Yumpu_ May_June 2017_02

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ISLANDS BEYOND Small-group expeditions to Arctic Norway, the Solovetski Islands of Arctic Russia, Greenland and Kamchatka • Arctic and Antarctic voyages by ship • Dog sledding, cross country skiing, boating, kayaking, hiking and wildlife trips • Tailor-made Iceland and the Faroes - flights from Scotland • Greenland - East and West coast: Wildlife and natural history • Wildlife of Russian Far East - by ship • Wild Scotland: Oban - Aberdeen 13 - 23 June 2017 • Aberdeen, Fair Isle, Jan Mayen and Spitsbergen 22 - 31 May 2017 • Across the Artic Circle: Aberdeen to Longyearbyen 23 June - 6 July 2017 ARCTURUS The polar arm of Far Frontiers Travel Ltd 14 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE 2017 Please call for a full colour brochure Ninestone, South Zeal Devon EX20 2PZ Tel/Fax (44) 01837840640 arcturusexpeditions.co.uk 01381 In the previous edition my eyes were drawn to the right of Australasia, beyond New Zealand towards the International Date Line and the Antipodes Islands. Going there would have involved a voyage of well over 500 miles from populated settlements. Look at the image of part of the globe and cast your eyes to the south-west, beyond Perth in Australia’s lower left corner, by some 2500 miles. Here are Heard and McDonald Islands, some 2600 miles to the south-east of South Africa and about 1000 miles north of Antarctica. They are part of the Australian External Territories and contain that country’s only two active volcanoes. In fact, Mawson Peak, Heard Island, is higher at 9006’ than any other part of the Mainland. This is just a small exposed part of the vast Kerguelen Plateau in the Indian Ocean. Heard Island group measures 142 square miles and is 80% ice-covered, with 41 glaciers. McDonald Island is 27 miles to the west and even with Flat Island and Meyers Rock is only one square mile in extent. The former group has volcanic activity with the last eruption on 2 February 2016. The latter was dormant for some 75,000 years and then, in 1992, showed its active tendencies. An Open Window They are distinct and rare places for here are pristine island eco-systems with an absence of alien plants and animals as well as virtually a complete lack of human interference. The conditions that prevail have been described has providing ‘an open window into the earth enabling observations of geomorphic processes and glacial dynamics.’ Visitors were not recorded before the second-half of the Well to the south-west of Australia - Fotosearch. Tom Aston looks to the left of Australia, to Heard and McDonald Islands 19th Century, although the first sighting of Heard was apparently on Wednesday 27 November 1833 by a British sailor, Peter Kemp, while journeying from Kerguelen to the Antarctic. On Friday 25 November 1853, however, the American, Captain John Heard, sighted the island, reported it and had his name linked. A short time later, on Wednesday, 4 January 1854, Captain William McDonald, of Scots descent, was the first to see the islet subsequently to be named after him. The first landings were some years apart. Captain Erasmus Darwin Rogers led a party to Heard in March 1855. Then in February 1971 came the first individuals to record being on McDonald when two Australian scientists were helicoptered there. World Heritage Site There were parties of sealers who temporarily resided on Heard, under appalling conditions, from the 1850s with a peaking of their numbers at 200. Since then it has been occasionally ‘home’ for small groups of scientists whose work has involved observation, not massacre. The British passed ownership to the Australian Government in 1947 and the islands became a World Heritage Site in 1997. Amateur radio enthusiasts have been to Heard occasionally and Cordell Expeditions were there last year. The abbreviation for the two island groups is ‘HIMI’ and the authorities have conferred internet domain status with the suffix ‘.hm’ This unused facility matches the ‘.bv’ of Bouvet or Bouvetøya Island, another peri-Antarctic island, the most remote place on Earth that makes HIMI sound ‘homely’! MAY / JUNE 2017 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 15
Colonsay’s Ruined Village Colonsay’s Ruined Village Roger Butler explores the ruins at Riasg Buidhe The ferry is nosing along the east coast of Colonsay and excited travellers peer through binoculars at the rugged coastline and a knobbly horizon of hills. The pier at Scalasaig sneaks into view and the pontoons around the new fish farm wobble in the waves. A heron rises lazily from the shore as a seasoned visitor grabs someone by the shoulder and points to a wedge of rising moorland. It takes a moment or two to spot the row of small roofless houses which effortlessly merge into the heath and the heather. This is the ruined village of Riasg Buidhe and the view from the ferry shows how its former inhabitants were quite isolated from other parts of the island. Their walls and gables, now empty for almost a hundred years, are slowly merging back into the bracken. Passengers have already started to make their way towards the car deck as the line of houses at Glassard, on the north side of the harbour, comes into view. There have been some recent additions here, but the original pebble-dashed properties were built to re-house the people of Riasg Buidhe (pronounced ‘risk-booee’) after the First World War. The ferry groans as it manoeuvres towards the pier, but the ruined village has now completely disappeared behind a long low headland. ‘Riasg Buidhe includes the remains of a chapel, which may indicate that an earlier settlement pre-dates the row of houses.’ 270 Million Years The walk from Scalasaig to Riasg Buidhe passes the houses at Glassard, wriggles across half a mile of moor and drops towards patches of salty marshland with views to the Paps of Jura. A black dyke, interspersed with sparkly crystals and dating back 270 million years to the Permian period, runs along the north side of Port a’ Bhàta, which was the landing place for the old village. The people of Riasg Buidhe were fisherfolk and, during the week, the men would hole-up in one of the big caves on the west coast of Jura, possibly near Ruantallain by the northern entrance to Loch Tarbert. They would return with their catch, under sail or using oars if necessary, though these trips came to end with the outbreak of war and by the 1920s the inshore fishing had all but ceased. Yet until the 1970s, the remains of old fishing equipment could be found in a crevice above the tideline. Several decades ago, an islander was able to recall: ‘On Sunday you would have thought these men came out of a mansion. Every one of them had a blue suit, with the trousers beautifully creased, and even though they had walked across the rough ground to get to the church there was never a mark on their clothes. Then, when the service was over, they would walk home and away would go the blue suit, back into the chest until next Sunday. They would then put on their navy blue jerseys once again, which were almost a uniform amongst them’. 16 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE 2017
Page 1 and 2: SCOTTISH ISLANDS THE UK’S ONLY MA
Page 3 and 4: Editor’s Welcome / Guest Columnis
Page 5 and 6: Five Weeks on the Monachs Five Week
Page 7: Bute has Four A-rated Attributes MI
Page 11 and 12: Hideaways in the Outer Hebrides Hid
Page 13 and 14: Page READERS’ Index Header OPPORT
Page 15 and 16: Machair Machair Unfortunately, the
Page 17 and 18: A Quiet, Natural History A Quiet, N
Page 19 and 20: The Flying Duchess The Flying Duche
Page 21 and 22: Skye Excites the Emotions Skye Exci
Page 23 and 24: Fibre Optic Broadband Fibre Optic B
Page 25 and 26: RESPONSES Responses CROSSWORD Page
Page 27: ISLAND AND WILDLIFE CRUISES OFF SCO

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