of specs inside. Being the obliging kind of folk we are we promised to keep a lookout for them. She thanked us in advance and left contact details with Allan who promised to leave them in the ticket office on the pier at Brodick. ‘They’re either beside a large boulder where I stopped to spend a penny’, said she, ‘or in the ladies toilet at Sannox’. There was no shortage of volunteers among us for a search of the ladies toilet. ‘Also, keep an eye out for the basking sharks’, said he changing the subject, ‘There’s two of them near the fallen rocks’. Then they thanked us once again and went on their way towards Lochranza.
We however, turned our steps southward along the raised beach towards Sannox and we were to stay on this raised beach for the rest of the walk. The going was level, dry and easy and we strolled along the path looking seaward, ever hopeful of spotting sharks. Holly played water-sticks with anybody who could throw the stick as far as the sea. Down the shingle beaches she ran, over the slippery rocks she clambered and all the time splashing into the sea and swimming to retrieve the stick. How we wished we had half her energy. But we had energy enough to wander along that path taking pleasure in a rare day of warm sunshine.
We approached the Fallen Rocks with still no sign of specs, or sharks. A sudden yell of ‘Shark!’ had us all stopped looking seaward at the blue-black dorsal fin slicing through the water. This disappeared and reappeared, shrank and grew according to the swell. It was occasionally joined by a tail fin. We estimated the distance between dorsal and tail to be around three metres, giving a total length of around five metres – a fair sized fish and, had Rex been with us, he would have been calculating how many shark steaks this would have made. Then another dorsal appeared some twenty metres away. There were at least two sharks patrolling that stretch of water.
Not only were there sharks here but, as we watched, a large salmon leapt from the waves adding another sighting to our wildlife list for the day. ‘We just need a snake or a lizard and we’ll have covered the five orders of the animal kingdom’, said the naturalist, but we felt this was just asking too much, considering what we had already seen.
We left the fallen rocks and the fishes behind and came into the trees of Sannox Wood. Here, on the arm of a bench was the missing spec case complete with specs. Allan collected it, texted the owner and promised to leave them with the ticket office. Then, feeling that we had been of some use to humanity, we walked on though one or two were disappointed that we wouldn’t get to search the ladies toilet now.
A break was called when we reached the toilets and car park at the foot of the Sannox Water. A man with binoculars stood looking out to sea. We thought perhaps he was looking at more sharks but the two spots we could see turned out to be two more seals, heads up looking back at the man with binoculars. How disappointed we were that they were only seals.
Robert said, ‘We don’t need to go onto the road. There’s a path round the shore from here’. Yes Robert, there may well be a path round the shore but good as we are, we haven’t yet mastered the walking on water bit. We had to turn back a little, come up the side of the river for two or three hundred metres to find a bridge and come back down the other side. We were now only forty metres from where the master spoke but he was right - there was a path round the shore.
The path took us under high sandstone cliffs where some of our number learned the techniques of abseiling. But that was before time and beer added a few more pounds to their frames and we wondered if there would be an abseiling rope strong enough to hold them now. They chose not to hear this thought and walked on.
We emerged from the scrubby woodland surrounding our path at the bus stop. We had five minutes to wait for the bus back to Brodick. The five minutes was taken up by measuring the length of a basking shark in the gravel (there are at least three sizes for the same fish depending on whose stride length you believe) or by planning future outings on the high peaks. Two walks have been added to our ‘to do’ list - The Witches Step and The Castles from North Glen Sannox and The Ben Nuis horseshoe. Before any more could be added, the bus arrived.
The bus took us to Brodick in time for the 16:40 ferry to the mainland. We didn’t think it would so we got off the bus before the pier to take FRT in Mac’s Bar. But then we saw the ferry and made a dash for it. Such was our hurry that Allan very nearly forgot to leave the found specs and had to make a hasty trip back to the ticket office. But he managed the ferry just in time.
FRT was taken on the ferry on the way back to the mainland and next weeks walk was ‘planned’.
*The lady in question was Judy Angel and the man was Henry Ferris both of whom have placed a comment on the blog under arrangements for the next walk. All we can say is that it was a pleasure Judy and despite our appearance and misogynistic approach to women in our group, we really are nice people.
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