Strome Castle - through the arch to the edge of the world

all images COPYRIGHT asserted - David Geddes at The Open Sky

Beyond the arch in the ruins of Strome Castle lie the islands at the mouth of Loch Carrann where seals haul out to pup and seabirds nest and fledge. Dolphins cruise to feed mouths facing into the incoming tide. This moves at about 5 knots and when wind assisted can reach 7 knots in the narrows known from the Norse as the 'Straum' - a tidal race. The word has also crossed into the Gaelic.  Under the straum runs the Moine Shift - a significant geological fault which pushes the rock structure upwards. The income tide has vertical and horizontal constrictions to negotiate. Its a great place to have fun in a sea kayak.

The next island silhouetted is Raasay. One can cross and visit from Skye which lies behind providing the serrated mountain landscape of the Cuillin mountains, named after Finn McCuill the legendary warrior. Raasay enjoys a much more benign ownership after the barren period of landlord-ism administered by the absent Dr Green. Community buy outs of the old estates are starting to become common enough that we can soon expect the boundaries of bought out estates to co-join. Applecross is close by. Pairc is across the Minch on Lewis. The John Muir Trust and RSPB now have significant land holdings. Glen Moriston recently changed hands to establish a new wild life corridor.

Strome Castle gazes south west. A sea facing arch provides a splendid frame for photographs. This location is found in most landscape photographers stock images. However I live close by.  Visiting the castle is one of my late evening dog walking chores. My chocolate Labrador bitch has collie boyfriends close by.

On the beaches either side of the castle rock, the MacDonalds of Glengarry would have pulled out their birlinns. Before them Norse pillagers would have beached their war galleys here. In the early 1600s the MacKenzies and their Kintail kinsmen the McRaes laid siege to this castle, objecting to a Clan Ranald foothold on this part of their mainland.  The castle withstood the siege until it is said some womenfolk collecting water from a well, filled a barrel containing all the defenders' gun powder. A bad mistake. Safe passage was subsequently arranged, and the defenders so evicted, the castle was then blown up by the MacKenzies who had retained dry gunpowder!. For the Scottish Highlands of the time, a remarkably bloodless outcome. It was more common for all the defeated defenders to find their heads in the well. 

On the nearby Eilean a Fraoch (the small heathery island) guillemots and shags roost in the winter. Otters swim the bay. Occasionally the dolphins chase pollock, salmon and sea trout around the prawn creel boats on their buoys. Herons stalk the tidal fringes. Pine Martens leave little mounds of chewed up rowan berries on conspicuous rocks. Orchids are common. The castle mound is covered in primroses in early spring. One can easily  lose one's soul to nature here.

Port na Mheirlich - towards Plockton, Raasay and Skye

all images COPYRIGHT asserted - David Geddes at The Open Sky

A short distance from our solitary cottage, is the steeply shelving shingle beach at Port na Mheirlich. The Gaelic translates as Port of the Thieves, but it is known throughout the district as 'Smugglers'. The view faces south south west towards the village of Plockton famous for its seafood restaurants, attractive seafront cottages and its palm trees growing in the sheltered calm of the extreme eastern limits of the Gulf Stream. Beyond Plockton is the Eilean a Chat (the little island of the cats), and then Raasay and then Skye with its Cuillin mountains.

It would be crime not to visit Smugglers with a camera, for the light there is fantastic at all times of the year. Even after the gloaming, when the contrast is poor and the sun has gone, there are pastel reflections in the water of a constantly surging tide. Taken with a higher than normal ISO setting these colours can be teased out with a little Photoshop adjustment in levels and saturation. A graded neutral density filter is normally employed when the sun is still above the horizon - although I am getting adept at using the gradient tool in layers.

Smugglers is a place that we are fond of. We occasionally met divers and campers, some of whom arrive from the sea. We launch our sea kayaks from the shingle at all points of the tide. Our chocolate Labrador swims there even on the coldest days, fondest of ending a long hot day on the ridges with a soothing swim. Sometimes we join her.

We can catch Pollock and Cod on the incoming tide which surges towards the straum (Nordic for 'tidal race') from which this place takes its name. Otters have a holt in the jumbled rocks above the beach. Dolphins plunder the fish on the nutrient rich tide and bring their young for the easy living.

I wander along the high tide debris of crab and urchin shells, for there are always shards of pottery to be found. Some of these are quite old with hand painted designs. Many more have stamped patterns. Occasionally very old broken ornamental glass is collected. Glazed terracotta is common. I once found a flint scraper many hundreds of miles from the nearest source of flints. All my best finds finish under the glass of the coffee table in the panoramic lounge.  Here above the beach, once abounded the hazel groves favoured by seaborne Mesolithic families. Thousands of years after them the Vikings would have pulled their war galleys up onto the beach, as would the MacDonalds and Mackenzies who warred over the nearby Strome Castle. It was blown up in 1602 and the MacDonalds evicted for ever.

The cliffs are cloaked with hazel, alder, sessile oak, rowan and birch. Underneath the ancient boughs is a layer of deep moss smothering the fallen branches, consuming and blanketing the rocks and woods. I love it here, still and without noise, and mostly without people. Especially as the dark falls at eventide. 

Meall Gorm - the entrance to the Celtic underworld

 All images COPYRIGHT asserted - David Geddes at The Open Sky

By Easter the sun is setting to the north of the Trotternish peninsula on Skye. In the previous post from Meall Gorm the setting sun slide behind the Island of Rum. Each May I devote 2 weeks to straivaiging Wester Ross with my cameras and a close friend who has shared climbing and photography since we were students. Its a pleasant reunion we both look forward to. 

Here above the Sea of Raasay looking west the profile of Skye is particularly well observed, but the view extend over the Small Isles and to the Outer Hebrides with the hills of Harris often quite clear. From close by and through the binoculars I recently watched for 20 minutes two schools of basking shark numbering over 50  lazing up the coast, some occasional broaching and turning, plunging back with a huge splash.

Until quite recently I had an old friend who continually talked to the 'Little People' when he was outdoors working his croft. He had an unshakable belief, that at one time would have been universal, that every rock, tree, stream, bush and field had its own spirit, and some of these spirits were quite mischievous. When looking at a map of any part of the Gaelic speaking highlands, the naming of features is prolific, and stems from these old beliefs. Being able to translate these names removes a veil from our eyes, as to what their importance - seasonal, agricultural, aesthetic or spiritual once was. 

At Samhain, close to the autumn equinox, in Celtic pre Christian times, bonfires and sacrifices would have been made to keep the spirits of the dead away from mingling with the living. Close to here at Applecross, Maelrubha was possibly the first Irish Christian to proselytise in this part of the West Highlands. Recent archaeology confirms this.

So I stand up for the renaming of all the old anglicisations made by lazy and patronising map makers devoid of an appreciation of history or culture. Their meanings should not be lost but carried forward. One look at an OS map of the 1960s and the current version will reveal that the modern mapmakers share this reality.  But before those in whose oral tradition the names reside, do die - some increased effort should be made to collect local and colloquial place names to enrich our future.

Above the lochans on Meall Gorm,  the reflected sunset, increases the colours upon the eye many fold. One might easily be lulled into that old way of believing the entrance to the Celtic underworld, from where come the water horses and kelpies, and all manner of disturbance, lies directly before us.

Meall Gorm - the dimming of a year

all images COPYRIGHT asserted David Geddes - The Open Sky 

Life has a different feel when lived from viewpoint high in landscape. There is so much more, further, above and below to observe. A wide canvas of beauties, detailed things happening all the time, a chance to be quiet and merge into the background and allow nature to come towards you. Time travels slowly when consumed in observation, distances seem longer but far away things remain in touch. Surprises abound.    
                                      

It has been a habit for many years that whenever possible the transition from old year to new year happens alone and high on a mountain. Meall Gorm is a modest mountain on the southern edge of Applecross. Its easy of access thanks to the road built over the Bealach na Ba.  My faithful chocolate Labrador 'Skye' followed me over the red sandstone glacial slabs and over to the lochans that I knew faced westwards into the setting sun, and where I planned to set up the camera and tripod.

                                                            

I summitted to see two eagles sat side by side a mere 5 metres away. They indulged me with a long hostile stare, before the dog crested the last false summit and they spread their wings and soundlessly lifted off to soar in tandem. Piercing cold descended upon us as the sun slid between veiled layers of western horizon cloud. Beyond and to the south of the Red and Black Cuillin Skye, the sunset on its way to America, slipped behind the Rum Cuillin. 

                                                                     

Moving from lochan to lochan allowed for a variety of colourful foregrounds. Each with a new layer of ice forming quickly, cracking and creaking as the ice flows joined, expanded and distorted each other. One could be forgiven for imagining the mountain was alive.

The signature colours of the west coast - saturated bright lemons, gathered around themselves cloaks of grey. As the sun slipped lower, turquoise and magentas dominated, before a deep red and bright yellow phase gave way to cold blues and indigo. A light show that not even a Pink Floyd concert could rival!                                                                                                                                  

By now the down jacket was on, silk gloves used to handle the camera and tripod, for not to do so without would mean loosing finger flesh. Over mittens and a polartec hat, with fleece lined mountaineering salopettes under the jacket. Film becomes brittle in temperatures well below freezing. Winding on has to be done with a very gentle hand. The camera used on this occasion was a Hasselblad Fuji X Pan2 with a variety of lenses, Lee graded ND filters and a large anti flare hood. The tripod was my trusty Gitzo with a ball head and quick release plate. The film  was Velvia 50 ASA exposed at 30ASA.  A hand held spot light meter complimented and fine tuned the readings from the camera.                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Privileged to have been shown such brief and transient beauty, a little more than awestruck at how perfectly the colours from the edge of the world had revealed themselves, the dog - tired from chasing white hares - and I, returned to the car, still tracked in those dark skies by the eagles. And I marvelled at my luck.

30 Images were recorded. Much more can be seen at http://picasaweb.google.com/theopensky