The last time I camped away from home was with a friend in the summer of 1990 (what I consider BC) on Arran off the west coast of Scotland. Before that it was in Newquay in the Cornwall in the South West of England in the summer of 1985, again with friends. And that doesn’t really amount to vast experience or in-depth knowledge of outdoor living! Why BC? Well this period of my life was BC for several reasons: it was Before Connubial relationships, Before Children and Before Caching by at least 13 years!
So until now, our father and son camping experiences had been limited to the back garden with the security and convenience of the facilities afforded by our house in close proximity! But earlier in the year we decided that the time had come to venture further a field ...
The recent mild weather had rekindled visions of long warm days of summer in our heads and my son Lee was desperately looking forward to a camping adventure further a field. We made up our minds; we couldn’t wait any longer. Plans were made and we gathered our equipment and provisions, loaded up our old '86 Merc which already had 230,000 miles on the clock and headed North to Wemyss Bay in Scotland from where we could catch one of the regular Calmac ferries to the island of Bute.
There are some fantastic islands off the West coast of Scotland and Bute is probably the most accessible. I’d longed to return to the islands ever since the 1990 visit with my friend. At that time the weather had been so glorious we were burned to cinders and had to resort to swimming in the lovely mountain streams to cool down!
What the weather would be like in mid March, that was in the lap of the gods. Heavy snow is not unusual in those parts at this time of year but the forecast was fairly promising.
We’d arranged to stay at a campsite on Canada Hill close to the ferry port in the main town of Rothesay and when we arrived we found that the site had many static caravans available as well as tent pitches.
We were the only ones there! We pitched our little two-man tent and although the wind blew strong and the ground was sodden, at least it wasn’t raining. A passing walker commented, “last time I camped there our tent blew away” Hmmm, I wasn’t surprised, but Lee just smiled with excitement.
We still had a few hours of daylight left and we knew we had to make the most of our time because it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that we could be washed out before morning. There are two great series of caches on Bute, one dedicated to Archaeology and one to Geology. I hoped we’d be able to find a few of each during our stay so we headed off to The Standing Man to see if we could find our first cache.
Bute is a small island, about 20 miles long and about four miles wide and this cache is at the site of an Iron Age Dun at Cnoc an Rath just a few miles from Rothesay. The story goes that a man from Arran, who lived, worked, and in the end died on Bute wanted to be buried facing Arran. So there he lies, or rather stands (having been buried in an upright position!) facing towards the island of his birth!
Lee found the cache at the base of a tree on the edge of the Dun. We’d found our first cache of the trip! We left a TB here, Slytherin's 1000th Cache Champagne Cork taken from the bottle used to celebrate his 1000th cache find some months earlier.
Pleased with our find, and our trip well and truly under way, we headed back to Rothesay for a well deserved supper of fish and chips in Zavaroni’s café (highly recommended!) before returning to the tent for our first night away from home under canvas!
Nothing ever goes smoothly for us and on the ferry on the way across to Bute I’d trapped my finger in the car door – major OUCH! That night, long after Lee had passed into the land of nine year old camping trip dreams, I lay awake trying to rest after the long drive, my finger hummed painful songs to me and I’m sure glowed red enough to light the darkness. As I write this four weeks later I’m still sporting the black fingernail! Eventually I fell asleep to the patter of increasingly heavy raindrops ...
By morning the rain had stopped and though there was a chill in the air there were optimistic signs of blue in the sky. We set up our camp stove and boiled the kettle for hot tea while bacon sizzled in our small pan for our breakfast.
My wife Wendy had made sure we had plenty of provisions for the trip and after breakfast I packed my rucksack with some chicken pieces, fruit salad and drinks ready for the day ahead. Our plan was to follow the Geohike route round eight of the caches in the south of the island (you may have to register to follow that link) but basically its an eight mile circular walk taking in eight geocaches along the way.
The start of the walk is in Kilchattan Bay and initially you follow the West Island Way along the coast in a clockwise direction, taking in the What An Intrusion and Hawks Neb caches that are part of the Bute geology series. These two highlight the Old Red Sandstone characteristic of the south of the island and from which many of the island’s buildings are constructed.
Now, between these two caches I had a very lucky escape. As we approached Hawks Neb I realised that my camera was no longer attached to my rucksack! We backtracked nearly half a mile before finding it on the path. Fortunately it had taken a soft landing on the muddy ground and no permanent damage had been done – or you wouldn’t be looking at these pictures now!
So after our little set back we continued on our way and headed to the lighthouse at Rubh’an Eun. It's hard to believe the story on the cache sheet about the old Inn and small but bustling community that once thrived here but the evidence is there to be seen in the form of the outline of the ruined building not far from the beach. This is one isolated spot and life must have been hard indeed for those who lived and worked here up until 100 years ago.
To The Lighthouse was where our caching success rate started to falter. After our setback, it was approaching lunchtime and we were getting hungry and struggling to find this cache so we sat down on the rocks and took in the fantastic views across the bay and lunched on chicken chunks and fruit salad as the spring sun started to break through the thin clouds.
Refreshed but with a long way to go we headed up the hill away from the coast past large boulders left precariously poised on the hillside after the last Ice Age and found hidden amongst them the Rockfall cache.
Onwards and upwards we went past Loch Na Leighe and the area of the island known as The Plan where we found Pot of Coins TB which is owned by Pineapple and Mr Bitey and originates from California! We couldn’t resist taking the pot home so we swapped it for the Geohikes - left foot forward TB that we’d brought with us from home.
By the time we arrived at St Blane's Chapel time had flown by and I was starting to doubt that we’d make it round the route in the daylight. We searched for the cache for about twenty minutes but to no avail. In fact we would find no more caches today. We eventually decided to have a look at the Chapel itself and learn something of its history.
Founded by Blane in the 6th century, all that remains is the ruin of the chapel, a surrounding churchyard, and some evidence of other buildings. The churchyard contains the graves of 7th and 8th century bishops and abbots. St. Blane was born on Bute in the 6th century, educated in Ireland at the Great School at Bangor in Ulster under St. Kenneth and St. Comgall the Great and returned to the island to establish his monastery built like many of the buildings on the island from the characteristic old red sandstone.
The trail now led us from here, more or less in the middle of the island back down to Donagoil Bay on the coast to the west. Causeway Columns not too dissimilar to those of the more famous Giants Causeway in Ireland can be seen here but once again the cache eluded us and pressed for time and still with a long walk across the island ahead of us we set off up the road towards Lubas and the Larghizean and the wooded area to the north that would provide our path back to Kilchattan Bay. If I have any criticism of this route, it's that it would probably be better done in reverse order so that the fascinating looking puzzle cache Captain Sparrow's Treasure is not the last on the list at the end of a long day with quite a considerable distance between it and the penultimate cache. The caches near the start of the route are much closer together and would really provide the motivation required to keep going towards the end of what is for children (and some adults!) very long hike.
We the aid of the trusty GPSr and at one point some very welcome assistance from the mapping software on my pocket PC we eventually made it back to Kilchattan. We’d managed to find four of the eight caches en route and we’d made it all the way round so we considered our mission accomplished. Tired and hungry we headed off back to Rothesay for more fish and chips and then back to base camp for a well earned rest!
Our first full day on the island had been fantastic! The weather had been good, even sunny at times and the rain had kept off. The night was to be different though. No sooner had we zipped down the hatch, the rain started. It continued through the night and was very heavy at times. The sodden ground beneath seemed to gradually dampen the lower half of the sleeping bags we were in and sure enough, despite our sewn in plastic groundsheet, by the time we awoke the next morning, sufficient damp had wicked through that our beds were well and truly wet on the underside.
With the dawn came the end of the rain and Day Two was to be mainly dry but not warm enough to dry out the sleeping bags sufficiently for another comfortable night. Although Lee pleaded and begged, I was forced to take the decision to break camp. We would spend the best part of the day on the island but headed for home via one of the later afternoon ferries.
But first there were still plenty of caches to be found and we hadn’t yet visited the north of the island. Determined to see as much as possible before we left, we chose Folded, another geology cache in the far North of the island as our first for the day and after another bacon breakfast we packed up the tent, paid for our pitch for the two nights and set off for Rhubodaich.
It is possible to get a ferry back to the mainland from here and is a much shorter sail than the one from Rothesay to Wemyss Bay but if you’re planning to drive to England, it’s a much longer journey by road from the ferry in the north.
The suggested parking for Folded is actually the ferry car park which is actually little more than a lay by at the side of the road. Lee liked it here and decided to spend some time skimming stones and watching the ferry return from the mainland.
To get to the cache we had to cross Balnakailly Burn, which after the heavy rain during the night was pretty much in full flow! A fallen tree forms a high risk route across and aided by the nimbleness and balance of his youth, Lee was soon across. I stepped onto the log, took one step, overbalanced and ... sploosh!
Feet already a little dampened, I opted for the stepping stone route which now looked the favourable option even though some of the stones were submerged by a couple of inches. Both across we followed the arrow the short remaining distance to the 500 million year old folded outcrop of rock that is the subject of this cache. There was evidence of a recent camp here but the cache had not been muggled and we sat on the rocks and signed the log while watching the seals bobbing their heads in and out of the water in the bay to the north.
The northwest quarter of the island has no roads and is accessible only on foot so we had to retrace our route back south and then across the island for our next cache High and Dry at Scalpsie Bay where the beach is raised after being released of its burden of the weight of ice that covered the area at the end of the last Ice Age. Its also the home of a feature known locally as The Haystack a rock feature that stands some 30-40 feet high its geological origin problematic in that its rocks are different from those of the nearby cliffs. We parked on the road as suggested and followed the path across the field to the shore then walked along the beach towards the Haystack.
We’d spotted a bench on the path between the edge of the fields and the beach and decided to stop there for some lunch. Rain clouds were approaching from the west and as we ate our fruit salad we felt the occasional spot of rain. The time had come to say good bye to Bute and head back East to Rothesay, the ferry and home.
Lee loved Bute – he’s already asked when can we go back again and I have to say that given the chance, we’ll be back again another day, but there are many other western islands we still haven’t seen. Who knows, may be we’ll like Skye even more!
Gary Rogers
Editor www.geocachingtoday.com
Project Leader www.geograph.co.uk