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!

THE BLAIR LOCH PROJECT!

 Frankly, the weather this spring and early summer has been woeful, so the prospect of a walk on a promised fine day was not to be sniffed at. Of course, the forecasts have been known to be wrong, in fact they seem to be more wrong than right these days.

Undaunted we all drove through to the Loch of Blairs. Where is that? 

That was the question almost all of us asked before we got there. Robin and Susan knew, because they organised the walk. Hugh knew because he had fished the loch back in the mists of time. For the rest of us, this was a venture into virgin territory. However, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Before we could set off, some of us had to play One Potato, Two Potato, to see who would set off first along the track.

Meanwhile, the class clown pretended to be The Tartan Army, minus kilt, Scotland top and pint!

Happily, we soon stopped all these childish games and actually started walking into the woods. The woods are part of Altyre Estate and they are known as Blairs Wood. We had parked near the site of Old Blairs. With no historical authority, my guess is that the Blairs name derives from the Gaelic Blar meaning field, plain or flat area of moor. Blar is also used for the site of a battle Blar Cuil Lodair is the Battle of Culloden. In this case, I think the reference is to fields or plains, because the name Blairs is used for the woods, property, a loch and the Home Farm. 

There are a lot of rhododendrons scattered through the woods. These are undoubtedly escapees from nearby planted policy woods. The use of Rhododendrons was widespread in stately homes built by the Victorians in the 19th Century. It is not native to Britain, is aggressively invasive and it will quickly crowd out native species. It also causes problems to honeybees. The nectar can be toxic to bees, unless they can mix the nectar with that of other plants. The rhododendrons in this country have been cross bred with American varieties to make them frost hardy. They tend to have less toxic nectar than the original plants in the Himalayas or Turkey. Additionally, bees here take nectar from a wide range of other plants.

The bigger problem with Rhododendrons is that they outcompete native plants. Nothing can grow under them. Invasive species such as rhododendrons are thought to be wholly responsible for 16% of plant extinctions. Pretty to look at, they harbour a dark secret.

The Loch of Blairs is no real distance into the walk. It is a popular walk and there are seats scattered along the shore. I can't imagine anyone would want to steal a seat, but they have made doubly sure that such vandalism would be very difficult.

Like moths to a flame, we are drawn to the water's edge.

There are a number of hides around the loch and the first one is named Otter Hide. Needless to say we did not see any otters. There were plenty of mallards and little grebes, as well as the lesser spotted Liz to be seen.

Yellow flag was to be found all around the loch.

At this hide, there were large numbers of froglets or toadlets.

On the basis of their colour, I think these are most likely toadlets.

As well as the birds, flowers and Liz, there was a view across the loch to be seen.

The path connects a number of bird/wildlife hides around the shores of the loch.

Agnes was a bit worried about Big Brother watching us all wander in the woods.

Luckily we were able to reassure her that it was just a bit of old alkathene pipe to stop the wire biting into the tree. The wire holds up the sign that was placed there, but not by Big Brother.

This is the boathouse and surely was where Hugh went to fish all those years ago. Indeed, there has been a boathouse here almost since the loch was created.

Created? 

Yes, it was. 

The loch does not appear on early maps of the area. One map from 1830 records other nearby water bodies, but not Loch of the Blairs. However, by 1872, the first Ordnance Survey map shows the loch and a boathouse in this location.

There are also photos of the loch being used for curling in 1891!

The loch would appear to have been originally created from boggy ground by the landowner specifically for fishing. The fishery was run by the local council from the late 1970's until the early part of this century. Once the cost of maintenance became too great, the loch and the buildings gradually reverted to nature. The loch became heavily overgrown with Phragmites reeds and aquatic weeds, while the grounds suffered with rhododendron infestation.

The fishery is now run by the Friends of Loch Blair, although the loch itself remains in the ownership of Altyre Estate.

The Friends are a charitable organisation dedicated to improving the fishery and the surrounding land and buildings. It is fair to say that we were all impressed by their work.

The boathouse and bothy have been completely reinstated and added to with educational buildings in keeping with the original complex.

I do hope the Friends would approve of me using this photo lifted from their website to illustrate the progress they have made.

The path to the Swan's Hide was edged with lots of Cat's Ear, which we identified. We didn't know the Gaelic name, which is Cluas Cait which means Cat's Ear!

Another view of the loch.

Walking back from the hide, we stepped over this Two-banded Longhorn Beetle. These are pretty common and they lay their eggs in Coniferous trees, where the pupae stay for two years. They are easily recognised (it says online, because I had no idea) by the yellow bands on their elytra. I'm assuming you all know what elytra are.

Wing cases, of course!

From the hide, we walked away from the loch towards the east and Blairs Home Farm, which we could catch glimpses of from the track.

The farm is an astonishing complex of Italianate style buildings, somewhat out of place in this landscape. As Home Farms go, this is a bit different. Or at least, it was. Now it forms a research and teaching space for Glasgow School of Art. Both of these things are not exactly what you might expect in the Moray countryside, but here they are.

Altyre Estate has been in the Cumming family for over 800 years. The Cummings - formerly Comyn - were probably the most influential and powerful families in Scotland outside the Royal houses. Of course, a great deal of that power disappeared when Robert the Bruce murdered John Comyn in Greyfriars Church in Dumfries in 1306.

Many of the family lands were then given to allies of the Bruce. John Comyn's son, also John, joined the English and was killed at Bannockburn in 1314. His son died two years later. He was another John (there's a theme there) and he was the last in the Badenoch line of the family. The chiefship of the clan then fell to the Cummings of Altyre, who hold that position to this day

The Gordon-Cumming family of Altyre does have a particularly interesting forebear. The 4th Baronet, Sir William Gordon Gordon-Cumming seems to have been a bit of a lad.

He was born in 1848 and inherited the chiefship and the baronetcy at eighteen. He had asthma and was, apparently, blind in one eye, but he managed to purchase a commission in the Scots Guards. He later purchased a promotion and served with some distinction in the South African Zulu Wars. It was not for this that he became infamous, however.

He was apparently arrogant and a womaniser as well as being a close friend of the Prince of Wales. Indeed, he seems to have made a point of having many affairs with married women. His friendship with the Prince of Wales extended to him allowing the Prince to use his house in Belgravia for meetings with his mistresses. It is said that the Prince visited the house only to find Gordon-Cumming and one of the Royal mistresses in "each other's arms". This clearly wasn't to the prince's liking and may have had much to do with Gordon-Cummings fall from grace, which began only a few days later.

Gordon-Cumming, the Prince and others were illegally gambling at cards in Yorkshire where Gordon-Cumming was accused of cheating, which he denied. Ultimately, he agreed never to play cards again, if everyone present agreed to say nothing of the matter. However, the accusations surfaced later and Gordon-Cumming decided to sue for slander, citing the Prince as a witness. The trial took a week, but the jury took only minutes to determine that he had, in fact, cheated at cards.

The very next day, the Times declared that he had been "condemned by the jury to social extinction.....He has committed a mortal offence and.... society can know him no more". He was sacked from the Army immediately and resigned his membership of 4 London Clubs. He also married his fiancée, a rich American heiress on the same day!

He would seem to have become quite bitter, resenting the middle class, which he was now a member of, and continued his serial affairs despite his marriage. He was disgraced, but thought himself better than everyone else. The Prince of Wales stated that anyone who acknowledged Gordon-Cumming, would fall out of favour at court and felt that "the crowning point of his infamy was that he had (the day after the trial) married an American young lady....with money"! It is unclear to me whether the greater sin was that the young lady was American, or that she had money!

It would seem that there was no shortage of money when it came to building the home farm in this Italianate style. Even those buildings that look neglected now would not look out of place in a Tuscan landscape.

The loft in the older looking building is extensive and very dusty!

The buildings at Altyre predate Sir William, having been built about 1834. Buildings of this extent and style are not common, although it was not unknown for the landed gentry to build in a style that they might have experienced when undertaking the Grand Tour. More normally, Grand Tourists would bring back artistic works, to prove that they had the money and the time to embark on a year long cultural tour of Europe. A complex like this is a bit different.

These are the original cart bays for when the building was used for agricultural purposes.

The buildings are arranged around a central courtyard, which had thoughtfully been provided with a picnic bench where we could have our lunch. Had I but known, I would have brought some focaccia, fresh and sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes, olives and perhaps some Ligurian olive oil and a glass of Vernaccia di San Gimignano to wash it down. As it happens, I did bring a chopped Italian salad of tomatoes, cucumber, cheese, salsiccia, black olives, (Greek) olive oil, and some slightly warm water. Close, but not quite right. I'll know the next time!

I think Hugh had just taken some gobstoppers!

Sue and Liz were on the naughty step.

The tower opposite our dining table was home to a fair number of swallows, which clearly found the exaggerated corbelling under the roof to be irresistible. Maybe it had been built deliberately to attract them! Of course, they flew too fast for me to photograph.

In the centre of the courtyard is what looks like an Armillary sphere. I'm sure this is a modern, ornamental sphere and not a functional Armillary one. Armillary spheres have been about for thousands of years and were designed to show how the heavens moved around the earth. Of course, they ran into problems when Copernicus figured out in the 1500's that the earth wasn't really the centre of the universe. Nonetheless, Armillary spheres remained in use for mathematical measurement.

Lunch couldn't last for ever, after all we weren't actually in Italy! We had to leave it all behind.

Next to the complex is a pond, which holds water for fighting fires as well as being decorative. Remarkably, this was the second of these that we saw on our walks. Last month, we saw the same thing at Craig Dunain, where there was a fire pond near the old Asylum (although, I didn't comment on it in the blog).

This is Altyre House, but it wasn't always so. It is, in fact, an old (1895) rectory, which was enlarged in 1931, which rather explains its somewhat Arts and Crafts appearance. The Episcopalian rectory was the local priest's house, called Blairs House. It was enlarged in 1931 when the Gordon-Cumming family abandoned the old Altyre House and moved in here. The old Altyre House was demolished in 1962.

Just along the road from the house is this picturesque, wooden boarded church dating from 1900. It is still used as a church and occasionally for weddings, and you can see the attraction.

I'd like to say this was a saintly gathering, but that would never get me to heaven.

From the church, we walked back towards the loch, which took us past the squirrel hide and bird feeding station. There was, indeed, a squirrel there, but it didn't hang around for long. Perhaps we should have taken a squirrel whisperer with us.

Our route to the cars took us back along in front of the boathouse. Whatever was intriguing in the water was of no interest whatsoever to Hugh, Dave or Sandra!

A significant proportion of the loch shore is host to the common reed - Phragmites australis - which, despite the australis, is native to the UK. Australis means southern and, in this case, means nothing to do with Australia. The reed is very invasive if not managed, so the Friends of the Loch have undertaken significant management steps to control it.

It may be invasive, but it is useful, being the main reed to be used in thatching roofs and latterly, the reeds have been used in waste water treatment as they are good at removing pollutants and heavy metals from water.

The reeds may be good, but they do restrict your view of the loch.

Mind you, so do we!

Another hide overlooking the loch. Agnes, this was Osprey Hide. 

Looking for birds.

Is it an Osprey?

No! Its a swan, but too far away to be sure which species.

Having failed to spot any Osprey, we headed back to the car park and the cars. 

From there, we drove to Logie Steading for tea and cakes. It was very busy, but we got a seat upstairs and had a very nice break, which was not photographed!

Many thanks to Susan and Robin for organising such an interesting walk in a place most of us had never heard of, never mind visited. I'm sure most of us will return some time.