After the rain....

 December 2023 and into January 2024 saw some exceptionally wet weather in the north east of Scotland - Aberdeenshire received three times the average monthly rainfall in December as storms tracked more to the south than usual, resulting in a run of what felt like weeks of south easterly wind and rain for us.  This part of Scotland is usually the driest place in the country, but there have been only two dry-ish days in the last 20!

But, at last, the rain pulled away early afternoon on the 5th January with a forecast of much more settled weather for the next week or so.  As the sky cleared the temperature fell sharply and a ground mist spread across land saturated by rain.  the effect was very atmospheric as the sun set, the mist suffused by a gorgeous glow.

One good thing - 30th April 2020

The last two days of April have brought the type of weather usually associated with the month, heavy pulses of rain and sunny intervals.

When the showers passed through in the evening the lighting effects were really intense, changing by the second.  The rain has really brought a spurt of growth to Spring flowers....

Wood Anenomes (Anenome nemorosa) are at their peak, tens of thousands of lovely white stars in the Birch woodland.

On an area kept as a natural wildflower meadow there's been a sudden flowering of Cowslips (Primula veris) - soon the whole meadow will be studded with yellow flowers.

In the woods again, and the first of the late Spring flowers are beginning to appear, the delicate bowed heads of Wood Sorrel (Oxalis acetosella) are appearing.  Both flowers and leaves of this plant fold in the evening, perhaps an inbuilt frost protection measure.  The leaves, if chewed, have a zesty lemon flavour from the oxalic acids thy contain - a great natural freshener for the mouth.

Rain is not often something to relish in Scotland where we usually have it in an overabundance - but at the right time, in the right amount, it's a good thing.

A two day Torridon tour - between a rock and a hard place

Continuing our paddle along the north side of Loch Torridon, Allan and I paused at this ruin.  It may have been a croft or a fishing station, but would have been a tough place in which to make a living.

For most of this part of the loch the shore is steep and rocky - difficult to walk along...unless you happen to be perfectly adapted of course.  We saw several goats and I've met with them previously in this area.

Approaching Loch Diabaig, there's a change in the geology from sandstone to Lewisian Gneiss and the scenery becomes suddenly more rugged but with very few landing places......

.....apart from the shore at the head of Loch Diabaig.  The settlement of Lower Diabaig must be one of the trickiest places in Scotland to reach by road, a minor road at the end of a long minor road which twists over the Bealach na Gaoithe (pass of the winds) before descending steeply to sea level again - truly between a rock and a hard place.

Heading out of Loch Diabaig and towards the narrows separating outer and middle Loch Torridon there's another change in the rock type and this time the contact zone is unmistakeable.  On one side of the contact there's a pink sedimentary rock, and on the other a dark metamorphised igneous rock.

We were by now looking at a couple of options for a second night camping.  There are surprisingly few good spots; we checked out one I've used before on a small promontory before deciding on a patch of level ground on the south shore of the loch.  As it was quite early in the afternoon we decided to paddle part of the upper loch before pitching our tents.

As we passed through the narrows by Eilean a' Chaol (Island of the kyle (narrow)) the view up to the head of the loch showed that a change in the weather was approaching.  The big Torridon hills were obscured by thick cloud and we could see heavy rain falling.  As this was headed our way we started back towards our intended campsite, but the rain beat us.

As the rain started the wind dropped to a dead calm - and we knew exactly what would be waiting for us on the shore!  Almost as soon as we stepped from the boats we were attacked by midges which seemed undeterred by the rain.  We now had a fairly easy decision - we were only about half an hour's paddling from Shieldaig and our car; and we could easily get home that evening if we chose to.  The prospect of a night confined to our tents to shelter from both rain and midges wasn't that appealing - after all, our trip ws meant as a relaxed couple of days! 

We arrived at a decision pretty quickly and got back in the boats to paddle across to Shiledaig.  Even on the main street of the village the midges were biting us as we loaded the boats onto the car.

Loch Torridon had given us a good couple of days paddling and had fulfilled the aim of sheltered options in very changeable winds and weather.  When the wind is in the north or south it's a good alternative to more exposed parts of the north west coast, though the topography of hills and the loch does tend to funnel any easterly winds.

A two day Torridon tour - a meteorological beating

On our crossing of outer Loch Torridon we had a very visible aiming point - the sandy beach at Red Point which seemed to have caught any patches of sunlight throughout the day.  A pale patch amongst greys, greens and browns, it stands out well in views from the south.  The swell which had built up behind us as we crossed was broken up by a small island and an offshore reef, making for a relatively easy landing.

Red Point was the site of a fishing station, now abandoned.  The cottages are just gable ends and a couple of walls, the most complete building being a semi-derelict store on the shore.  It's missing substantial portions of wall and roof and was a bit "sheepy" - we would be glad of it soon enough! Slender trunks of pine trees seem out of place in the dunes nearby; they didn't grow here but were dug into the dunes to provide supports for net drying.

I knew from a previous visit that we could find decent pitches behind the dunes, we pitched our tents in comparative shelter from a strong breeze which at least guaranteed no midges would trouble us during the evening.

A blink of evening sunshine provided a flash of colour, but unfortunately it didn't last long........

...before the weather begann to close in.  The wind increased to a pretty strong blow and soon we felt the first spots of rain.

To the south, the shore we'd paddled from looked to be getting some heavier rain; we reflected that place we'd originally planned to camp would have been exposed to the worst of this weather.

To seaward, there was an unmistakeable and menacing bank of rain approaching.  We moved our cooking kit into the derelict shed to take advantage of whatever shelter it offered - there would be no camp fire on this evening!

The next couple of hours saw heavy rain and a strong wind battering the coast, and the shed where we huddled to eat dinner.  The weather was pretty hostile and the evening was one of the coldest August evenings I can recall outside of the mountains.  Soon after dinner we battened down our tents and retired to our sleeping bags.

The view from the tent door just before I closed it up was quite dramatic.  The mountains of Torridon were invisible and the middle part of the loch at Shieldaig was taking a real meteorological beating - the sky was a livid purple shade and the sheets of rain were clearly visible.  Lying in my sleeping bag listening to the rain and wind on the tent, I wondered what the morning might bring......

There and back again....

Our camp site on the Kintyre coast had been a comfortable one and we woke to a morning which promised showers but occasional sunshine.  After breakfast we packed up and got the boats down to the water.

We intended to cross the Kilbrannan Sound to the island of Arran and head to the north tip of the island, stopping at Lochranza for lunch.  At the start of this trip we'd discussed various locations for our third evening, as we were making good progress we'd decided on a crossing to Inchmarnock and a campsite we've used before.

As we crossed the Kilbrannan Sound a lively breeze got up ahead of a shower which looked to be a very heavy one.  Fortunately the rain passed up the Kintyre coast we'd just vacated, but we did benefit from a great sailing wind all the way on the 8km crossing.  It seems that this piece of water is prone to meteorological interest, one previous crossing gave some of the most remarkable conditions either of us has kayaked in

We arrived on the Arran shore south of Catacol Bay and after a brief leg stretch on the beach continued north past Catacol village and the row of cottages known as " The Twelve Apostles".  Built between 1850 and 1860, they were intended to house folk cleared from inland crofts to make way for sheep.  There was considerable resistance to living in the row, possibly because the rents would have been comparable to the dispossessed croft ground and there was little land to cultivate nearby.  The cottages were known locally as "Hunger row" at this time.  The cottages are very similar, but each of the twelve upper windows is different.  A local story is that the folk who eventually lived here took to fishing the Kilbrannan Sound, and wives could light a lamp in the window when they wanted their menfolk to return - the men would be able to make out which house had the lamp lit from the window configuration.  Well, that's the tale anyway!........

Our next stop was at Lochranza where we took lunch in the Lochranza Hotel with a fine view to the castle.  The tide was well on the way out here so we could take a leisurely lunch knowing that our boats weren't going to refloat for a while.

Refuelled and refreshed, we got back on the water and headed up to the north of Arran to start the crossing to Inchmarnock.  Initially we had a pleasant push from a light breeze to help, but a glance over our shoulders showed an approaching wall of black cloud....and ahead of it quite a wind started up.

There were no more photographs taken on this crossing, which proved very uncomfortable.  The flood tidal streams pouring up Kilbrannan Sound and the Firth of Clyde meet north of Arran and some confused water can sometimes be found here.  Find it we did, and in combination with a strong wind from our quarter and some breaking wave trains in the great swirls of water I found this a challenging 11km crossing under sail. A couple of times I was tempted to drop the sail as it was driving the boat forward at a tremendous rush, but I'm glad I persisted.... the conditions in which I'd sail in the future a little extended by the experience.  Close to the Inchmarnock side, a Dolphin surfaced in a welter of spray right between our boats and ploughed along with us for a few waves - an experience totally in tune with the wild ride we were having.

We arrived on Inchmarnock at precisely the same time as a quite violent rainstorm heralded the passage of a weather front - it absolutely pelted down.  My awkward landing on the rocky shore in breaking water led to a soaking - things were going well!  We decided to pitch the tents and to see if the rain would abate before moving our gear from the boats, which was a fortuitous decision.  Tents up (if wet) and we took a moment to check the weather forecast online.  What we read was quite a surprise.... the forecast had completely changed from that issued just hours earlier.  We could expect the wind to drop to almost nothing overnight before becoming strong in the morning, when we planned to cross back to Arran.

One of the keys to good trips is flexibility in planning and being prepared to react to a changing situation.  We'd had a difficult crossing and got our tents up - but there wasn't the slightest hesitation in our agreement that we should take them back down and re-cross to Arran straight away to avoid the F5-6 headwind forecast for the morning.  As we restowed the tents and took a quick snack the wind began to drop, but the rain certainly did not and we got going again in a real downpour.

By the time we were half way back to Arran the wind had completely gone - the rain alternated between light,as in this image, and very heavy; in the absence of wind the heavier pulses were heard as a hiss of water hitting water (and us!).

We made landfall right at our target of the Cock of Arran, a place we knew we'd find a spot to camp. Strangely enough, the last time Douglas and I camped here was also accompanied by a drop of rain!  Readers familiar with a west of Scotland summer will realise what awaited us on the shore given the lack of wind and low light levels.......

Midges.  Millions of the little illegitimate insects....   Douglas' expression says it all - but my camera failed to pick up the miasma surrounding him - it was a really bad attack.  As time was getting on, we cooked our dinner on the rocky shore in pouring rain and with our own personal clouds of biting insects.  We could have camped here, but it would frankly have been a miserable experience.  We thought that by paddling slowly along the coast either the rain would ease or the midge attack would abate as darkness fell.  Somewhat improbably, the rain did eventually ease and we did manage to evade the midges - and passed a comfortable late evening on the north coast of Arran.

Arriving in Campbeltown with a bang

The weather pattern across Scotland in late July 2016 was unsettled with periods of dry weather and strong winds punctuated with short periods of complete calm accompanied by heavy rain. With the pattern seeming set to continue, Douglas and I looked to try and make the most of it by doing a trip which would start in the rain but then get some of the bright and breezy weather, but at the same time maximise shelter from the strongest of the wind.

On the afternoon of 24th July we arrived at Ardrossan ferry terminal in good time to catch the 1350 Sunday sailing to Campbeltown.  The three times a week Campbeltown service runs from the end of April to the end of September and has this year been put on a more permanent footing after a period running as a pilot scheme.  Aside from the advantage to both local businesses and car visitors to the Kintyre peninsula (access by road involves a very long journey) the ferry opens up great opportunities for cyclists and sea kayakers to start or finish trips - both bikes and kayaks travel free on Calmac services and users pay the pedestrian fare.

Our plan was to journey up the sheltered eastern side of the Kintyre peninsula, then cross to Arran to paddle around the north of the island and down to Brodick to catch a ferry back to Ardrossan.  We planned a relaxed pace with plenty of time to explore and had packed sufficient food for three nights wild camping.

Having packed our boats in heavy rain we were glad to be able to wheel them down into the vehicle deck of the "Isle of Arran" and head up to the to take luncheon in the cafeteria, both of us opting for the excellent fish and chips.  Boat trolleys are pretty much essential for using ferries, it just wouldn't be practical to try and carry loaded boats on and off the vehicle decks. Our KCS Expedition trolleys are tough and stable and can be dismantled easily to fit in a bag on the rear deck when the kayak is full with kit and food.

After lunch we went out on deck to find that although the heavy rain had stopped, the breeze had died too and the island of Arran was draped with very low cloud.  The occasional glimpse of blue sky gradually disappeared as we passed south of Arran and arrived in Campbeltown......

...where the rain resumed very heavily almost as soon as we wheeled our boats off the ferry.  As we stowed the trolleys onto the boats and prepared to get on the water there was an intense flash of lightning followed almost instantly by an enormous thunderclap, which had definitely not been forecast.  We appeared to have arrived in Campbeltown with a bang, and given that we both had carbon paddles and aluminium kayak sail masts we elected to wait awhile before getting underway; we had no desire to leave our earthly existence with a similar bang!

While waiting we watched a huge and very heavy section of a wind turbine being discharged from the cargo ship "BBC Holland" the weight of the section being loaded to a heavy truck obvious as the ship heeled a couple of degrees.  Ships which have large deck cranes to discharge and load cargo are particularly suited to harbours such as Campbeltown where there are no port cranes.

The turbine section left on a low-loader accompanied by a police escort bound for one of the large windfarms which are proliferating on the Kintyre peninsula.  As there hadn't been any more lightning flashes after the impressive single discharge some 30 minutes previously, we judged that it would be good to leave too.....

...and headed out of the harbour past the fishing pier.  The rain continued heavy and the scene was fairly grey and grim for a July afternoon!

As we left Campbeltown the rain eased to leave flat calm water and a cloudbase less than a hundred metres above the sea.

In these low light conditions any bright colour seemed intensified - while certainly not the ideal "summer" afternoon there was beauty in the scene as well as absolute pleasure in being out on the water at the start of another trip.

Campbeltown Loch is sheltered by Island Davaar, not a true island as it is connected to the shore by a shingle spit at low water.  At the steep north end of the island is Davaar lighthouse, built under the supervision of David and Thomas Stevenson in 1854, the light is a double white flash once every 10 seconds and visible for 23 nautical miles.

As we came level with the lighthouse our route turned north to head north up the coast of Kintyre into Kilbrannan Sound.  Our pace was leisurely - we had just over 15km to paddle and plenty of daylight in which to reach our planned camp site.

Rockhopping and rainstorms, Part 1

In Scotland we don't really have a climate, we have "weather" and July 2016 was particularly changeable with some warm days but also some periods of heavy rain and thunderstorms.  It seemed that most of the warm days were windy and that the calmer spells coincided with days of showers or rain.  The conditions didn't dampen some good sea kayaking though, and in some ways the heavier rain actually added to the experience!  This is the first of two posts catching up on a number of sea kayak trips around the Moray Firth and North Sea coasts during the month.

It wasn't all rain; Maurice, Mike and I met at Auchmithie and enjoyed a day on the colourful Angus coast.  The morning was calm and warm, which allowed us to explore the rock formations......

......and caves which stud the stretch of coast between Auchmithie and Arbroath.  The largest of them is Gaylet Pot, a long cave which emerges some 150 metres inland.......

....in a spectacular "gloup" or collapsed cave in the middle of a farm field.

That afternoon brought a marked increase in the wind, as forecast, and we enjoyed an exhilarating blast back up the coast under sail at an average speed of 12km/h.

Pulling out of the wind at the arched outcrop of Prail Castle, we stopped for second luncheon.  It's sometimes possible to kayak through the arch, but on this occasion the tide was too low.  As Maurice hadn't visited this feature previously, he and I walked through the arch to the north side.  Just a few seconds after we'd done so a large rock fell clear from the face above and smashed into the ground right behind us - a lucky escape.

There have been several paddles on the Moray Firth too; on a day of alternating hot sunshine and torrential downpours Lorna, Allan and I paddled a favourite section of the Moray Firth coast from Findochty to Sandend.  One of the best known features is the Bow Fiddle Rock, and we were lucky to find it not only calm enough to paddle.....

......but looking very fine backed by an approaching downpour.

The northeast coast in summer just teems with wildlife.  The seabirds seem to have had a pretty successful breeding season and we encountered them in their tens of thousands.

On a paddle from Sandend to Whitehills Allan, Lorna and I were given a real wildlife treat when a pod of the Moray Firth dolphins shared the water with us, I completely fluffed the photographs of three adults which raced straight to our boats and dived right in front of us, examining the boats closely from below before moving on - the only image I managed was this dolphin which repeatedly leapt out of the water in the middle distance.