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Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Gigha--A New Day

February 21, 2019--An Idaho "dusting" of snow
Our 2019 spring outing to Gigha began, as all our trips do, in our Idaho winter planning stage…it was an “if we can fit it in” excursion. 

The main 2019 goal (once enabled with a car rental), was to explore remote Kintyre and visit Knapdale’s Neolithic and Bronze Age archeological complex at Kilmartin.  It just so happened that a Gigha visit could fit…if we wedged it in on Sunday morning.   

Wedging a Gigha outing into Sunday, after spending all day Saturday, from flight to B&B, was possible because Kintyre Hire, the car rental shop, would not open until Monday.  Sunday we were afoot.  Normally, our first day on the ground in Scotland is a more sedate deal, as we reprogram the bio-clock for Greenwich Time.  To do Gigha, jet lag would have to wait. 

Saturday, April 13, 2019--Inverary 926 Bus Stop
Our international overnight landed late Saturday afternoon at Glasgow.  While not necessarily a flat out race to beat the clock, still, we had to be “determined” with our ground transportation.  Clearing airport customs, we jumped on the familiar “purple bus” (Airport Express) to Glasgow’s Buchannan Bus Station.  We did manage to trim about a half hour...barely enough to grab a quick bite from Gregg’s cafĂ© in Buchannan Station before boarding the only public transport from Glasgow to Campbeltown—the familiar 926 Bus.

The 926 (a regular route run several times a day) was the last bus to Campbeltown on Saturday evening.  It put us into Campbeltown, at the end of the line, about 10:15 p.m. Saturday night.  Graciously, our Earadale B&B hosts waited up for our arrival.  Gigha would happen in the morning, early. 

 

Sunday morning at Campbeltown
  

I do not want to give the impression that Gigha was an afterthought.  To the contrary, we wanted to visit—Gigha’s Ogham Stone, Kilchattan and of course its famous Achamore Gardens.  Darla does not pass up opportunities to explore U.K.'s gardens, which almost define Britain.  Gigha was penciled into the itinerary.

Sunday, April 14, 2019--Achamore Gardens, Gigha

Achamore Gardens would also add a small connective theme.  Its famed Rhododendron collection was the planting stock used to refurbish Brodick Castle Gardens on the Isle of Arran, which we would visit the following week. 

Achamore Gardens--Echium pininana?  In any case weird and invasive

Its 54-acres now overgrown, Achamore Gardens are being returned to order, mostly as a labor of love by resident gardeners on Gigha and volunteers across the U.K.  That said, there is a commercial angle.  Large public gardens in the U.K. are tourist attractions.  And Gigha seeks to attract.  There's tourist money in them thar' gardens.
April 14, 2019--Kilchattan, lancet window looking east to Kintyre

Achamore Gardens were laid down by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir James Nockells Horlick, 4th Baronet in 1945.  Peerage costing a pretty penny, it should be noted that the Horlick fortune was founded upon malted milk, as crazy as that may seem.  Horlicks malted milk business traded hands several times, following Sir Horlick’s death in 1972, until finally ending up (currently) in Unilever Corporation's hands.  (To scale it, note:  in late 2018, Horlick's Indian subsidiary traded for a cool $3.8 billion.) 

Credit:  Wisconsin Historical Society


The Achamore Mansion, however, was built earlier, by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir William James Scarlett in 1884.  The Isle of Gigha, its tenancies, businesses and in a practical sense its people, were sold
for £49,000 to Sir William's father in 1856 by Sir John Carstairs MacNeill (of Colonsay and the Clan MacNeill of Argyll).  At the time of the title transfer, Clan MacNeill had held Gigha, its ancestral home, for half a millennium from the Scottish Crown, with only brief interludes involving the quarrelsome Clan MacDonald.

Achamore House, Gigha

In their turn, the Scarletts sold the Gigha estate in 1919.  "Flippage" of Gigha's ownership traded hands many times in the 20th century, until it was acquired by Sir Horlick in 1944 who laid in the Achamore Gardens. Following Sir Horlick’s death in 1972, Gigha would again repeatedly flip in rapid succession.  

Unfortunately, the Gioghach (the people of Gigha) suffered under Scotland’s feu or feudal tenancy ownership.  Gigha’s population serves as a barometer of the health of the Gioghach under feudal tenancy.  In late 18th century, at the time of America's independence, Gigha supported over 600 people.  

The rapid “flippage” of ownership in the 20th century, however, nearly emptied Gigha to the point that by the year 2000 (one year before Gigha was eventually sold at market to the island’s inhabitants themselves) the island held only 95 people, with derelict housing. 

White Rhododendron at Achamore

Today, Gigha is no longer under feu.  It is in the hands of its people.  With various grants, and re-examining the purpose of capital, Gigha’s population decline has finally reversed, after several centuries, and is once again expanding.  Gigha optimistically represents a new day…one of “community capitalism” versus the last vestiges of aristocratic cronyism, which still plagues Scotland’s people in far too many ways.  But Gigha?...new businesses, including sustainable energy wind generators, new housing and new opportunities are remaking its future. 

March 28, 2018--croft ruins at Baliacrach, Mull

In stark contrast, our interest in visiting Gigha followed our 2018 visit to Isle of Mull’s Glengorm Estate, where we walked the ruins of Baliacrach croft and saw firsthand the inhumanity of
Fuadaichean nan GĂ idheal (the Highland Clearances).

Lastly, Gigha, first recorded in history in mid-500 A.D., was part of Dalriada—under the Lords of the Isles.  Gigha has long been known as a Hebridean island with rich agricultural land (approximately 900 acres arable).  Gigha was subjugated under the Viking realm around 800 A.D. until the Battle of Largs (1263 A.D. on Ayrshire's Firth of Clyde coast) ended Viking domination in Scotland.

 

April 25, 2019--North of Largs at Wymess Train Station 


Scots celebrate the battle at Largs as an independence, of sorts.  It did change the destiny of Scotland.  So too, then, may Gigha.  

Monday, December 14, 2020

Gigha--Another note on the weather

The Isle of Gigha, the most southerly of the Inner Hebrides, lies in the Sound of Jura only three miles off Kintyre Peninsula's western shore at Tayinloan.  Gigha, the subject of this travelogue, is an anecdotal example for discussing capitalism--community capitalism.

Ferry at Tayinloan on Kintyre; Gigha middle; Jura's Paps in background

First, the hamlet of Tayinloan on Kintyre.  Now simply a stop for the 926 Bus (Glasgow to Campbeltown), Tayinloan was something of a ghost town.  One soul with a chainsaw was cutting posts or firewood as we walked through.  Economically, Tayinloan is gone. 

April 14, 2019 Tayinloan--shops boarded up

Recent travel guides claim Tayinloan has a store, post office, coffee shop and pub.  It didn't.  So, caveat emptor.

Those heading to Gigha on a day trip might (logically) assume they can grab quick day trip supplies in Tayinloan at the bus stop before boarding the ferry.  Its commercial buildings are empty, closed and placarded with notices of sale.  

April 14, 2019--Tayinloan Bus Stop

Perhaps the only economic transaction taking place in Tayinloan is at its one older self serve gas pump.  To our surprise (we assumed the pump was not functional) while we waited to catch the 926 Bus back to Campbeltown after a gusty damp gray outing to Gigah, a car did pull down off the highway for self fuel at the pump.  We saw no visible card machine; the method of payment was a mystery.  No one was around.  The car pulled back up onto the A83, southbound toward Campbeltown.

April 14, 2019--Darla on Tayinloan Burn Bridge

Better times passed Tayinloan when the A83 highway was built  50 yards or so upstream, avoiding the narrow ancient stone bridge.  Tayinloan today is practically trampled under the highway viaduct.  Sad nostalgia perhaps, but the reality is that a rough single track road is insufficient to carry the commerce and travel necessary for modern times.

The walk from the Tayinloan bus stop is about 15 long minutes.  Just outside Tayinloan on the paved track to the Gigha ferry, a couple new construction bungalows were festooned with foreclosures.  Partly finished, but roofed, they stood open to the elements with sheeting shredding in the winds.  Difficult times in Kintyre.

April 15, 2019--Mull of Kintyre at St. Columba's Footprint; view west

Kintyre (called "Scotland's Mainland Island") is the geographic bar which defines the southerly boundary of Scotland's Inner Hebrides.  Waters east of Kintyre, to its leeward, are called the Firth of Clyde.  The Firth's isles--Arran, Bute and Cumbrae--are not considered part of the southern Inner Hebrides though they are much the same.  

If a distinction exists, it would be that waters in the Firth of Clyde are upwelling, or riverine, under the influence of Scotland's second largest river, River Clyde, along which fabled shipyards once built much of the world's ocean going fleets.  Difficult times on the Clyde as well. 

Gigha's "southerly latitude" allegedly fosters a warmer micro climate (relative to the Kintyre mainland).  For our part, at least on the Sunday we visited, Gigha's climate could in no way be misconstrued with warmth.  It was anything but that. 

April 14, 2019--MV Loch Ranza landing at Tayinloan "terminal"

A previous article [May 26, 2019 Celtic Cross, "Seize Quickly!"] addressed the North Atlantic's power, and its oft hard weather.  It bears repeating.  Weather in the Argyll islands on the windward edge of the the North Atlantic ought to inspire awe and a healthy dose of cautious preparation if one is out and about on foot, as we were.  Early spring can very much be a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type deal.  That's an appropriate comparison, considering the famed Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson penned the classic work in 1886.  He must have taken his example from Argyll's weather. 

In fairness, we have certainly had ample share of glorious and brilliant spring days in our Easter sojourns to Scotland.  The day we visited Gigha, however, we got Mr. Hyde. 

The best description of the driving damp wind (at least while in genteel company) was that it ached.  This made the 30 or so minute wait for the ferry seem interminable.  Tayinloan ramp is totally exposed to winds off the Jura Sound.  Those winds probably began somewhere near Florida, might have once been warm.  But by the time the North Atlantic beat all vestiges of warmth from them, they ended as ice somewhere up near Norway.

April 14, 2019--Tayinloan ferry jetty

It was an  excruciating wait, with few places to hide at the empty landing.  We tried huddling behind a partial glass phone booth at the top of the ramp, but were driven off.  We retreated behind the  block building which housed the public toilets.  Finally, we were mercifully spared by the arrival of the venerable MV Loch Ranza, a small "loch class" drive through vessel in the stable of CalMac (Caledonian MacBrayne).  For those who do not possess a yacht or a small aircraft, the CalMac ferry is the only way to get to Gigha.

April 14, 2019--MV Loch Ranza from Gigha; view east; Kintyre in background

The 20-minute sailing was over a fairly choppy tidal race in Jura Sound, which kicked up spay against the ferry windows.  But to be honest, we hardly noticed.  Our full attention was focused on trying to recover body temperature from the boiler heat of the passenger cabin.     

Should the adventurous travel to the Argyll at Easter, beyond good stout boots, a water and wind tight parka is an absolute necessity.  Without one, survival could be sketchy should weather turn.  And it does in early spring--several times a day even.