Tag: Ardnamurchan Peninsula

50th Birthday Holiday 14: The Birthday Meal

Continuing my account of my holiday in far western Scotland around the time of my 50th birthday with an account of the birthday meal.

Welcome to the latest post in my series about my holiday in the far west of Scotland around my 50th birthday. Following on from the post about the morning and afternoon of the day itself (Saturday 31 May) we now deal with the evening, when we having the birthday meal.

MINGARY CASTLE

The birthday meal was booked for the Mingary Castle restaurant, and it seemed logical to arrive a bit early and have time to look at the castle and its grounds. In appearance Mingary Castle looks much as Tioram Castle, at the extreme east of the Ardnamurchan Peninsula, would had it not been allowed to fall into ruins (check this post from three years ago for more about Tioram). There are some splendid sea views from the grounds (while the castle does have windows they are effectively functionless). There is also an interesting little display near the car parking area including sculptures of two frogs and a bench on which three monkey sculptures sit side by side, one seeing no evil, one hearing no evil and one speaking no evil. Inside the castle is quite impressive as well.

THE MEAL ITSELF

There were some things that would be served anyway, and we had to choose two course out of three from a set menu. Since the starter was entirely tomato based we went for the main course and the dessert. When it came to drinks they had beer available – I chose a local product called Dark Mile, which proved to be excellent. The meal was magnificently cooked, especially the lamb for the main course, which was done in three different ways.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are my photographs from the evening…

The frogs.
The three monkeys
An outside view of the castle.
Dark Mile

50th Birthday Holiday 12: Sanna

Continuing my account of my holiday in the far west of Scotland around the time of my 50th birthday with a post about our visit to Sanna.

Welcome to the latest post in my series about my holiday in the far west of Scotland around the time of my 50th birthday. This is the third post about the activities of a fairly busy Friday (May 30th), following on from the account of the Glenborrodale Nature Reserve walk and a post about the activities of the middle part of the day. This post covers our visit to Sanna.

AN OVERVIEW OF SANNA

Here is a map showing the location of Sanna:

This map, cropped from an image of a larger map, shows the location of Sanna and some other west Ardnamurchan landmarks, including the port of Kilchoan, the lighthouse and Achosnich, where we were staying.

Sanna is right in the heart of a ring of mountains created by volcanic action many millions of years ago, and is considered a site of Special Scientific Interest. This is also an area where crofting is practised, which means that sheep graze on the open land. As a visitor then (not applicable to us as none of us are pet owners) it is your responsibility to keep your pet under tight control – your right to have your pet run loose ends well before the crofters rights to have their sheep graze in safety begin – and if your pet is making trouble it may well be shot and you will have no redress. In addition to this the basic general rule of being out in the green places applies: take nothing except photographs and leave nothing except footprints.

WHERE THE LAND MEETS THE SEA

Although Sanna is about as far from the birthplace of golf as one can get while still being in mainland Scotland (St Andrews is on the east coast of Scotland) the land in its vicinity is very much of the type of which that game was first played – the word links in its golf context derives from the terrain in question linking the land and the sea. It must be acknowledged that although I would regard building such a thing there as an act of desecration that the grassland around Sanna would undoubtedly make a very challenging golf course. There is a splendid river mouth very close to Sanna – it formed the furthest limits of our exploration. Some of the buildings in Sanna are quite interesting, but the true delight of the area is of course its scenery. There are detailed information boards about the geology of the area, to top up what I covered in this post. I enjoyed my visit and would recommend a visit there if you ever in the area (it would be an absurdly long detour if you were not already in the area for another purpose).

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are my photographs from Sanna.

The western half of the Ardnamurchan peninsula as viewed from space.
The official warning notice to visitors.
The remains of a stone built cottage.

50th Birthday Holiday 11: the Middle of Friday

The middle part of the Friday of my birthday holiday – Camas Nan Geall, Kilchoan Jetty, an abortive attempt to access Greadal Fhinn and a successful location of St Comghan’s church.

Welcome to the latest post in my series about my holiday in the far west of Scotland around the time of my 50th birthday. This post follows naturally from its immediate predecessor in the series.

CAMAS NAN GEALL

We had passed this on our way to the nature reserve and wanted a closer look, so on the way back we stopped there. We did not go all the way down to the seaside, but there was nevertheless plenty to see. We encountered a group of birdwatchers who had eyes on a white tailed eagle (it was too distant to be seen without binoculars). We had prepared sandwiches for lunch and I ate mine here.

KILCHOAN JETTY AND AN ABORTIVE WALK

We needed to visit the shop in Kilchoan anyway, and Kilchoan Jetty is very close to the shop. We also attempted to visit an old burial site called Greadal Fhinn but that proved abortive.

KILCHOAN OLD CHURCH

We were able, after a small amount of confusion over how to access it, to get to the old, now ruined, church of Kilchoan, dedicated to St Comghan. The new church and accompanying new manse have car parking space, and the walk up to the old church, which goes through two fields and along a stretch of what was once the old manse’s driveway. The site is very attractive and commands some splendid views. St Comghan started life as an eighth century prince of Leinster, but fled his native land and came to Scotland. The church named in his honour served Kilchoan for at least half a millennium. I end this post at this point, because our final port of call on this day, Sanna, merits a post of its own.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are my photographs from this part of Friday…

Camas Nan Geall starts here.
The Kilchoan section begins here.
A distant view of St Comghan’s.

50th Birthday Holiday 10: Glenborrodale Nature Reserve

Continuing my account of my 50th birthday holiday with an account of the walk around Glenborrodale nature reserve.

Welcome to the latest post in my series about my holiday in the far west of Scotland around the time of my 50th birthday (I was away from 25th May to 1st June inclusive). We are now starting to deal with Friday May 30th which was a fairly busy day.

WHEN WEST IS EAST

Glenborrodale is itself pretty far west, and the nature reserve is west of the village. Thus most people approaching the nature reserve do from the east, to the point that the directions in our booklet of walks for getting there assumed as a default that everyone would be approaching from the east. However, we were actually approaching from the west, which meant that the instructions for getting there had to be mentally flipped – we had to realize that we were going to see the nature reserve before we saw the village it is named after. Here is a map plus some supplementary detail:

This map, extracted from the information board at Strontian, shows the whole Ardnamurchan Peninsula. We were staying more or less at the point where the road to the lighthouse diverges from the road to Portuairk, right at the western end of the peninsula, while Glenborrodale is in the south-eastern corner of the peninsula. This was actually the furthest east we travelled on any of our excursions during the week.

THE WALK

The walk is circular, ending with a stretch along the road to get back to the car park. The nature reserve part of the walk starts with a long ascent, then a brief flat patch where one walks on boardwalks (these boardwalks are superb, and made the walk much more enjoyable than it might have been). Then there is a long downhill section back to the road. There are information boards at various points along the route about what you can see. This nature reserve is under the aegis of the RSPB and they have a section about this walk on their website. I did not manage to spot a Violet Beetle, but I did get one green bodied dragon fly and three common/ highland darters in the course of the walk. I thoroughly recommend this walk should you be in the area.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here is my gallery from this walk….

A brightly colour butterfly resting on a dandelion.
A green bodied dragon flu rests on a fern frond.
The first of the three darters (I saw them all in very quick succession)

50th Birthday Holiday 8: MacNeil Bay

Continuing my series about my Scottish holiday with a post about a walk to MacNeil Bay.

This is my eighth post in my series about my holiday in the far west of Scotland around my 50th birthday (a full week – May 25th to June 1st inclusive). It follows on from the visit to Ardnamurchan Lighthouse.

THE WALK TO MACNEIL BAY

The path we followed left the road a noticeable way back inland from the lighthouse. MacNeil Bay was the first destination, and had we felt like doing so we could have walked on to Portuairk. In the event, the walk down to the bay and a bit of time spent there was amply sufficient. MacNeil Bay is very beautiful, and we were there in good weather.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are my photographs from this walk and the bay itself…

50th Birthday Holiday 3: Ardnamurchan Geology

A special post about the geology of the Ardnamurchan Peninsula, prompted by a small but captivating display at the Kilchoan Community Centre.

This post is somewhat out of sequence given that most of the photographs which provide the information were taken yesterday. It is the third post in a series I am doing about a holiday I am currently on in the far west of Scotland (see here and here).

KILCHOAN’S TREASURE TROVE

Yesterday we went to visit a craft market in Kilchoan, a very small town that serves as a ferry terminal as well. The community centre boasts a very mini museum – two maps, one an elaborate wall mounted one and the other a three dimension relief map in a glass case with accompanying key and notes, and some rock samples showing all the types of rock in the area. The market was very worthwhile in and of itself – we got some good food there, including bread of superlative quality, but I would regard the display at the community centre as worth seeing in its own right as well.

A VOLCANIC REMNANT

The above image contains a lot of text, and just to make sure everyone can access that text I reproduce it below:

The Ardnamurchan peninsula provides a splendid example of an intrusive ring-complex and is one of a series of such complexes of Tertiary age found in the west of Scotland. Other examples are at St Kilda, Skye, Rhum, Mull and Arran.

Ring-intrusions are formed when a plug of country rock becomes detached from its surroundings by a ring fracture. Three such intrusive centres are found at Ardnamurchan. Ring-dykes are intrusions along the ring-fracture itself and when repeated subsidence has taken place, as at Ardnamurchan, a sequence of ring-dykes forms about a common centre. In their downward extension ring-dykes usually incline outwards from the intrusion centre. Their width may vary from less than a hundred yards to more than a mile.

Cone sheets are associated with the ring-dykes. They are relatively thin intrusive sheets which occupy concentric fissures inclined towards a central point and are usually arranged concentrically about the igneous centre. They may have been produced at a time when the magma exerted a strong upwards pressure against the roof of the magma chamber.

The model shows clearly how these tertiary ring-structures find expression at the surface in the topography of Ardnamurchan.

The rock samples on display include granite, basalt and xenoliths. Xenoliths (from the Greek, meaning literally ‘alien stone’) are rocks formed particularly deep within the earth, and hence not commonly seen at the surface.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My photographs relating to the above post…

This is the wall mounted map ,memtioned in the post.
This is the 3D map/ model that prompted the post.
These last few pictures are from Ardnamurchan lighthouse.

Scotland 2022: The Western Edge of Mainland Britain

An account of a quick visit to the westernmost point in mainland Britain.

I am continuing my series about my holiday in Scotland (after a long and stressful day of travelling back on Saturday I was far too tired to do anything yesterday). We have reached Tuesday (six days ago now), the centrepiece of which was a tour of the Ardnamurchan Distillery. That will be the subject of my next post, while this post deals with the first event of that day.

ARDNAMURCHAN POINT

The Ardnamurchan Distillery is located just west of the village of Glen Borrodale on the northern shore of Loch Sunart, which is the southern edge of the Ardnamurchan peninsula. Beyond this to the west is Ardnamurchan Point, the westernmost point of mainland Britain (to give you an idea of how far west the Ardnamurchan peninsula juts out to the west, the Inner Hebridean isle of Eigg is due north of the western half of the peninsula), and our plan was to see this before arriving at the distillery for the 2PM start time of our tour.

Unfortunately, a combination of a later than intended start and the poor quality of some of the roads meant that we only had time for a very brief stop at the Western edge of mainland Britain before turning round and heading back to the distillery.

Here are the pictures from the outward car trip:

I just had time to take two pictures at the point:

The journey back to the distillery was enlivened by an encounter with someone I have dubbed ‘psycho cyclist’. We were behind him on the road and he took a long time to pull into the side so that we could get past, and did so with astonishingly bad grace – swearing at us and gesturing manically. I am normally sympathetic towards cyclists, but this individual did himself no favours with his wilfully aggressive and confrontational attitude. I took a few more pictures heading back: