Scotland / Week 3

Bungie jumpers and an encounter with peerage

After some drama with our hired guide–he’d had a vehicular accident (not his fault) before picking us up but arranged to carry on with a borrowed car–we left Portsoy for Pitlochry.  Along the way, we stopped at Ballindalloch Castle, which has a beautiful walled garden.  While we were in the garden, an elderly gent strode toward us across the flower beds:  “Thank you so much for coming to visit!”  His wife, using two hiking poles for balance, joined us.  It turned out this was Oliver Russell and Clare Macpherson-Grant, the parents of the current laird, and the family had resided there since 1546.  We had a pleasant chat, and they invited us to help ourselves to some of the garden’s apples and plums, as they needed to be picked that afternoon.  This was our first ever encounter with peerage, and it left us feeling somewhat special.

Then we headed on to Pitlochry, which sits at the foot of the Cairngorms National Park.  Surrounded by high hills and perched along the River Tummel, it’s a pretty town, but to us it was a bit busy.  Even so, we found some pleasant walks, and we especially liked one that took us out to the Pitlochry Dam and fish ladder.  We spent only two nights here, as we’d planned it more as an intermediate stop on the way to Ardrossan and the ferry to the Isle of Arran.  Even so, I managed to get in a couple of sketches, one of the Cairngorms and another of Blair Castle.  At the castle, I witnessed the only piper on this trip so far; I sketched to the accompaniment of the soulful skirling of the pipes.

On the way to Ardrossan, we stopped at the Linn of Tummel.  Our drive explained that “linn” means “pool”--I’d mistakenly been looking for a specific feature, a waterfall, but it turned out the Linn was a large area of woodland and water instead.  Our hike took us past large, magnificent trees along the river and under a bridge.  Suspended on the underside of the bridge was an odd sort of sling or platform.  We were surprised when a group, outfitted in harnesses, arrived to bungie-jump from the platform.  There was also a zip line, and we were amused for a bit, watching tourists sliding down the lines.  I’d rather paint.

After a couple of beachside walks along the Firth of Clyde just past Glasgow, we arrived in Ardrossan for our ferry.  The MV Isle of Arran, which is the smaller of two ferries operating the route, took us across the Firth late in the evening.  It was a calm crossing with golden light reaching across the water; I was told that the crossing frequently is anything but calm, so we were lucky.  (As I write, strong easterly winds are forcing the ferry to land on its return trips at a different town, Troon.)  As we approached Arran, we had a nice view of Holy Isle, a private island that was sold in 1984 for a mere £100,000 to a group of Buddhists.

And now we are Arran.  It’s a mountainous island that reminds me much of the Virgin Islands: steep hills separating every village, with every village gathered loosely along its own bay.  And, surprisingly, there are even palm trees!  But rather than rum, there is whisky.

Our new art friend, Connie, has been with us the last several days, touring us around to a number of excellent hiking and sketching spots.  Besides sketching rocks and vistas, I also sketched the cottages at High Corrie, a small village on a bluff with cottages scattered randomly like boulders.  Back in the day, the occupants would move to the “back house” and rent out the main house to tourists; Scottish painters used to come here for the summer.   Also, I taught a small plein air painting workshop to local artists.  We first gathered in Blackwaterfoot at a studio and then headed to the waterfront where I demonstrated how I paint my favorite subject, rocks.  Like everyone we’ve met on this trip, the artists were welcoming and understanding of us Americans in a foreign land.  Today, we are going to try to figure out the bus schedule, which I, even with my advanced degrees in English literature and a masterful grasp of higher mathematics, can’t comprehend.

So, we are on Arran a couple more days before taking the ferry (we hope) back to Ardrossan.  From there, we’ll head for the art town of Kirkcudbright.  Until next time, I leave you with images of my sketches plus some photos. (Sketches are 5x8 or 5x16 gouache.)