The September 2024 cruise on Hjalmar Bjorge was different than any I’d done before. Due to cancellations, there were only two guests, which made my job as a guide much easier. What made it not so easy was the weather. Force 8 gales were streaming off the Atlantic and had blown away my plans for a sail around the Outer Hebrides. Fortunately, the guests, Sally and Debbie, had been aboard before. They knew itinerary changes happen when the weather worsens. And turn for the worse it had.
Due to the wind, we needed to stay in sheltered waters for a few days. So, after leaving Oban, our first night was spent at anchor in the cradle of Drumbuie, between Oronsay and the Morvern mainland. Oronsay has a sad history. In the 1840s and 50s, over fifty souls eked a living out of its hard ground. But, like the people of the nearby Morvern townships, they are all gone. The infamous Patrick Sellar had a role in the clearances here. Due to his participation in the Sutherland Clearances of the 1810s, he was notorious as the most widely hated man in the Highlands. In 1848, he acquired his first Morvern property, Acharn, eight miles from Oronsay. He proceeded to evict its fifty families and brought sheep from Sutherland to occupy the land. It was an era that Marion Campbell succinctly summarises in Argyll: The Enduring Heartland.
The Blackfaces, a’ chaorach mhòr, brought sorrow to Morvern when Patrick Sellar came down there from Sutherland to boast of his success in replacing wasteful humans with profitable flocks.
After a night in Drumbuie, we made our way north to another sheltered harbour, Acairsaid Mhòr, the big anchorage of South Rona. Fifteen years had passed since I was last there, and I was delighted to meet Bill Cowie on the pontoon dock. Bill had been island manager for twenty years, and since I’d last seen him, he’d gotten married. The wedding had been held in a special place on Rona, Church Cave, on the island’s eastern cliffs. Bill told us that significant changes were in store for Rona. He was retiring and thought the island would be sold. It will be fascinating to see how the new owners will manage this gem of an island.
Sally, Debbie, and I then set out to climb the Burma Road to the top of the pass. After the descent to Dry Harbour, we discovered that the two self-catering cottages were occupied. I was jealous of the occupants, enjoying a whole week of Rona peace. Near the cottages is the ruin of the Rona School. At one time, there were three schools on the island. This had been the largest, with over thirty pupils aged five to thirty. The school closed in 1930. Its windows, doors, and floors are long gone; bushes sprout from the chimneys, and all about lay shards of the slate roof.
We then made a tour around the scattered ruins of Dry Harbour. In the 1870s, over a hundred people called Dry Harbour home. There are remains of over forty structures: a dozen black houses, a similar number of 'modern' stone houses, and an assortment of byres and gardens. Roughly half the village sits on the northern side of the glen, the rest on the south; between them runs an overgrown track, Rona's Main Street, which climbs its way up through the village. Most of those who once walked this now-abandoned street came from Raasay, whose population swelled in the 1800s when MacLeod of Raasay sold out and moved to Tasmania. Starting in 1846, George Rainy, the owner of Raasay, wanted to reduce the population to make room for sheep. He sent many of the people to Australia and forced others onto the poor ground of Rona.
To end the tour, we visited the museum. When I was here in 2007, Bill had just started putting a roof on an old house to turn it into a museum (first photo below). The second photo shows Debbie and Sally at the museum in 2024.
We then made the steep climb back up the road to the pass. Debbie wanted to continue down the track to explore the area around the lodge. Sally wanted to see Church Cave, so we started down the boot-beaten path to the cave.
It was a sloppy slog as we followed the rain-dappled path to Church Cave. The final section of the path is a steep descent. It had been raining for days, and the route was more river than path, water cascading down to carve deep, muddy pools around newly exposed stones. It was ankle-twisting terrain. The kind of terrain that imparts a sense of dread, impending doom, into the hearts of guides everywhere. To make things worse, due to liability concerns, the estate had removed the ropes and posts that had been there for years, allowing for an easier, safer descent. (The following photo is of my wife in the cave in 2004.)
I didn't want to see anyone sprain an ankle or break a leg, so I decided we should turn back. It was a disappointment, as we were only 500 feet from the cave. After we returned to the track, Sally continued down to the lodge. I decided to stay behind. It was time to get high and live in the past. A short, steep ascent from the track led to the trig pillar atop Meall Acairsaid.
Nearly three decades had passed since I first stood there on a day in 1995 with my wife. I sat against the trig pillar and cracked open a beer. Then, after a long, slow pull, I powered up the mobile phone to give her a call.
