Glenbranter

St Ninian’s Chapel

A rugged walk along the St Ninian’s Bay coastline, across ankle-stretching shells, stones and tussocks, brought us to the ruin of St Ninian’s Chapel, open to the elements but inspiring as a location for contemplating your place in the universe. En route to get there we stumbled across (having noticed them on the map…) a mysterious group of standing stones (see top picture.)

Prehistory Beckoned

The final full day of our September 2018 holiday (yes, I know it was three months ago, so sue me….) can only be described as a journey into an antideluvian age….

Awestruck

The banter of the previous walks – memories, hopes, silly riffs, political debate, funny conversations – fell silent as we followed the Glenbranter route in the Argyll Forest Park. I don’t think we saw another human soul during our day as we strolled along, meandered up, sauntered down and twisted round undulating paths through dripping tree trunks spotting waterfalls small and large – babbling brooks, forceful spouts, giant cascades, raging torrents….

Pretending to be off the grid….

It was as if human civilisation had never existed, except it was obvious it had because the path was marked discretely and had been cleared for our boots to trudge safely. This was tourist-friendly prehistory…. But were there ancient creatures lurking in the undergrowth? Might we get lost forever? (Luckily, we had picnic supplies.)

Geography and Nature colliding

The Argyll Forest Park is at one end of the Highland Boundary Fault, the chasm you can see on maps of Scotland that demark the Lowland and Highland territories, so the jagged peaks, waterfalls, lochs, lush greenery and delicate groves have all developed to fill and compensate for that great crack in Britain’s surface crust.

Views over Loch Eck

Our high and final views over Loch Eck were memorable: overlooking the canopy of oak, birch and hazel trees and seeing Scottish wilderness at it finest.