Once Around Great Cumbrae

I have not posted in a month. It's been a sad month. One of my four brothers-in-law passed unexpectedly, and then a few weeks later my mother-in-law passed. The election results on top of that have made for a depressing period. But there is no better way to forget about bad times than to talk of a day on a Scottish island.

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Last time we'd spent the day on Little Cumbrae. After that, I still had a day in Largs, which was full of tourists there for the Viking Festival. It was a fun atmosphere, but far too busy. After resisting the temptations of the Ferris Wheel and Dumbo Ride, I walked onto the ferry to Great Cumbrae.

Once ashore on Great Cumbrae, I followed the ring road to the north tip of the island. Here you'll find an obelisk memorial to two teenagers who drowned while sailing a small boat. The memorial reads: To the Memory of Mr. Charles D. Cayley, aged 17 years and Mr. William N. Jewall, aged 19 years. Midshipmen of H.M.S. 'Shearwater - Promising young officers, drowned in the upsetting of their boat near this place. 17 May, 1844.

A mile down the west side of the island I passed Stinking Bay. I believe the name comes from the smell of rotting kelp at low tide. The tide was high, and no smells were evident. Great Cumbrae must be smelly on hot days, for on its east coast there is a Stinking Goat Bay. A bit further down the coast, I came to the Fintry Bay Restaurant. I could not resist the temptation, so ordered a cheese & tomato toasty and a bottle of Peroni. Both were delicious. 

Just south of Fintry, I turned onto the 'Targets Walk' trail that climbs up the west side of the island. (I think the name stems from the area once being used for target practice.) 

After following the path for a few minutes, I left the forest and entered the grassland below the Cumbrae Reservoir. There, an odd stone caught my attention, 100 feet off the path. On the OS Map, it is called 'The Gowk Stone'.

The stone looked like a small-scale version of the 'Praying Hands' stone in Glen Lyon. A local, who was walking by, told me 'Gowk' was Norse for a Cuckoo Bird, and that she had seen them on the stone and in the nearby golf course. 

The path ended at Upper Kirkton, from where I followed the road to the Cathedral of the Isles. It is a remarkable structure: a Gothic revival design that looks as if it had been built centuries ago. (Construction began in 1849 and the cathedral was consecrated in 1876.) To quote from R. Angus Downie’s Bute and the Cumbraes: 'The stained-glass windows, the tesselated floor, the naked oak beams, the altar and its crucifixes, remind one of the earlier ages of faith.

A treed burial ground lay next to the cathedral. Buried here is the Reverend James Adam (1748-1831). Adam was the minister here for many years and is famous for a prayer he often made, one that was recorded for posterity in Sir Walter Scott’s Journal:

Prayer of the minister of the Cumbrays, two miserable islands in the mouth of the Clyde: "O Lord, bless and be gracious to the Greater and the Lesser Cumbrays, and in thy mercy do not forget the adjacent islands of Great Britain and Ireland."

It was a steep road walk from the cathedral to the top of the island. It was a busy spot, and I had to wait a while to get a photo of the view indicator and trig pillar not surrounded by tourists. One of the crowd had opted to park his bike at the pillar. I was tempted to throw it off the hillside.

A few feet from the summit is a large glacial erratic called The Glaid Stone (also known as The Gledstane). I have not been able to find a meaning of 'Glaid', but I was glad that from there on my walk would be downhill. The following photo shows the Glaid Stone (at right) in 2008, taken during the walk described in Chapter 2 of Firth of Clyde to the Small Isles.

A mile down the road I came to the Broomy Knowes Footpath at NS 1758 5695. Tired of road walking, I decided to follow it. That was a mistake. The path was a muddy swamp, heavily trampled by cattle. Making matters worse, the path disappeared on the hillside above the ferry terminal. To reach the road I had to bash through rough, steep terrain, and nearly broke my leg when I stepped into a hidden hole.

Back in Largs, after sunset, I walked along the crowded waterfront. The sky was filled with smoke from the Viking boat burning (you had to pay extra to get close - I settled for a distant view). More smoke filled the evening sky an hour later when a fireworks show lit up the darkness. Off to the west, the skyline was also briefly lit by a bonfire on the summit of Great Cumbrae. 

Next up: we board Hjalmar Bjorge for an adventure at sea. I had a detailed itinerary planned, one that gale force winds would blow away.