Rhonadale ramble

It takes no more than a dry day with maybe the promise of some sunshine to get us pulling on the walking shoes, making up some sandwiches and planning some sort of a walk.

We must remember though that it is winter now and the shorter days mean we need to take things more seriously – spare clothing, a torch, hats and gloves travel with us now.

Rhonadale had in fact been winking at us for some time; we were just waiting for the right weather. Sufficiently close to seem easy, sufficiently far away to be a challenge, this roundabout tour of the Carradale glen would take us on a hillside traverse broadly following the border between the forest and the lush farmland that has brought people to this place for so many centuries. But first, a small lesson in terminology. We live in Carradale, one of a number of ‘dales’ in this area of Scotland, a place where one might expect the word ‘glen’ to be more normally used. We have the Norsemen who once lived here to thank for this since the King of Norway once ruled the Scottish Western Isles and left more than his DNA to the generations that followed. Locals today tend to ignore the tautology and refer to the broad green valley through which the twisting tongue of Carradale Water flows as ‘Carradale Glen’, as if the Norsemen had never set foot here at all, but we who walk here for the first time try to visualise the place as it might have once been, wild and largely untamed.

The Forestry roads allow us to complete a circuit of the valley without excessive height gain or loss but at the cost of some considerable mileage as these roads follow every contour of the land. Much of the timber here shows the results of recent gales which have battered the area, fallen timber lying untouched and showing clearly the direction the wind followed. Above the treetops though, the cleared land is providing a habitat for the Peregrine Falcon, several of which we could see soaring above us, scanning the land for small birds which are their main prey. We are fascinated to watch their tail feathers which in soaring flight are held tight together then they are suddenly fanned out to act as a brake when they need to slow down or change direction. This is the speed-freak of the animal kingdom whose 200 mph dives give their prey little chance.

By contrast another raptor, the buzzard, has a hunting strategy which is quite sedate, even lazy. I photographed this one squatting on a bare tree at the back of our house, just sitting there waiting for lunch to amble beneath him.

After some miles our forest road comes to an end without warning leaving us no option but to trek across recently felled woodland, a difficult and dangerous undertaking, to reach the farm below us from where we can cross Carradale Water over one of its few bridges. ‘Off-piste’ walking is not easy anywhere around where we live and progress slows as we stumble through the mesh of fallen branches and stumps, slipping and sliding, until finally we are alongside the barbed-wire fence which protects the forest from incursion by sheep. Clambering over (there is no other option) we are now on rough moorland and can descend rather more easily to Brackley Farm in the valley bottom. It slowly dawns on us though that we have only now arrived at our furthest point from home and our legs are already complaining, quiet murmurings of discontent which become louder with each step.

The sun at last emerges from cloud cover but lies low above the hills, casting long shadows though still warming our faces as we march homeward. We realise, as we contemplate the distance we still have to go, that with this walk we might have bitten off a little more than we realised, more than we were prepared for. Our legs shout more and more loudly with each step. Aches and pains brought on initially by the netball and badminton we have recently each begun playing in the Village Hall reappear now and resolve themselves into thigh-stabbing twinges as we progress homewards.

Perhaps it was too much to expect that we would simply be able to pick up the sport where we left off so many years ago and not suffer the consequences.

But all the aches are forgotten when Kate spots these gorgeous specimens on the roadside verge, a tiny white cap, barely half an inch (two centimetres) tall, peeping through a bed of moss.

Then another fungus, blue and spiky edged, almost hidden amongst the leaf debris and grass and growing out of something decaying beneath.

Somehow we find the energy to open our front door and run a hot bath to drop our legs into to ease the aches and pains. Not for the first time we reflect on the pleasure we get from pushing our bodies around the mountains of our land. Many years ago when I used to come north to Scotland with friends to romp over the mountains around Glencoe we used to have a saying, ‘Pain is pleasure’, a strange way of expressing the joy we all felt after a good day on the hills.

Remember, remember...

On the 13th April 1570 a couple living in York, England, gave birth to a son who in later life was to attempt to alter forever the course of history of his country, a man who in failing to do just that ultimately achieved immortality, for his name if not for himself. Sadly, perhaps, he was to die a few months before his thirty-sixth birthday without ever knowing that sometime in the future his name would come so readily to the lips of every English man and woman and that his deeds would be celebrated each year with a festival of fire, fireworks and fun. I refer, of course, to Guy Fawkes, or Guido as he liked to be known, a man who became famous for failing, in 1605, to set off a charge of gunpowder beneath the Palace of Westminster in London.

Guy Fawkes may have been unknown until the moment of his downfall but what is clear from recent events is that he is making a comeback today in the shape of masks being worn in cities all over the world by protesters in need of anonymity. His stylized face has become an international symbol for rebellion and were it not for the manner in which his body was disposed of (quartered and distributed to the four corners of the kingdom) one might be fearful of him turning in his grave at the thought of the royalties he is missing out on.

Having both been brought up with ‘Guy Fawkes Night’ as a part of our lives, Kate and I arrive at the first November of our life in Scotland with little understanding of the significance of this event to the people who now live around us and to others like them who live in the more northern parts of the kingdom. One has to delve into history a little to understand and appreciate that it was only two years before the gunpowder plot, in 1603, that King James VI of Scotland acceded to the English throne thus also becoming King James I of England, immediately announcing his intention to unite the two realms and give birth to the concept of Great Britain as we know it today. Guy Fawkes, as well as being a fanatical Catholic, had no love for the Scots and it was his and his fellow conspirators’ intention to assassinate the king (together with most of his government) and place the king’s daughter, Princess Elizabeth, on the throne instead. Fawkes’ capture, trial and execution are now amongst the most well documented of historical events and almost from the moment of his death Londoners were being encouraged by Act of Parliament to celebrate the king’s close escape by lighting bonfires, a custom that continues to this day even if the cause being celebrated is lost in time.

The union of England and Scotland might have been in the mind of King James but at the time it was far from popular elsewhere in either country so despite his intentions it was not until 1st May 1707, in the reign of Queen Anne, that full union between the two countries finally came into being. All this is water under the bridge now, of course, but with an understanding of the historical perspective it is far easier to understand why the story surrounding Guy Fawkes is less likely to be celebrated here in Scotland. At the time of the plot the two countries may have been separate ‘states’ but most who lived in Scotland would have regarded the goings on of an absent and far from popular monarch down south in London as largely irrelevant.

All this having been said the village of Carradale is not slow to seize an opportunity to light a celebratory bonfire or to set off a few fireworks. We don’t need the excuse of a close escape from assassination for this, merely a group of schoolchildren with home-made lanterns keen to venture out in the dark in the safe company of the rest of the village.

The stars had been blazing away in the clear sky for some hours by the time the participants were all gathered at the primary school, lanterns were lit and held aloft, then the skirl of the pipes announced the start of the procession across the village to the playing field where things were starting to get underway. An enormous pile of wooden pallets, kindly donated by Jewsons, was soon alight and we were queuing for hot soup just as the pipes started again, this time to coincide with a spectacular firework display, funded courtesy of the Kintyre Windfarm Trust. There may have been some English people present who looked expectantly for the effigy atop the bonfire but somehow this was not necessary for the occasion and the absence of Guy Fawkes took away nothing at all from the event. Maybe we were just celebrating the beginning of the winter season – who cares anyway.

Despite the cold of the night we felt bathed in warmth from the company of villagers like us who have chosen to make this place their home. When we finally steered ourselves the short distance back home, half a moon was staring at us from above, lighting our way like a searchlight though hiding the galaxy of stars behind it. The air was still and it was quiet once more, the wildlife going back to sleep again, glad it was all over for another year.