An Orange future for Barra and Vatersay but not for me.

This photo is of red haired, celtic cows on Bagh a Deas on Vatersay, the most southerly of the inhabited isles in the Outer Hebrides. It is especially for Michael, Hayden and Wenley and is one of a series of sea cow photos I am posting on this site.



On sea kayaking trips to the Outer Hebrides I usually take three PAYG SIM cards for O2, Vodaphone and Orange and I usually get mobile phone reception in most places but until now, not on Barra or Vatersay.

However, Orange recently started work constructing mobile phone masts on Bruernish and Bentangaval. It was hoped the network would be available from 09/03/2007. The mast at Bentangaval will also be used for the deployment of services provided by Connected Communities Broadband to create a wireless Internet network on the island.

The future might be Orange for Barra but not for Newton Mearns on the south of Glasgow. On 17/1/2007, as a result of local loop unbundling (LLU), Orange installed their own ADSL broadband equipment to replace equipment they had rented from BT. Since then my broadband has been just about unusable with download speeds of about 100 kbps (instead of the theoretical maximum of 6,500 kbps) and frequent drops of the connection. After much frustration, yesterday I requested my MAC code to transfer to another ISP. I will not be going to one of the free bundles with other services such as Sky satellite TV. I will be happy to pay for a decent reliable service.

Bag, a deer.

Kinloch Castle on Rum was built as a shooting lodge. It is full of stuffed things that once flew, ran, crawled or swam.



Its shooting books record days of hunting. On September the third 1925, Sir George Bullough killed a 7 point stag weighing 14 stone and 4 lbs on Kilmory hill with a 0.303 inch rifle. He was assisted by his stalker MacLeod.

In search of the monkey eating eagle of Rum.

The island of Rum is a rum old place. Most people associate it with the sea eagle but there are other eagles to be found on the island. On one of his trips on his yacht, SY Rhouma, George Bullough visited Japan and became friends with the Emperor. The Emperor gifted him this bronze monkey eating eagle with two matching incense burners, each topped by lesser eagles. George packed them away in a nook somewhere on Rhouma and brought them back to Kinloch Castle as souvenirs of his Far Eastern travels.



They now fight for attention with his other amazing collection of bric-a-brac and gegaws in the castle's Edwardian front room.

PS several people have emailed asking why I have stopped posting about weekend trips. Unfortunately since I spent some time working in the Children's Hospital in Pakistan I have been bothered by recurrent chest infections. I have not been out for three weekends now and I had to cancel a trip to Skye this weekend. So you will just need to put up with shots from the back catalogue for a little longer. :o)

SY Rhouma

George Bullough, who built Kinloch Castle on Rum (or Rhum as he called it), also owned the Clyde built, 221 foot, twin deck, sailing yacht Rhouma. The name is supposed to be the feminine of Rhum. He sailed round the world in Rhouma. During a visit to Japan he became friendly with the Emperor.



He liked to fish for tarpon from the Rhouma and several adorn the walls of the corridors in the castle.



He gave the SY Rhouma to the British government to use as a hospital ship in the Boer War. He also paid for it to staffed by doctors and nurses. Her magnificent sixteen piece dining suite was removed to the castle. You can see the swivel points where the chairs were secured to Rhouma's deck but allowed diners to rotate the chairs for easy entry and exit.



The Rhouma's bell now sits silently on a table in the hall of the castle.

I thought sea kayaking was expensive....

Kinloch Castle, Rum

Kinloch Castle with a sea kayaker in front for scale.

Yesterday I posted an item about a red sandstone castle on Arran. Here is another one. It is Kinloch Castle on the Island of Rum in the Inner Hebrides. It is situated in a sheltered position under the Rum Cuillin at the head of Loch Scresort on the east coast of the island.


It is not an ancient Scottish castle but was built as an Edwardian shooting lodge by a wealthy Lancashire industrialist called George Bullough. There is no suitable sandstone for building on Rum so all the stone was imported from Annan in Dumfriesshire and brought here in small west coast puffers. It was completed in 1901 and was the first private building in Scotland to have elictric lighting. The electricity was supplied by a small hydro electric dam in the mountains behind.



You can camp near the Castle, but the gas powered midge eating machines can hardly cope with the particularly voracious breed of midge which is to be found in these parts. I therefore recommend staying in the hostel which is situated in the castle's servant quarters. No four posters for us plebians then!

Brodick Castle

Seakayaking past Brodick Castle.

On our recent seakayaking trip to Arran in the Firth of Clyde we paddled across Brodick Bay. This gave us a wonderful view of the Caledonian pine forest that hugs its northern shore and the castle grounds. Brodick Castle is built on a lofty position and its red sandstone walls rise in magnificently splendour amidst the red barked pines. It has a similar island and mountain situation to Kinloch Castle on Rum, which is also built from red sandstone. It was reputedly built from the same quarry on Arran as Brodick Castle however, its stones came from Dumfriesshire.



On a long summer’s day, the castle would have been an essential stop. It was built on a site that has been fortified since at least the fifth century. The original stone keep was built about 1266 but it has been extended and modified many times since then as it played an important part in the Wars of Independence first from the Vikings then from the English. It was extensively rebuilt in the nineteenth century as a shooting lodge.

It was in the Hamilton family’s hands for nearly five hundred years but following the marriage of the last male Hamilton’s daughter; it passed to the Montrose family in 1906. Their descendants bequeathed, it in lieu of death duties, to the National Trust for Scotland in 1958 and now any one can enjoy its buildings and gardens. Look out for the summer house which has an interior is covered with pine cones.

Dove Cave

Wigtown Bay on the Solway Firth not only has a rock arch it has several decent caves as well. This one is Dove Cave.



It does not look much from the outside, but even a Valley Aleut Sea II was dwarfed inside. I will post a review of this excellent double shortly.



The back of Dove Cave and yes there were resident rock doves.