Showing 1-50 of 285 posts. Most recent first | Next 50   
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Clip from a Gaelic TV programme.
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Clip from a gaelic TV programme about archaeo-astronomy.
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Wee clip from a gaelic TV programme.
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Visited Monday 26th September 2011
I've been spotting this circle since the mid 1980's when I used to travel down to England on Citylink coaches. Later, when I got my car and was heading down the M6, I always saw it at the last minute as I hurtled towards some much needed comfort stop at Shap Services. Gunnerkeld - often seen and never visited. So it was again on Friday 23 September 2011 as we headed down to North Wales, battering over Shap with our first stop already decided as "the first Gwasanaethau on the A55" - so Gunnerkeld would still have to wait. I caught a fleeting glimpse of the site in the morning sunshine as we passed heading South for Pwllheli and I made a note to stop off on our leisurely return on Monday.
The leisurely return trip on Monday was thwarted by a bad crash on the M6 at Junction 31-32 near Preston during the afternoon. It took us five hours to move ten miles during which our missed lunch turned into tea-time. My OH and junior were both starving by the time we got through the carnage of the accident (it looked awful) and with the promise of some fast food and a wee scenic rest, they held their fast until we hit the burger joint at Tebay. We all rammed burgers and fries into our faces while I manouvered us off at Junction 39, rolled up the minor road and parked up. We'd been on the road for nine hours.
I was truly bowled over by this site. Maybe after the carnage of the journey North I needed to relax, maybe it was the hunger, maybe it was the Cumbrian evening sunshine, maybe it was actually stopping at this old friend whom I've looked at for more than half my lifetime (but never stopped and passed the time with). Who knows, but the place is a delight. Someone here has pointed out the similarity to Croft Mhoraig - it does have a similar feel. I loved the toothy, stumpiness of the place, the odd angles. It reminded me of a busted molar tooth with various bits split off and jutting up. Oddly perhaps, I loved the fact that the Southbound carraigeway of the M6 was so close. It made the stones feel alive and at the heart of things, even though they all do look a bit worse for wear. I could have sat all evening, sipping my regular drink and picking at juniors left over fries, watching the traffic and the sun sinking to the West over the peaks. The field was empty of livestock but some sheep thoughtfully baa'd in the next field over, completing the whole Cumbrian Gunnerkeld experience thing.
However, the car wasn't gonna drive itself to South Lanarkshire and there was still around 150 miles till home. The clock was ticking with school and work to get up for on Tuesday. We headed back to the car, back to the M6 and headed North for home. A great site. Roof of Cumbria. Shap. Great. I'll be stopping here again.
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Barharrow Seven and Eight - Saturday 17 September 2011
Barharrow 1-8 is a collection of rock art panels first discovered in 1995. The outcrops form a rough trapezoid shape, whose points extend into fields on either side of a minor road near Twynholm. Canmap helps a lot.
You'll want to get yourself here. All the panels are within this frame.
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ll=54.852699,-4.144163&spn=0.005571,0.013711&t=h&vpsrc=6&z=16
A phone call late last Thursday brought myself and junior down to stay Friday night with holidaying friends a couple of miles from Barharrow.
I rose early today (Sat 17th September 2011) and was joined by General S as we squelched through foot deep mud in search of Barharrow 8. It was easy to find, visible from the road and at the end of a hundred yard long submarine shaped hillock at the road-side of the field.
(Here it is on Google Streetview the little outcrop just to the right of the yellow gorse is the one)
http://g.co/maps/4c6bv
The hillock has many rocky outcrops and exposed faces. The little crag at the end is where you want to head once you navigate the fence and quite a meaty bit of rock art it is too. The lichen (yellow and white) encrusted rock has very deep motifs. A central cup has seven maybe eight deep curving channels radiating out (a bit like a spider shape). There were another couple of likely looking cups on the rock which connected with the radiating lines. A real chunky motif!
The field was also home to twenty five black Galloway bullocks and once they'd spotted us they came trotting over - we nipped smartly to the fence and got over while the bullocks were still plopping through the mud!
Barharrow 7 was next, back across the road, up the little access to the field and through the gate. You pass a couple of little old quarries which have been used for dumping rubble and old bits of corrugated iron in. Keep going. We were looking for the gate in the drystane dyke on our right. When we peered over there was a massive Charolais bull standing right where I wanted to go. After about a quarter of an hour's waving and distracting we got the monster with the horns and nose-ring to wander off along the edge of the fielddyke till it was far enough down for me to venture in, while General S stood on the dyke keeping watch. I'd had a brief visit to the panel a few months back but had no time to tarry then.
The panel is a beauty. Exquisite. A real treasure. A spiral - at least a foot across - sitting at the base of a gorse bush, staring at your face. If you check out Canmore the directions are quite clear. Just do the paces and look for the prominent outcrop (on the left of an old causeway...). It was a beautiful still Autumn morning and just a perfect day to see this panel. There is something about a spiral... and this one really is a lovely piece of work.
The delay with the bull meant Barharrow 1-6 will have to wait for a week's holiday in Gatehouse of Fleet mid October. My camera also had a malfunction and my pictures came out a bit blurry, however I also used the camera of General S, but as he's still down by Twynholm it'll be a few days before I can post them here.
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Somebody once wrote that "the past is another country". It's not of course! The past is the same country but it was just a while ago. Different times.
Been a few years now since me and Mrs HD climbed Auchterhouse Hill. She grew up at the bottom of the hill but the last of her family passed away a few years back and we no longer have anywhere to stop up here. However, delights like the Sidlaws keep boomeranging back into the mind and while on a wee holiday in Blairgowrie this week we decided to return via Auchterhouse and stretch our legs.
(Turn off the Newtyle Road for Kirkton of Auchterhouse, head past the phonebox and make your way up the long straight of Auchterhouse Brae. Keep going straight on till the houses run out and you come to a gate beside a forestry plantation on your right. Go through and follow the path. The hillfort summit is the one with trees on it.)
The walk up the actual hill is a leg-stretcher but only for about twenty minutes. The path is very good. Watch out for doggy-dirt on the first few hundred yards as locals walk their hounds here. Indeed, on a number of occasions in the early/ mid 1990's we met Dundee legend and Whippet-lover, the late great Mr MacKenzie walking his dugs here. The past eh? It's a different time zone...
The evolving views are massive. Far to the West the great pyramid of Schiehallion stands clear and proud. There is a panorama which takes in the Vale of Strathmore, the Highland Massif, Fife and the mighty Tay Estuary. We even picked out the spine of the Pentlands showing between the Lomond Hills in Fife (I'll bet Tinto might even be seen on a clearer day).
The hillfort's ramparts and ditches are still pretty intact, despite being in an area planted with a little forestry. At some places there were five ramparts and ditches. The deepest being about six feet from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the rampart. The defences around the North and West are fairly sheer natural rocky crags. Someone had placed some flowers on the remains of a cairn in the centre of the fort.
We were back down at the car in twenty minutes. A great wee climb and a welcome opportunity for us to visit the past, but in the present. Our nine and three-quarter year old had never been up before and he practically ran it up and down! Do this one if you are in the area, if its a nice day - take a picnic and take your time.
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