Friday, August 08, 2008

Walk 192 -- Nairn to Ardersier

Ages: Colin was 66 years and 92 days. Rosemary was 63 years and 235 days.
Weather: Cloudy, getting brighter with sun later. It got warmer as the Walk progressed.
Location: Nairn, via Fort George, to Ardersier.
Distance: 12½ miles.
Total distance: 1680 miles.
Terrain: Some concrete, some sandy beach, a grassy path through a golf course, but mostly road.
Tide: Out, coming in later.
Rivers: None.
Ferries: None.
Piers: None.
Kissing gates: Nos.156 & 157 as we approached Ardersier.
Pubs: None.
‘Historic Scotland’ properties: No.19, Fort George.
Ferris wheels: None.
Diversions: None.
How we got there and back: We were staying in a holiday cottage in Gardenstown. We drove to Ardersier, parked the car and caught a bus to Nairn. There we walked down to the harbour to the spot where we finished the last Walk in such a soggy state. We nearly didn’t make today’s Walk – on our way we got a double chip in our windscreen, too large to be repaired! We turned round at first intending to get it seen to, but then Colin said it would “last until we get home” so we turned round again and continued towards Ardersier. As a result, we missed the bus we were making for and had to wait an hour. Not a good start to the day!
At the end, we finished at the car. We had our tea, and then returned to Gardenstown for the last time. That journey took two hours!
What a long way we have walked!
The next day we started our long journey back home to Malvern, stopping overnight in Carlisle because it is over 500 miles! It would have taken us three hours longer if we still lived in Bognor.

After alighting from the bus we walked through the interesting town of Nairn, past flower-filled gardens and a church with a bright blue door, to the car park by the dock where we had finished the last Walk. There we sat by the River Nairn to eat our pasties before commencing today’s hike. It was so cloudy we thought it was going to rain, which filled our hearts with woe after our experiences the day before yesterday. But precipitation held off, and it gradually got brighter — we even had some sunshine later in the day.
The course of the River Nairn used to change with great frequency, it’s outlet into the sea having shifted to a different place after every storm. In 1820 Thomas Telford was commissioned to build a pier which would stabilise the river and protect the fishing boats. He built just one pier to the west of the river, but that lasted only nine years before it was damaged by floods. It was repaired, and an eastern pier added. That is why we have the long narrow entrance to the dock which still exists today. The fishing industry in Nairn reached its peak in 1860 when 410 fishermen worked from 105 boats based in Nairn Dock. As far as we could see, only leisure craft moor in the dock today.
We looked at a sculpture of a fishwife, and read a plaque telling us how hard these poor women had to work in order to keep body and soul together, their families fed and their husbands supported. They were the unsung heroines of the fishing industry — I’m glad they are at long last being recognised.
We walked the western harbour pier, and looked across to the eastern pier which we had missed out two days ago because we were too damp and cold to bother. We then clambered down on to the beach where there was nice firm sand, ideal for walking on.  
 
There were some families enjoying the beach this August day, but not many. Some of them had constructed a splendiferous sandcastle which was sitting there waiting for the tide to come in.
There were also a couple of herons and a flock of redshanks looking for food in the shallows. The beach got more and more rocky and there was an increasing amount of slimey green stuff, so we climbed back on to the path.
In times gone by, Nairn used to be known as the ‘Brighton of the North’. (Personally, I think it has a much nicer beach than Brighton, though perhaps the climate is not quite so balmy!) The resort was particularly fashionable during Victorian times when sea-bathing became popular. Hotels were built, and when the railway arrived in 1855, increasing numbers of summer visitors were attracted to Nairn’s beautiful sandy beaches, it’s swimming pool (open-air in those times, but now enclosed and all-year) and golf courses.
It is still a lovely resort with sweeping views across the Moray Firth, pity there seemed to be so few people on the beach today. But then perhaps the recent inclement weather had something to do with that!
We passed some gardens where there was a lovely pond. It was in front of an hotel, and a notice told us that during the Victorian period of hotel-building, each structure being grander than the last, local stone was quarried. That is why the pond is there. So money was saved by not having to transport building stone, and a natural feature was created providing a beneficial habitat for wildlife. Clever chaps, those Victorians!
We came to the golf club which had PRIVATE notices plastered all over it, but the path continued between the golf course and the beach. There were lots of players out today, and at one place we had to wait while a group of men tee-ed off, but we didn’t mind. Everyone seems to have a “live and let live” attitude up here, none of the golfing snobbery we have experienced so often in England.
At the end of the golf course we sat on the shingle at the top of the beach to eat our sandwiches. We enjoyed lovely views across the Moray Firth to Black Isle as it was very clear. Colin photographed a hooded crow on the beach.
The beach continued for several more miles along a sand bar, and there was a track along it according to the map. But it was a dead end and we were doubtful whether the track went all the way, looking at the deteriorating state of the beginnings of it. So it was with regret that we left the beach and made our way to a parallel road. It wasn’t clear where the path led up to a farm as it was rather overgrown with gorse bushes, but we managed to battle our way through without getting too prickled. 
Colin was eager to walk along the bottom of a bank (no path) which was a shorter distance and would have avoided the B-road altogether. But when we got there even he conceded that there was really no way through, and we would probably have ended up climbing over barbed wire fences, etc.
The B-road was bad — no pavements and very busy with traffic. So we went into ‘route-march’ mode, and as a result we covered the next few miles in excellent time! It was tedious in the extreme. We tried to make it more interesting. 

We watched some gulls squawking away above a pig farm, we were buzzed by a small aircraft (probably from RAF Kinloss which wasn’t too far back), we admired a clump of harebells by the fence, and Colin photographed a butterfly.

At last we turned off on a ‘yellow’ road which was much quieter. This led in a loop through Carse Wood. We were surprised to be passed by a police car in such a quiet backwater. But further on we passed it again parked amongst the trees with its hatchback open. It said, “DOG CARE” on the car, so we assumed it was exercise time for some police dogs. 
We sat on a stone near a pile of logs to eat our apples. Later we passed some interesting-looking fungi.
There were all sorts of tracks going off which led much nearer the shore than we were, but none of them actually got to the sea. So we reminded ourselves of additional rule no.11 and stuck to our ‘yellow’ road. 
A road led off to an area marked as ‘Platform Construction Yard’ on the map. We wondered if they were constructing oil platforms there, but it was only conjecture as we couldn’t see anything through the trees.


We emerged from the wood, and further on passed a cemetery. Eventually we came out on a B-road and had half a mile to walk dodging the traffic before we reached Fort George. We sat on a bench to eat our chocolate before we went in.

Fort George
Fort George ‘guards’ the narrowest point of the Moray Firth, and has a rich history. But we only wanted to walk the ramparts, so we were relieved to be told we were too late to take the one and a half hour audio ‘tour’ because they were closing in an hour!






We sought out the toilets, then walked round the outer ramparts in an anticlockwise direction. We were back at the sea, and this was part of our coastal walk.




We did read some of the notices as we went round. We learnt that the royal arms over the eighteenth century principal gate was divided into four, with England impaling Scotland, Ireland, France and Hanover. They were crowing over the fact that the arms of Scotland are wrong!
We learned that under the broad fighting platform are 27 casemated barrack rooms forming temporary blast-proof accommodation for 700 men in time of siege. I wonder if they ever had to use them! We learned that Prince William Henry’s bastion (named after George III’s third grandson) overlooks a pier and was used to serve the civilian ferry across to Chanonry Point. (If only there was a ferry nowadays, it would save us the next three Walks!)
We were puzzled to come across white feathers spread over one of the grassy platforms. We wondered if a gull or two had met its end there, but we didn’t see any other signs of carnage. While we were gazing across the Moray Firth towards Chanonry Point, some people behind us were boasting of all the famous Moray Firth dolphins they had seen. With cries of, “Look, there’s one — I think! Oh no, it’s gone now!” they claimed to be seeing them even as we looked. We didn’t believe a word of it, because we had been scanning the sea with our telescope and binoculars for some time and hadn’t seen a thing. Wishful thinking, I believe!
We could see the village of Ardersier, our journey’s end for today, from the ramparts. It was about a mile and a half away. So we left through the main gate to walk to it.
Fort George is the last ‘Historic Scotland’ property we shall visit for some time. For some reason ‘Historic Scotland’ don’t own any properties on the mainland in the Highlands, though they do on the islands of Orkney, the Outer Hebrides and Mull. I wonder why that is — there are plenty of sites, particularly Pictish artefacts.
After leaving the fort, we tried to walk on the beach to Ardersier. But we had to retreat to the busy pavementless road after traversing some playing fields as the going got impossible. Further on a path led across rough ground to the beach again. When we got there, we looked back the way we had come and there was a perfectly good path snaking back towards the fort. That was so annoying and it is not the first time it has happened in Scotland! How do you get on to such a path? Colin was also a bit down because he was too hot, dehydrated (he won’t drink enough water), his knee hurt and he was upset about the car’s windscreen.
We admired some harebells in the grass, and carried on to the village which was basking in the evening sun. Our car was parked near the public toilets which were locked by the time we got to them, even though it was not yet six o’clock on a summer’s evening. They had been open this morning. Fortunately we had been at the fort so were not ‘desperate’ because there were no bushes in the vicinity we could use. I shall have to start a campaign about public toilets being clean, open and free at all reasonable times — and that includes summer evenings!

That ended Walk no.192, we shall pick up Walk no.193 next time in the village of Ardersier. It was ten to six, so the Walk had taken six hours twenty minutes. We had our tea, and then returned to Gardenstown for the last time. That journey took two hours so we had to stop at a supermarket on the way to use their toilets. (Yes, we are getting on in years and our bladders are not what they were. We will never let this curtail our outdoor activities, but we know of many elderly people who are afraid to go out much because of the thought of their embarrassment if they are taken short. Yes, clean, open and free ought to be the law!)
Colin was a bit down because of the chipped windscreen. But he needn’t have been because when the windscreen man came to replace it a couple of weeks later he said he could repair both of the chips! We thought they were far too big, but they were both on the passenger side and he made a very good job of it. So we didn’t have to pay the £70 excess fee.
I was cock-a-hoop because we have succeeded on all the planned Walks this session, adding 102 miles to our total over the past two weeks!
The next day we started our long journey back home to Malvern, stopping overnight in Carlisle because it is over 500 miles! It would have taken us three hours longer if we still lived in Bognor.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Walk 191 -- Forres to Nairn

Ages: Colin was 66 years and 90 days. Rosemary was 63 years and 233 days.
Weather: Steady rain throughout. VERY WET!
Location: Forres to Nairn.
Distance: 11 miles.
Total distance: 1667½ miles.
Terrain: Some road walking and cycle tracks. A path between marsh and forest at the top of the beach. Mostly forest tracks out of sight and sound of the sea. Flat.
Tide: Coming in — though it was irrelevant because we didn’t see the sea until right at the end of the Walk.
Rivers: No.137, the Findhorn, just out of Forres. No.138, Muckle Burn, near Kintessack. No.139, the Nairn at Nairn.
Ferries: None.
Piers: None.
Kissing gates: None.
Pubs: None.
‘Historic Scotland’ properties: None.
Ferris wheels: None.
Diversions: None.
How we got there and back: We were staying in a holiday cottage in Gardenstown. We drove to Nairn, parked the car on the harbour, walked to the bus station and caught a bus to Forres. There we made our soggy way to the level crossing to restart the Trek where we had left it in bright warm sunshine yesterday!
At the end, we finished at the car. We were so wet and cold we hurriedly drank our tea and returned to our cottage in Gardenstown.

What a difference a day makes! It started raining hard when we were on the bus getting to Forres, and it didn’t let up all day. It was then I realised I had left my overtrousers behind in the cottage! My cape covered most of me, but my legs got soaked brushing against undergrowth in the forest. Photography was minimal because we weren’t prepared to risk the cameras for the sake of a picture or two. The few photos we did take were from under Colin’s umbrella, and then the cameras was put away very quickly. The flat light made it pretty useless for photography anyway. The flowers we passed were pretty, but oh! it was wet!
We started the Walk at the junction of the lanes just over the level crossing. The road passes a distillery, and was very busy for such a narrow lane. We were glad to get off it on to a cycle track after about four hundred yards. 
This led us to the first bridging point over the River Findhorn — a Bailey bridge for walkers and cyclists which was only completed two years ago. This is nearly four miles inland, the next bridge is the main road and is at least another mile upstream.
I had planned this Walk carefully. Culbin Forest covers many acres, and it has lots of tracks going round in circles which don’t join up. As I said before, we could be lost for a lifetime in there! Not a happy prospect on such a wet day. Bearing in mind Additional Rule no.11, I chose a route which took us in as straight a line as possible to where there was marked on the map a path on the seaward side of the forest leading into Nairn.
After crossing the river we walked a couple of lanes, then down a grassy track towards Muckle Burn. Some cows in the adjacent field were spooked by Colin’s umbrella! They were trying to shelter, poor things, by the hedge. But when the umbrella brushed the hedge by them they started to leap about. Then they followed us down to the limits of their field — perhaps they thought we were going to take them in somewhere dry. I wish we could have. 
We both wished we weren’t out walking in this weather, but we only have the cottage until Saturday and then we have to go home. We have to make the most of our time.
We crossed the burn on a footbridge. Shortly after that we came to a large open barn. But it had a roof and was dry inside!  So we crept in and sat down very carefully on some boards to eat our pasties. We hope the farmer didn’t mind, but he probably never knew we had been there. We were careful not to disturb anything, nor leave any rubbish.



Just up the road we entered Culbin Forest. We could tell from the map it was not an ancient forest because the trees had been planted in rows. In fact most of the forest is less than a hundred years old. The area used to be a vast sand dune which was quite mobile. Sand was constantly blown over the surrounding area, blocking lanes, half burying buildings, choking animals and ruining crops. Marram grass was planted in an effort to stabilise the dunes, but that was not very successful.
The first trees were planted in the 1850s, and some of those still survive. But many of the saplings were buried by sand or blown away in the wind. The Forestry Commission took over the area in the late 1920s, and again tried to plant trees in order to stabilise the shifting sands. Most of their early attempts failed. Then someone thought of the idea of bringing in tree branches from other forests to ‘thatch’ the dunes. Not only did they provide shelter for the fragile new trees, but they also dropped nutrients in the form of bacteria and fungi into the sand surrounding their roots. Looking at the tall trees in the established forest today, you would never know it had such difficult beginnings.
We skirted the hamlet of Kintessack and walked along the road until we came to a sign directing us in to a picnic site. There was a house for sale there, and we wondered what sort of person would be interested in buying a property in such a place. We couldn’t find the toilets — didn’t fancy a bush in all that wet! — and realised we were well past where they were supposed to be. So we had to backtrack, and found them round the back of the house. The ‘Ladies’ was locked, so I used the ‘Gents’! The only other person in the whole of that forest today was a forest warden resting in his van near the picnic site. We passed him three times, but he took no notice of us whatsoever. A notice on a board told us of a ‘Butterfly Walk’ aimed at children which was being organised in the forest today, but obviously no one had turned up for it. I bet they were right fed up — if only they had planned it for yesterday when it was warm and the sun was shining.
I had picked up a leaflet in the Tourist Information Centre the other day. Inside was a map of Culbin Forest with numbers relating to numbered posts at the junctions of the tracks. We found these very useful, in fact we would probably have got hopelessly lost without them. “Straight on at 33, branch left at 34, etc.” Every track looked the same, as did every tree! But we saw a baby toad, that cheered us up.
We sat on a log to eat our sandwiches. But it was WET and we got cold, so we were both a trifle miserable. We walked on, and found the tracks we were walking on now were less used, so grasses etc had grown up in them. The undergrowth was wet, and I cursed myself for assuming my overtrousers were in my rucksack when they weren’t. The water soaked down my socks and into my boots making me even more unhappy!
On the Culbin Forest leaflet were marked two little pools named “Otter Pool”. At the bottom of the leaflet we were told that this pool was created in the 1980s to encourage wildlife, and suggested we may see otters there. 
Colin got very excited about this as we have never seen a wild otter in this country. (Oddly enough, the only place we have seen otters in the wild was in the centre of Florence under the Ponte Vecchio!) I knew we wouldn’t see any — in fact we didn’t even see the pool it was so overgrown! I don’t know why they write this stuff in tourist literature — don’t otters need running water anyway? 
The only place there was running water today was down my legs! But we did find another baby toad, so that was some compensation. Not much, but some!
When it was time to eat our apples, we couldn’t find anywhere to sit down. The soggy ground was out of the question, and there were no logs or anything like that. So we had to eat them standing up. I find standing more tiring than walking, so it was no rest. I can’t eat while I’m walking along because, with my lack of binocular vision, I have to concentrate on the walking or I’m liable to trip.
We continued on our way until we came out on the shore at the place where a path between forest and marshes is supposed to start. We looked eastwards, and the path snaked its way back towards Findhorn! 
We wondered how far back it had really started, because the map just shows miles and miles of marshes right up to the forest edge. We decided to eat our chocolate there. I perched uncomfortably on a tiny wooden post while Colin stood — he doesn’t find standing as tiring as me. Then we turned westwards and continued along a fairly decent track towards Nairn.
I don’t know if it was wetter out of the trees or under them. All I know is the rain never let up, not even for a moment. It would have been a lovely walk in sunshine, but there was nothing pleasant about it today.
We came across a circular seat which would have been the ideal place to sit and eat our chocolate on a fine day. It looked pretty miserable today. There was a bit of poetry on it:
sheltered from the waves
the ducks preen their salty wings
in fresh, sweet water
a place to reflect
on blue skies and grey seas
and to pose questions
The only question I was posing was, “Where are these blue skies you’re on about?” Perhaps I was not in the mood for poetry!
We soon left the forest behind and came to a picnic site with public conveniences which were exceptionally clean. We were grateful for that, at least we arrived in Nairn comfortable on the inside if not the outside. The children’s playground looked great, but deserted on this miserable day. 
We then walked through a caravan site, and had some difficulty in locating the footbridge over the River Nairn. We knew it was back a bit from the beach, and so we didn’t climb the dune bank on to the sands on the eastern side of the river.
At last we found the narrow Bailey bridge, and crossed over to Nairn Dock. We had to walk three quarters of the way round it to get to our car parked on the sea front. While we were doing this, Colin remarked that we had missed out the harbour pier walk on the eastern side of the river. We should have climbed the dune bank in the corner of the caravan site, and then we would have seen the harbour pier. BUT  WE WERE SOAKING WET AND FREEZING COLD! I replied (without even looking) that I had made an executive decision that the pier was too narrow and dangerous to walk (it wasn’t). Colin agreed whole-heartedly!

That ended Walk no.191, we shall pick up Walk no.192 next time on the seafront at Nairn. It was six o’clock, so the Walk had taken six and a half wet hours. We drank our tea and got going very quickly because we had a long drive back to our cottage and no dry clothes until we got there. But I did go and peep over the wall at the grey sea because I hadn’t seen it yet today!