The Brooghs

A Windy Autumn Day in Maughold

Wednesday 30th October, 2013

This is one of our favourite circuits when it is likely to be too windy to walk up in the hills.  I was glad that Trevor hadn’t chosen one of our more challenging routes for Wednesday because I was feeling rather light-headed after a couple of disturbed nights.

As usual we started from Port Mooar and walked along the coast to Dhrynane and then through the fields to the lane past Maughold churchyard and up to towards Maughold Head.  Then we turned west along the Brooghs footpath.  The Brooghs is a long narrow strip of Manx National Heritage land along the top of the cliffs on the south side of Ramsey Bay, stretching from Maughold Head to Port e Vullen.  The name means brow or bank.

After joining the main Maughold road, we walked towards Ramsey for a short way and then turned up Jack’s Lane (named for John Kermeen, a nineteenth century carter, who lived there) which leads to the Dreemskerry Road (a dreeym is a ridge and the "skerry" part is debatable.  Either "Scarff's ridge" or "the ridge of the division".  The second version is favoured by Constance Radcliffe.)  Then, after nearly a mile of uphill walking in the direction of the coast, we turned down Dreemskerry Hill just before we reach the old quarry, and returned to Port Mooar.

I was asked why one of the recent walks was titled “Ohio”.  The short and boring answer is that part of the walk was through the Ohio Plantation.  When I tried to find out some more interesting information about how the plantation got this unusual name, I had no luck.  Trevor says that he has a friend who works for the forestry department and that he may know.  It was the fruitless “Ohio” search which inspired me to do a bit of name checking this week with slightly more success.   

I didn’t need to look up Port Mooar.  It just means “Large Port” which seems rather a grand name for a small bay – but I suppose it is the largest accessible little bay between Maughold Head and Laxey.

It was cloudy when we set out.  Rain and gales were predicted for later in the morning but the sun was still trying to shine through some lighter patches of cloud.

The tide was high and the sea was rougher than usual in the gusty wind. We didn’t see any birds at Port Mooar and very few flying around the coast.  Dorothy made a comment about it being “nice and splashy” or “nicely splashy”.  I find it hard to hear in windy conditions with a woolly cap over my ears.  I also find it difficult to time waves accurately and tend to miss the most spectacular splashes.  This was the best I could manage.

There were no seals in their favourite spot near Sheila’s bench and we continued along the path toward the lighthouse.

I tried to photograph a solitary pink thrift flower which must have forgotten to bloom in spring and then become confused about the seasons.  It was tossing around too much in the breeze - but further along the path, in a sheltered corner, I found some late flowering white yarrow (Achillea millefolium).

The next stop was Dhrynane.  I don’t know why the Ordnance Survey mappers chose the most complicated spelling.  Constance Radciffe gives no less than six variations in spelling (in her book Maughold and Ramsey Place-names) – Dunnane, Port Donan, Donnaan, Donnane, Dhyrnane and Druinnane.  She suggests that it might be derived from Dhowin “Deep Place” with a diminutive suffix.  This is a photo of the small deep place!

As I was climbing down a steep part of the path, I noticed a couple of spectators, who had found shelter from the rough sea in this “small deep place".  They were watching the progress of the other hikers who were walking ahead of me.  I waited to try to get a better photo but the seals suddenly did a rather spectacular synchronised dive, “nicely splashy”, which I missed of course, and disappeared under the water.  I waited for them to emerge and they finally surfaced near some rocks on the far side of the bay but I couldn’t get a better photo.

We walked through the fields and Tim took this photo.  Until we moved to the Island I wouldn’t have believed that it was possible for the countryside to be so green. 

In the middle of another field we saw an unusual sight . . . four swans.  When I stopped at a gate to take their photo, they took fright and flew off but I managed to get a photo of them in flight with North Barrule in the background.

We paused outside the churchyard wall and I took a photo of the foundations marking one of the ancient keeills amongst the grave stones.

When we got to the beginning of the Brooghs footpath there was a group of loaghtan sheep by the hedge, sheltering from the strong wind.  Tim’s photo was better than mine . . .  

  

. . . but I did get a reasonable shot of the disgruntled sheep moving off in a huff after being disturbed by pesky hikers.

Then the sun managed to break through the clouds and we got some nice views of  the copper-coloured bracken on the Brooghs and Ramsey Bay.  The sea in the bay wasn’t exactly like the proverbial mill pond but it was much calmer than the water further off the east coast.  I could see why Ramsey Bay was chosen as a  calm haven for the Royal yacht to lie at anchor when Queen Victoria was seasick en route from Scotland to Douglas.  That was the occasion when Albert took his memorable hike up the Llerghy Frissell to the spot where the tower was later built to commemorate the visit.

We passed one of the old quarries near the Ramsey end of the Brooghs.  I have been told that much of old Ramsey was built with slate from these quarries.

The rest of the walk was mainly along boring roads but when we were walking up Jack’s Lane) I heard the old electric tram approaching and I had my camera ready when it crossed the lane.

Manx Roads have a disconcerting habit of changing names without apparent reason.  For instance one Ramsey road starts as Albert Road and then becomes Waterloo Road before changing again to Ballure Road.  I knew that the road we were going to walk along down from the Dreemskerry  Road was a continuation of School House Road, which runs from the upper side of Dreemskerry Road to the main east coast road.  I was hoping to photograph a sign with the name of the road because it has a significance to me.  The original Manx name of School House Road was Bayr ny Geayee – the name I chose for the blog.  There were a few drops of rain as we approached the junction and I stored my camera safely in a plastic bag.  But I didn’t miss a photo opportunity because there was a complete lack of road signs.  After we got home, I found the lower section of the road  that we walked along was just called Dreemskerry Hill – so I can’t claim that part of today’s walk was along the Bayr ny Geayee.

The tide was going out when we reached Port Mooar.  There weren’t many sea birds around but a group of Mallard had emerged from their hiding places and were feeding in the shallows at the edge of the shore

St. John's

Weather on Slieau Whallian

Monday 21st October, 2013

Another walk when the most memorable aspect was the weather.

I sometimes suspect that my friends, living in other - hotter - countries think that our British weather is always cold, wet and gloomy.  We do have days like that but we also have wonderful, warm, sunny days which I wish I could show  them to prove that they are wrong to feel sorry for us.  But this last week has been a series of “days like that”.  The past week has produced a mixture of warnings about gales and localised flooding, with at least some rain forecast every day, and the island has reached saturation point.
  
We agreed to a Monday walk after getting this message from Dorothy on Sunday morning: “Monday starts off OK from this morning's weather forecast.     Tuesday is rain and I can't walk on Wednesday.     We think a walk from the car park at the Farmers Arms at St. Johns, on Monday and take the climb up the track past where the tractor fell and then back down through the woods.      Not too far if the rain comes in.     Perhaps we could extend it depending on how the morning looks.”

Monday morning's forecast hadn’t changed much:
Weather: Dry at first. Rain at times late morning / early afternoon onwards, some heavy later.
Wind: S 10-15 backing E-SE this morning and increasing 15-20, then veering S-SE 20-25 this evening.
Visibility: Good, becoming moderate or poor.
Temperature: Min. Air 11°C and Max. Air 15°C
Rainfall (mm): 10-15 but 20-30 over hills.
Comments: Risk flooding especially tonight. Strong winds.

There were a few drops of light rain before we even left the glen – soon after eight.  And a few more as we drove down to St. John’s but it wasn’t quite raining when we set out from the car park.

Warm air rising from the plantation on Slieau Whallian appeared to be creating its own little patch of mist.

We walked up the Gleneedle road and then turned onto the footpath which has been known as “the track past where the tractor fell” ever since we came across a tractor which had fallen down a bank and blocked the path during a walk in February.  No unexpected tractors this morning – just a lot of water running down the schizophrenic path which didn’t know whether it was a path or a stream.

There were a few drops of rain at times but nothing serious.  Mist was hovering over higher ground.

Then we caught up with about half a dozen cows ambling around on the path ahead of us.  They seemed quite placid and eventually most of them turned off into a field above the path.  

One cow decided to stay on the path.  I suggested that she joined her friends but she just stepped through a gap in the fence on the opposite side of the path and gave me a dirty look.  I tried to start a conversation with her and she obliged with a few disgruntled moos.  I think it was a sort of linear conversation . . . I was talking to her and she was talking to her mates in the other field . . . and they were ignoring her. 

The incident reminded me of a paragraph in a novel that I am reading (The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan).  It is written in the first person, in the character of a Scottish teenager, with a drug habit and criminal past.  Her thoughts amused me.

“I’m suspicious of silence, and reality, and social 

workers.  I’m suspicious of teachers, and police, and

psychologists, and clowns, and apples, and red meat and cows.

Cows are too big and they’re telepathic  You walk past a

cow field and they all just turn as one being, and stare.  And

they do chase people.  I’ve fucking seen them.  Bovine grass-

munching hippies – my arse!”

When we reached the service reservoir, where a couple of water department vans were parked and some “ushtey” men were mowing the grass, it was decision time.  We had thought of walking a little further along the road because Dorothy wanted to take photos of some old farm buildings in the mist. But the mist wasn’t obliging . . . it was still  too high.  So we turned up the path towards the top of Slieau Whallian, where we found more than enough mist.  Unfortunately no ruined buildings - just a pile of stones to mark the summit.  

The “view” from the top reminded me of a joke postcard which used to be stocked by the newsagents in Ramsey.  The card was plain grey and the title was “Foggy day on the Isle of Man”.  There was also a plain black one – “The Isle of Man at night”.

I was worried about my camera.  The lens was tending to mist up with condensation and I didn’t want to get it too damp.  A couple of years ago, after a cold damp walk on North Barrule, our small camera developed a couple of blemishes which must have been due to condensation on the inside of the lens. The blemishes (a couple of light spots) aren’t too bad as they are only visible against a plain background but they are annoying.  

I usually carry the bigger camera in a bag strapped around my waist.  I have heard them referred to as “bum bags” in English speaking countries but discovered that they are known as “fanny packs” in the United States and Canada (which don’t quite qualify as being English-speaking!)  I sometimes feel like a mother kangaroo with my precious baby in my pouch.  Up on the cold, wet and windy hill, I decided that I needed to keep the camera warm as well as dry so I zipped up my waterproof anorak over the camera.  This changed my kangaroo image into one of a pregnant geriatric.  Not a good fashion statement!

After we climbed over the stile on the way down the hill, the path wasn’t easy to follow and we couldn’t see the distant trees that we were aiming for. Dorothy decided that she would prefer not walk in front.  I suggested that we let Trevor lead the way so that we could blame him if we got lost.  If I have learned anything after years of watching politicians on TV, it is that what happens doesn’t matter – the vital thing is being able to blame someone else for any disasters that occur!

We had to pick our way carefully down the slope because the ground was wet and slippery in places.  The rain was still light but it was falling steadily and we were glad to reach the shelter of the trees.

Walking down the slope between these tall conifers reminded Tim and me of a previous hike up Slieau Whallian in near gale-force winds when the trees were swaying and groaning in an alarming way.

We passed this recent victim, which probably came down in the gales last week.

Further down the path became more civilised and Tim took this photo as I paused to look at a small bracket fungus on a conifer trunk.  We had passed some other small mushrooms earlier in the walk.  They were just small and beige and mushroom shaped . . . not worth risking my camera.

It was raining seriously by this time so we walked back to the cars as fast as possible.  The morning definitely didn’t look good enough to tempt us to extend the walk.  It wasn’t a long walk but it was good exercise because the summit of Slieau Whallian is 333m (1093 feet) above sea level – almost a thousand feet above St. John’s.

Ohio

Mainly Mushrooms

Monday 14th October, 2013.

In her email on Sunday, Dorothy suggested a Monday walk “ . . . from the Sulby Claddagh and up Narradale and back through the woods.”  

This is one of our “useful” walks.  Not too long if the weather is iffy or we are tired, and conveniently situated half way between our glen and Dorothy’s home.  Also there are three routes up to the Lezayre tops that start near the Claddagh, on the banks of the Sulby River, so it is possible to vary the walk slightly.  The only snag is that it is difficult to find anything new to photograph or describe.

The forecast was for “Bright spells but also a small risk of an isolated shower” . . . with winds up to 25 mph.  There were clouds over Cronk Sumark as we set out, but no showers arrived during the morning.  Not many bright spells either.

The Narradale road is part of an old route from Sulby to Laxey.  Thinking of old routes reminds me that I may have confused Slieau Ree with Slieau Ruy in last week’s post about the Red Road when I wrote “I once read that a hill called Slieau Ree (Red Mountain) has that name because of the heather”.  I can’t remember where I read about Slieau Ree being named on account of the colour of the flowering heather.  It is never a good plan to trust one’s memory (or anything that you read on the internet!).   According to our Manx dictionaries Ree means King and Ruy means Red . . .  but the waters are muddied slightly by the Illustrated Encyclopaedia which gives the English translation of Slieau Ree as Heather Mountain!  


Dorothy and Trevor arrived back from Ireland towards the end of last week.   They had a fantastic time and Dorothy claimed to be shattered after too many late nights.  But that was hard to believe as she shot up the Narradale Road like the proverbial scalded cat!  I was relieved when she stopped briefly to chat with a friend and I had a chance to catch up.

A little further up the hill I stopped for another brief “photo rest” and took this photo of a little patch of sunlight illuminating half of Mount Karrin.

The wind wasn’t as strong as I had expected but I could hear it singing through the stay wires supporting this aerial.  The Island is a curious mixture of ancient sites and modern technology.

We eventually reached the gate onto the moors - nearly 700 feet higher than the Ginger Hall where we started the climb up the hill.  I like to measure elevation in feet because it sounds so much more impressive than metres.  The Narradale road  is "good exercise", in other words long and tiring, but at least we didn’t have to scramble over compacted snow like we did on the first of April.

We followed the path at the edge of the moors and climbed up a bank to avoid the puddle where we encountered a long jumping/swallow diving sheep last autumn.  The sheep panicked as it raced past us and ended up doing a memorable bellyflop into the middle of the puddle.  Then our route turned downhill and followed a farm road between fields to Ohio Plantation.

Last autumn we walked through Ohio hoping to find photogenic fungi and found very little even though I expected fungi to flourish in the damp conditions we had last summer and autumn.  On Monday we were luckier.  The fungi must have preferred the warmer weather this year – or perhaps our timing was better.  We were hardly inside the gate to the plantation when Dorothy stopped to photograph a rather ugly mushroom.  Then, just few yards down a side track, on a bank above a small ditch we came across a whole group of bright red Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria).  The  common name comes from the old practice of soaking bits of the toxic toadstools in milk to stupefy flies.  Tim took this photo . . .

. . . and then I climbed up the bank to get a closer shot.

There were a lot of nondescript brownish mushrooms under the conifers.  I think they are the same as those we have been seeing during our dog walks on Skyhill.  I tried to identify them from the photos in my mushroom book but had no success.  Then I tried the internet with an equal lack of success.  Fungi are particularly difficult to identify.   A large proportion of the photos on one website were marked as “waiting identification” so it appears as though the experts have difficulty too.

As we walked down through the conifers, we passed more Fly Agaric on the bank above the main track.  These had been nibbled.  Probably by slugs.  I have read that reindeer have a great liking for these mushrooms which have an intoxicating and hallucinogenic effect.  I wonder whether they have any effect on slugs . . . and whether it would be possible to notice if a slug was drunk or having a drug induced “trip”.  

Further down the track I came across another ugly mushroom, rather like the one up by the gate.  I think it is probably a variety of Boletus or Suillus as there are no gills on the undersurface of the cap. 

Near the bottom of the plantation were some clusters of mushrooms, which looked uncomfortably similar to honey fungus, near the stump of a dead conifer.   Honey fungus is a problem in the glens, feeding on roots and sometimes killing vulnerable trees and shrubs.

The last fungi that we photographed were these tiny ones - almost orange in colour and rather pretty against a background of green moss.  This is another of Tim’s photos.  

At the side of the path below the plantation, I noticed these nearly-ripe holly berries.  Living in the sub-tropics before coming to the Island, I naively thought that holly trees would be loaded with berries at Christmas.  Sadly, for the Christmas decoration industry especially, they ripen in autumn and by Christmas the blackbirds have eaten most of the berries.

Further down the hill we passed Ballamanaugh, set in immaculate gardens below Cronk Sumark.

Between the road and the boundary walls of the Ballamanaugh garden is a the stream where I saw the toxic giant hogweed plant in June.  I checked to see whether the gardeners from Ballamanaugh had bothered to remove the plant.  They hadn’t.  The dead flower stem (at least eight feet long) had fallen across the stream after shedding its seeds.  So there may be a whole thicket of giant hogweed plants by the stream next year.


We were nearing the end of the walk when I finally came across one tree near the ford which dared to be different and don autumn colours before the others. 

Ballacuberagh

The Red Road

Saturday 5th October 2013

The forecast for Saturday was good . . . so next week’s walk was changed to the end of this week: 
Weather: Dry and bright
Wind: SW 10-15 backing S-SW 15-20 loc 20 later this evening and tonight
Visibility: Good
Temperature: Min. Air 12°C and Max. Air 17°C
Rainfall (mm): -

We had thought of visiting Lag ny Keeilley but decided that that walk was too good to do on our own and that we should wait until Dorothy and Trevor could enjoy it with us.  Instead we decided to walk up through Ballacuberagh plantation.  The greenway road was badly damaged by storm water last year and has only recently been reopened.  

We left our car at the Wildlife Park and headed off along the railway line towards Sulby.  The weather was dry but not exactly "bright" as there was low cloud over the hills.  We stopped to look at this massive oak in a field next to the path.  

We turned off the old train track, and crossed the main road, before we reached the Sulby crossroads, as we wanted to walk along the back road past Ballacaley Farm.  In one of the fields we saw this massive chap.

Then we turned up the Sulby Glen road until we reached the track which led up through the plantation.  While I was looking for information on an old burial site, I discovered that the track through Ballacuberagh is part of an ancient route to Castletown which was known as the Red Road.  I think this might refer to the fact that it crossed heather moorland because I once read that a hill called Slieau Ree (Red Mountain) has that name because of the heather.

There was evidence of tree damage at the bottom of the hill, probably due to the snow in March . . . 

But the higher trees seemed to have survived better.

It is a long steep climb so we were pleased to have the excuse to stop and take some photos of some Fly Agaric at the side of the track.  Tim took this photo of a "grown-up" toadstool.

I found a baby later in Ballaugh plantation but I will put the photo here to compare it with the adult.

Above the plantation we came to the area where we aborted our attempt to walk down the path last autumn.  

This is what it looked like last year when we had to climb over the fence and ask permission to walk across private property down into Sulby Glen.

Further up the hill the path skirts an old burial site.  I found some information about it on the internet.

The prehistoric tumulus of Oaie ny Foawr (Grave of the Giant) is in the corner of a field beside a footpath several miles south of Sulby on the northwestern slopes of Karrin hill. It is located about 1 mile due south of the Ballacuberagh Plantation and the A14 Sulby Glen road is 2-3 miles to the east. This circular feature is often hidden by bushes.

It is described as a former Iron Age burial mound or round barrow ? but now alas without it's earthen mound. It measures some 50 feet across by 4 feet high with an outer ring of small upright stones. However, there is nothing here that tells us anything about the site; we only have the short description given by P.M.C Kermode in his work regarding prehistoric sites on the Isle of Man. He says "the tumulus stands on an ancient highway (the red road) to Castletown".

When the site was excavated a polished stone axe was found along with fragments of urns and human bones - indicating that the mound contained several burials. These artefacts are now housed in the Manx Museum, Douglas.

It is difficult to photograph because it is not very photogenic, plus it is too close to the fence to get a shot of the whole mound without getting too much fence in the picture.  This is the south side of the mound with Mount Karrin behind.

We continued up the Red Road and I took a couple of photos of the ruined farm houses in the valley between Mount Karrin and the hill on the west, which we nicknamed "The Bare Mountain".

Bullrenney . . .

and Eary kellue

As we approached the top of the hill we came across a lonesome sheep.  She had managed to escape from her field onto the path, which was fenced on both sides, and was calling to her absent friends.  She ran up the path ahead of us until she approached the gate and could go no further.  She was extremely fat (or, more likely, heavily pregnant) and terrified of us.  We would have liked to return her to her field but couldn’t get close to her without causing panic.  So we stood very quietly next to the wall and eventually she summoned up enough courage to race past us.  I was worried about leaving her trapped on the path but there was plenty of grass for her to eat.  I hope she managed to find her friends. 

After climbing over the gate, we turned off the Red Road and walked through the wet heather to the gate above Bullrenney and then crossed the grassy top of The Bare Mountain.  This is the view to the west across Ballaugh Glen with Slieau Curn in the background.  The top of  Slieau Curn is still obscured by hill fog or low cloud. 

There used to be circular earthworks (possibly hill forts) on either side of the entrance to Ballaugh Glen.  I found this description:
"At the entrance to Glion Dhoo - the Glen of Ballaugh - were two circular earthworks occupying dominating positions on the flanking hills. The western one on Slieau Curn was destroyed early in the nineteenth century. The other, the Castal Lajer (strong castle) still stands high on Slieau Vollee. 
 There is no record of its ever having been systematically examined, and its original purpose is unknown. There is a tradition of an underground chamber, but whatever entrance it had is now hidden. 
The earthwork approaches sixty yards in diameter and on the lower side is still twelve to fifteen feet high."

So now I know that our Bare Mountain has a name, Slieau Vollee.  I should have guessed because the small plantation on the steep northern side of the hill is called Gob y Volley.  We haven’t visited Cashtal Lajer because it is on private property.  PS  If you Google "Cashtal Lajer" you are offered information on "Castle Lager" a famous South African beer!

The next part of the route was through Ballaugh Plantation.  There were numerous warning signs at the entrance . . .  about keeping to the paths, cleaning boots after visiting plantations, etc., etc.  We are all anxious about the trees as there is a dual threat from Sudden Oak Death and, more recently, Ash Dieback.  We couldn’t keep exactly to the track at the beginning because there were so many fallen trees blocking the track but we followed a small diversion path which had been used by previous hikers.  Further down the track had been cleared and we walked past the duck ponds (still duckless) and on down towards Ravensdale.  Near the top of a bank above the track there were big patches of brightly coloured fungus.  I think the common name may be “orange peel fungus” but I am not absolutely certain because there are other similar varieties in my mushroom book.

I scrambled up the rather steep bank (ignoring the advice to keep to the paths because it was just too good an opportunity to miss).  Here is a closer view.

Then we walked down the road from Ravensdale to Ballaugh village and the promised “bright” weather finally arrived.  

We crossed the road and continued past the One Stop Shop to the railway line.  The old railway goods shed had a notice on the wall about a project to convert it into an exhibition space and educational resource.  Beyond the shed we came across another very impressive tree – an elm this time.

The area around the old Ballaugh station, at the beginning of the final leg of our walk, appears to be called the Millennium Park.  There is a sign on the gate about all dogs, horses and vehicles being prohibited but all the walkers that we met were accompanied by dogs.  Either dogs are tolerated on the route of the old track – or the people of Ballaugh are not impressed by the notice.

On the grass in the Park I saw some red leaves which reminded me of a trip to Canada to visit our daughter.

It looked like some type of maple - definitely an acer.  Trying to identify the tree, I looked up and saw that the lower leaves were still green but those at the top were looking very autumnal. 

It was very pleasant walking along the sheltered path in the warm sunshine.  A few butterflies were out enjoying the warm day too.  I saw a speckled wood, a small white butterfly, which wouldn't settle long enough for me to identify it, and a red admiral near the Wildlife Park.  The cows were enjoying the weather too and we saw a group lying down having a siesta in a bright green field.

There were some very good blackberries growing along the side of the path and I was interested to see these ripe elderberries still on the tree.  The berries on our tree get stripped by the blackbirds almost as soon as they ripen.  

Further on I came across an interesting creeper growing through the brambles.  We were in a hurry to get home so I picked a small sprig hoping to identify it from my wild flower books.  I wondered whether it might be the native clematis known as old man’s beard but I discovered that it definitely wasn’t.  The flowers looked wrong and it was flowering at the wrong time of year.  Old man’s beard would be covered with feathered seedheads in autumn.  There was nothing like the creeper in the wild flower books – so I tried garden plants and discovered that it is called Russian Vine and originated in western China.  It is very fast growing and has the nickname “mile a minute plant”, so you definitely don’t want it in your garden even though the bees love it.