A FAIRY CHANCE OF SEEING DOLPHINS

 Summer in the Black Isle means there are tourists everywhere, including the Fairy Glen car park in Rosemarkie. Luckily, Sharon and I arrived early and found a place before the rest of the Dinosaurs got here. Everyone else had to go somewhere else to park. 

However, they soon joined us and we were ready to go.

Just in case the organisers didn't know where we were going, there was a helpful little sign.

It says, Ceum Path. Ceum is Gaelic for path. It is also used for paces, steps, degrees in temperature or academic degrees.

Today it was a path, along which we took many paces, negotiated a few steps and it became warmer as the day progressed.

Into the Fairy Glen we went.

In no time, we pass under the road bridge, which is not as old as you think, dating from 1958.

Once under the bridge, we join a little road for a short way. This road serves a house. Had I known the history of the house, I might have paid a bit more attention. Just in front of the house was a pond. This is likely the remains of one of three retting ponds. Retting is the soaking of flax to separate the fibres to allow linen to be made. At one time it was recorded that almost everyone in Rosemarkie was a miller.

The house itself is called Fairy Glen. This was built some time after 1877 by a George Dunlop, a wine and spirit merchant from Argyll. He bought the land in 1877 from Major Nicholson of Hawkhill in the village.

Even earlier than that many of the paths and other features, now lost, were laid out by a Mr Hogarth, who owned a number of salmon fishing stations around the coast nearby. This included a house called St Helena, named after the island of Napoleon's exile. Mr Hogarth was said to have acquired some shoots of weeping willow, which had originally grown over Napoleon's grave at St Helena!

So, much of the woodland is descended from the trees laid out by Mr Hogarth in about 1815.

The bridge is much more modern, indeed, it is younger than anyone standing on it!

Obviously, the river can carry a bit water on the evidence of the trees lying on the river bed.

The little lily pond is probably the remains of a mill pond, which served a corn mill further down towards the village.

Now it serves a family of ducklings. How sweet!

Talking of sweet, Maureen very kindly gave me a packet of Liquorice AllSorts. I wonder how she knew they were one of my favourites?

The problem was they seemed to be everyone else's favourites too. I had to fight them off to get the lion's share.

We all had MY sweeties next to the first of two waterfalls on the burn. They are very pretty and it is easy to see why people think the burn might be an enchanting home for fairies. However, it seems that the reference to fairies became popularised by the eminent Cromarty geologist Hugh Miller. He noted that he had spoken with a local old woman, who, whilst she was a little girl,  had seen myriads of fairies dancing at sunset in the dell.

We didn't see any fairies here, but it is a nice spot.

See how everyone in the picture is smiling and it wasn't because they were having their photo taken. Waterfalls are scientifically proven to improve people's wellbeing. They naturally produce negative ions in the air which we soak up and we produce enhanced levels of serotonin, which makes us happier. They are also undeniably nice to just look at and admire.

Whether or not the fairy legend was popularised by Hugh Miller, the fairy legend is likely much older than 1835, when Miller wrote. Everyone knows that Fairies need to be paid to maintain their goodness, otherwise they can be a little spiteful, kidnapping children, musicians and the like! Locally people hammered coins into money trees to placate the fairies and ensure their goodwill, particularly in relation to the provision of freshwater for the village. 

This is one of these money trees. Nowadays, this is not encouraged because of the pollution caused by corrosion and oxidation of the metals. Quite what the fairies make of this is unknown. 

Further up the burn is another bridge, which replaced an earlier bridge providing a view of the second waterfall. 

Traditionally, local children would also scatter petals under the waterfalls to ensure clean water for the villagers.

Naturally, most of the company could not resist the opportunity to climb through the fence to get closer to the tumbling waters.

Of course, there are always two sensible people in every group, who realise that fences are there to protect careless walkers from all sorts of risks, the principal of which, is being unable to get back up to the bridge. I was sensible, not because I might not be able to get back, but because I was taking the photo. I'm not sure what Sandra's excuse was.

Luckily, everybody got back safely and then it was all downhill back to the car park.

We were only halfway through the walk. We would soon be in the open spaces of Rosemarkie beach, but first there was a fortuitous toilet break next to the Plough Inn. In passing (so to speak), the Plough is not as old as it looks. It was originally built in 1691, but it was rebuilt in 1907! The original 1691 fireplace mantle is still inside.

The public toilet in the car park is of much more recent construction and it is, remarkably, twinned with a latrine in Nepal!

Toilet twinning allows you to twin your toilet with another community which needs access to a toilet and so communities can get clean water and sanitation. Sounds like a good idea to me. As an aside, perhaps it is as well that the toilet was not run by Fortrose and Rosemarkie Trust!

From the toilet to the beach, hopefully not literally. It is a big beach and it stretches away to Chanonry Point in the distance. Chanonry Point in Gaelic is Rubha na Cananaich - the headland of the canons.  This is a reference to the cathedral that was once located in Rosemarkie. It moved to Fortrose in the 13th Century.

The tide was coming in, which was a good thing. An incoming tide generally brings in fish and where there are fish, there is a good chance of seeing dolphins.

Chanonry Point is the best place in the UK to see dolphins at close hand. They chase fish, particularly salmon, in with the rising tide. The question was whether they would be there to join us for lunch. I was having a tuna salad, so I was quite hopeful.

The answer was unequivocal yes. There were plenty of them and they seemed to be enjoying themselves. Phone cameras were probably not the best for capturing such quick leaping, but we did get some reasonable images.

They really are very close.

It was all quite spectacular and spellbinding.

Lunch took a bit longer than normal!

Once we dragged ourselves away from the show, we passed back by Chanonry lighthouse, looking a bit moody. It was built by Alan Stevenson in 1846.

We walked along the road by the golf course, where someone had seeded some spectacular wild flower mix.

It was a long, but not winding road back to the cars.

Nearly there and we got to Maureen the Child Minder's Ice Cream van. Unfortunately it wasn't our Maureen, so there were no free ice creams on offer!

One back to the cars it was a drive to Munro's for tea and buns after a really fine walk, enlivened by the dolphin display.

Many thanks to Susan and Robin for organising everything, including the dolphins and Shazza for  her dolphin action photos!