Misc.

Odds and Ends

Thursday 26^th and Saturday 28^th December, 2013

No real hike this week – apart from another short Maughold walk on Boxing Day that was more or less a reprise of last week’s walk.  Less rather than more actually - because we returned from the Brooghs path along the main road to Maughold Village (where the car was parked) instead of taking the longer route via Dreemskerry.

We had hoped for a walk with Dorothy and Trevor on the Monday or Tuesday before Christmas but the forecast for Monday was anything but inviting . . . Comments: Risk of: heavy rain / flooding, coastal overtopping, some disruption or damage.  Gales, possibly reaching severe gale force for a time!  And when they forecast winds of up to 50 mph with gusts of over 70 for Tuesday morning we chickened out.

On Thursday we started off down the road from Maughold church towards Port Mooar and heard a cacophony of baaing and bleating coming from the other side of the hedge.  The first lambs had already arrived and were keeping in touch - very vocally - with their mothers.

We followed the usual path from Port Mooar to Drynane.  It was very muddy in places after the heavy rain at the beginning of the week.  And then we walked up through the fields to the road which leads to the lighthouse.

I got carried away by the effect of the clouds and the light over the sea . . .

. . . and over the hills.

Ramsey Bay was doing its millpond impression again.  The tide was out so Port e Vullen had a visible beach this week – although it looked as though some of the interesting rocks on the beach have been covered by drifting sand since we were last down there.

Friday was not a day to be out and about.  The gales returned with a vengeance.  Ferries were cancelled, flights were cancelled (including our son’s flight back to London City airport) or diverted to other airports and trees came down and blocked roads all over the Island. 

A huge elm fell across our road at lunchtime while electricity authority men were busy working on the overhead power lines, and later in the afternoon an even bigger, dead ash tree fell into a friend’s garden just as the infrastructure men finished cutting up the elm.  Luckily none of the workmen were injured and there was no damage apart from a short section of garden wall.

Saturday morning was relatively calm in the glen and we drove out to the Point of Ayre with our son and Danny.  We had forgotten how strong the wind can be out there – and the wind chill had to be felt to be believed.  I amused myself photographing the lighthouses and the foghorn.  The main lighthouse was first lit in 1818 and is now automated.

This part of the Island gradually changes shape with gravel and sand being deposited or shifted by the tides.  So seventy years later a second small lighthouse called the Winkie was built on the gravel bank 750 feet north east of the main lighthouse.  The Winkie had to be repositioned a further 250 feet in the same direction in 1950.  Its light was switched off in 2010.

Another relic of the past is the old foghorn.  It was decommissioned in 2005 because modern ships now use GPS.  It will always remind me of an incident involving Alice, the mother of our Schipperke brothers.  She was a very feisty little lady but she hated loud noises.  Once the foghorn started up while we were walking on the Ayres.  Betsy Lee, our older Schipperke and Alice panicked and tore off in the direction of the cars.  Betsy stopped when we called her but Alice kept running.  We searched for her for six hours until we finally came across her by chance on a road half the way to Andreas.

Just before deciding that it was too cold to enjoy a walk on the Ayres I noticed the battered remains of a starfish on the shingle.  When we got home I had a good look at my photo and wondered whether it had too many arms to qualify as a starfish.  Google was my next resort.  I found a multi-armed starfish called a sunflower starfish – but that was only found in the Pacific.  Then I discovered a similar local version . . . the common sunstar (Crossaster papposus) which has between eight and fourteen arms.

We returned home from the Point of Ayre to be greeted by this sight outside the kitchen window!

This particular male pheasant has been haunting our garden for a few weeks.  It spent most of the time eating crabapples in our tree in the front garden or scratching up the front lawn.  I tried to chase it away from the bird feeder but it just flew down onto the grass and walked up and down sneering at me.  This wasn’t a good move because it annoyed me enough to set my home-made pheasant trap and bait it with wild bird seed.  The pheasant couldn’t resist the food and I managed to trap him and we drove him down to the banks of the Sulby River and released him.  We have relocated at least ten pheasants so far this winter.  They fly down the glen to escape from the pheasant shoot up at Glen Auldyn Estate and then roost in the plantation and raid the local gardens in search of food.  One or two aren’t too bad but we have had up to seven regular vistors some days and it ceased to be amusing a long time ago.  They can be very destructive, eating or scratching out plants and bulbs . . .  even though they are rather beautiful .  They are not truly native birds, just immigrants gone feral.

Maughold

Almost Midwinter?

Tuesday 17^th December, 2013.

After being threatened with a more demanding walk to compensate for the easy walk last week, I was relieved to get the following message from Dorothy “The idea for a walk this next week is from Port Mooar.  The weather forecast is good for a Tuesday walk, so hopefully we will see you at 9 o' clock.”  I think I was saved from an arduous hill walk by the forecast for strong winds.

We will have passed the winter solstice before our next walk but the weather still feels more like autumn than winter.  I sometimes think that the Manx year is consists of only two real seasons . . . spring and autumn.  We get an occasional week or two of real summer or winter (most years), but very hot or very cold weather is rare.

It looks like winter though.  The nights are long in December at 54 degrees north.  Because of the mountains we don’t glimpse the sun in the glen until about eleven o’clock.  Then, just a few hours after it peeps over North Barrule, it disappears again behind Skyhill.  

As we drove towards Maughold village on Tuesday the sun had just risen above the sea and was lighting up the clouds.  By the way, the camera lied.  It wasn’t really dark.  The strong backlight completely obliterated the foreground.

When we reached Port Mooar there was very little wind, the sun was shining and it looked like a perfect day for a walk.

The tide was fairly high and the only sign of life in the little cove was a group of ducks paddling around peacefully in the shallows.

We decided to do the inland section of the walk first because it would have been difficult to photograph the coast while the sun was just above the horizon.  So we started off in the direction of Dreemskerry Hill.  We paused to look at these horses and tried to work out whether the chestnut on the left was standing in long grass or whether it just had unusually short legs!

Near the top of the hill we crossed the tram tracks.  I took this photo of the extremely modest waiting room at the Dreemskerry station.  Someone had tried to cheer up its appearance with baskets and pots of geraniums.  Surprisingly they still had one or two surviving flowers.

From the same place – but looking north instead of south – Tim took this photo of the view across the Maughold fields towards Ramsey Bay and the northern plain.

We continued down the Dreemskerry Road and Jack’s Lane until we reached the coast just east of Port e Vullen.  The tide was even higher by now and this photo of the little hamlet at Port e Vullen shows why there is an alternate route for this section of the coastal footpath.  The classic route is along the beach and around the little headland at Gob ny Rona but that is out of the question when the tide is high because there is no beach.

The wind hadn’t strengthened much and I wondered whether we would be lucky enough to see some seals . . . or even dolphins.   We stopped to watch this boat.  I think the fisherman was retrieving lobster pots.

A little further on we passed the only trees tough enough to survive on the Brooghs – two Scots Pines.  The Scots pines are special because they are one of only three truly native conifers in the British Isles.   To complete the scene there were also three native Loughtan sheep on the path ahead of us. 

The wind began to strengthen as we approached the steep climb up to the small shelter at the highest point of the Brooghs.  In front of the shelter, facing north, is an engraved slab showing the main hills on the surrounding coasts . . . Black Combe and Scafell in the Cumberland Hills and Criffel in southern Scotland.

We caught up with the three Loughtan and I was amused by this little chap with his ridiculous hair style.  I wonder whether the other young Loughtan thought he was “super cool”.

The wind was strengthening by the minute and it was hard to keep a camera steady.  There was no chance  of spotting seals or dolphins and I didn’t take many photos  along the path from Drynane to Port Mooar - but Tim got this interesting shot of the sunlight reflected on the sea.

The Irish Sea is notorious for sudden gales and, by the time we approached the cars, the earlier tranquil scene had been replaced by breaking waves.  The ducks were hiding somewhere in the shelter of the rocks.  Only a few daredevil gulls were riding the waves.  Tim said “The sea has come alive!”

On the way home we stopped at Maughold Church.  Before going into the church, I took a quick photo of the little shelter in the churchyard which houses the collection of Celtic and Norse crosses.   There are photos and descriptions of the crosses on this link  http://www.iomguide.com/crosses/maughold/kirk-maughold.php

I wanted to photograph the old Maughold parish cross which dates back to about 1300AD and is thought to contain one of the earliest engravings of “The three legs of Mann” – the national symbol.  The old cross used to stand on the village green outside the church and can be seen it this position in this old photo from 1895.

It was later moved into the churchyard but was moved again, into the church, to prevent further weather damage in 1989.

The origin of the “three legs” has been lost in antiquity but the Manx symbol is similar to an old symbol used in Sicily which is now shown on their flag.  It has also been suggested that our “three legs” is an adaptation of the triskele an ancient symbol often associated with Manannan (which symbolised the three realms – land, sea and sky).

Now it has pride of place in the centre of our national flag.

Kirk Michael

Eroding cliffs and old crosses

Tuesday 10 December, 2013

Dorothy's email on Sunday said "  Are you getting back to fit for a walk?      We thought a start from Glen Wyllin and along the beach to Orrisdale and back along the railway.   The low tide is at 11 o'clock so we should manage the walk that way round.   Or the other way is an option as well!!!     The weather is OK so far for Tuesday. “   

I replied " My back is still a bit painful and definitely not up to an arduous North Barrule-type walk - but I may be able to manage the Glen Wyllin walk.  I have been doing plantation walks for a couple of days and have survived.  Tim would like to walk - so he will be there and I hope to be with him (weather, back and dog permitting!)  I will try not to do anything stupid in the meantime.”

On Tuesday morning I felt fairly confident about the walk, after surviving a Monday grocery shopping trip to Ramsey, so we all met up at Glen Wyllin. 

I hadn't seen the west coast since it was lashed by the severe onshore gales last Thursday.    Trevor told us that there had been damage to Peel Promenade.  The cliffs north of Glen Wyllin hadn't escaped unscathed either.  The rough seas keep undermining the fragile cliffs carved out of glacial deposits around the north of the Island.  There used to be a mill above the cliffs on the north side of the river but it was pulled down in 1978 as it was in danger of being undermined and falling  onto the beach below.  There are a couple of piles of huge boulders protecting the end of Shore Road, where the mill used to stand, and the road through the camping site but the sea has been gradually eating away at the unprotected section of cliff between (below the trout hatchery) - at an average of I metre a year over the past ten years.   Pieces of old masonry are being undermined and are now littering the shore.

The various strata of glacial deposits which are visible in the cliff face are interesting.  This huge block must have come down on Thursday.  The layered composition is clear.

Nearby there were a few more blocks.  I think they must have fallen from the mysterious thick vein of darker and apparently denser material half way up the cliff. 

We passed the end of Balleira Road where the little river, which gives the road its name, trickles across the shore.  The only access to the beach along this stretch of coast is where the streams or rivers make their way through narrow valleys, probably cut by the melting ice about ten thousand years ago.

I read in a booklet* published in 1986 that there used to be a small glen about a quarter of a mile north of Balleira which was marked on an early ordnance survery map.  It  was called the Parson’s Glen.  At the time the booklet was written most of the glen had been lost to the sea and only a remnant remained – a tiny gully high up in the cliff.  The author predicted that the last traces would soon disappear.  I think he was right.  I tried to count my steps from Balleira to locate the locality of the disappearing glen but soon lost count.  A careful check of the cliff top gave no clue.   The edge of the cliffs appeared to be uniformly slightly scalloped.

* Kirk Michael  Isle of Man  A guide to Village and Parish by John Grimson

We planned to leave the shore at Glen Trunk and I wondered whether the end of the path would have been destroyed by the storm.  It wasn’t too bad.  The recently repaired path now ends rather abruptly but it was easy enough to cross the stream and climb up the zig-zag path.

When we reached the Orrisdale Road near Kiondraghad we turned south and walked along the road until we reached the footpath through the fields which links up with the old railway line near a field which appears to be an informal graveyard for old farm vehicles.  After Tim took this photo I checked up to see whether the old "Lion" trip-action rake that I photographed on an earlier visit in March 2012 was still there.  It was.

When we reached the bridge over the Balleira Road, we climbed down the steps from the railway line after stopping to take a photo of the reason for our detour through the village – the church of St Michael and All Angels. 

There used to be a sign at the top of the Balleira Road which gave the English translation – Road of Muddy River.  The Manx name is bilingual being comprised of the Scandinavian Leira (muddy river or water) with the Gaelic bal- (place or farm) tacked on the beginning.  Now the little stream, which is no longer muddy, flows through a deep ditch at the side of the road, making its way under an arch built into the supports of the railway bridge.

There are some villages in the Island which are not popular with drivers as they have grown up on either side of main routes and it is necessary to keep ducking in behind parked cars to avoid oncoming vehicles.  Kirk Michael, on the main west coast road which forms part of the TT course, is one of them.  There is no provision for off road parking for shoppers and most of the old cottages have no space for a car in their tiny gardens so one side of the road is used as a car park.

I took this photo of the pretty lych-gate at the entrance to the churchyard.  It was originally built to house a collection of Celtic crosses.  The crosses have since been moved into the church where they are safer from the elements and possible vandals.

We spent a short time wandering through the old graves until we found the grave of Bishop Wilson.  My booklet says that it lies in the shadow of a small remnant of the old church which served the parish from the twelfth century up to the building of the present one in 1835.

I wandered off to take some photos of the motley bunch of resident lawnmowers.   I rather liked this one which looked a bit like a cartoon sheep. 

But my favourite was this young sheep which must have been a meg lamb (hand-reared orphan) because it walked boldly up to me and let me scratch its head.

Inside the church is an interesting collection of crosses.  They are arranged in a dark corner with just enough back light to make photography difficult.  The cross which I particularly wanted to see was Gaut’s cross.  It is unusual because the runic inscription identifies the tenth century sculptor.  The translated inscription reads “Melbrigdi son of Athakan the smith erected this cross . . .  but Gaut made it and all in Man.”

By the way, the peculiar little stone on the floor is “the broken shaft of a cross slab, which in 1669 was turned upside down, reshaped and carved with a skull and cross bones.”

I particularly liked the handsome Dragon Cross.

Another favourite was the intricately carved back of the fragment of the Crucifixion cross.  There are photos of the other side, where the carvings explain the name, on this link  http://www.iomguide.com/crosses/michael/no129.php  The website also has photos of, and information about, most of the old crosses on the Island.

There is never enough time to explore properly and we eventually had to leave the church and make our way south through the village to Station Road, where we turned down towards the sea and walked as far as the old station, built of Peel sandstone, which is now the Kirk Michael Fire Station.  Then it was just a short walk along the railway line back to the cars.

Tynwald Mills

A missed walk

Monday 2nd December, 2013

I have three main reasons for missing walks and only one is an enjoyable reason . . .  a visit from non-hiking house guests.  This week I missed the hike because I did something silly to my back last weekend.  Not the best of reasons to be housebound but marginally better than nursing a sick dog which is the third main reason.  Danny is still with us and is playing the victim card for all it's worth . . . wangling daily walks and being allowed to sleep next to me on the bed.

I am not sure how this post will display on the blog.  It will have to travel along a tortuous route - rather like one of our hikes.  Unfortunately the position that my long-suffering back dislikes most is sitting at the desktop PC.  So I am trying to type emails and write this report on my elderly XP laptop which is balanced precariously on my knees.  The original laptop browser is virtually obsolete and there isn't enough free space to download a non-Windows browser so I can't transfer the report directly from the laptop to the blog.  Instead, I am composing this as a message in Outlook Express which I will email to myself.  Then I will pick up the message on the desktop, transfer it to Word and then on to the blog.  I know this is ridiculous but I don't know how to do clever things like setting up a network so that the two old computers can "talk to each other".

Tim obviously took all the photos of this walk which started from Tynwald Mills, a shopping centre near St John's, which was developed during the later part of the twentieth century, in (and around) an old woollen mill which originally housed a thriving weaving industry. 

They walked up to the Staarvey Road and continued along the road as far as the junction with the road leading towards Little London.  I have read that Little London was originally called Gliontan (meaning little glen).  Slurred speech resulted in it losing the G at the beginning of the word and it was eventually corrupted from -liontan to London.  Either the locals remembered that the original name meant little glen, or they thought it was rather absurd to call the tiny hamlet consisting of a handful of farms London, so Little was added at the beginning of the name and it has been Little London ever since.

On the way they took one detour through a field to photograph an old building which appears to have been a barn attached to the remains of a cottage.  The corrugated iron roof must have been rusting away for years but it was more or less intact until the blizzard this spring.  The weight of the snow was too much for the old roof timbers to bear . . . and the roof collapsed.

Near the crossroads they saw a little three-wheeled Reliant Robin sitting in a field - apparently waiting for better days.  Unfortunately it was parked at the wrong angle for a photo.  Viewed from behind it just looked like any little old hatchback.

Then they continued along the road, crossing the main west coast road at Cronk y Voddey and climbing up the hill before turning off to the right, down into the Rhenass valley above Glen Helen.  It was a good morning for old cars.  Near the river, this old Hillman Imp had been left to "blend with nature".  It has been there for years but used to be partly covered with the blue plastic tarp which is lying nearby.

Near the Rhenass River is this old stone mill or barn, built in traditional fashion, with outdoor stone steps up to the top storey.  I wonder whether there are the remains of a water wheel behind the building.

Trevor was the only one who was adventurous enough to cross the river using the old stepping stones.  The others took a sneaky detour over the bridge before rejoining the official footpath.

After crossing the bridge, Tim took this photo of the stepping stones and the reflection of the bridge on the still water above the weir.

The next photo-stop was at Ballasayle to photograph the Highland cattle.  Only one, which Tim nicknamed "Big Mama", was interested in the photographers.

 

Big Mama seemed to feel responsible for protecting the other younger animals in the field.

The rest of the walk was hard work . . . as I know from past experience!  First there was the overgrown and boggy path up from the old farm up to the forestry road through the plantation.

Then a long climb up the steep, stony track up the back of Beary Mountain.

And finally the long, steep descent along the even stonier footpath across the south side of Beary which eventually leads back down to Tynwald Mills.