26th July

MCLARENS BLOG-PILGRIM’S PROGRESS.

25/26^TH JULY 2013.

NEPTUNE FLIGHT, FORT WILLIAM.

As I write this Pilgrim is in the shadow of Ben Nevis, which at the moment despite bright sunshine the peak is covered in cloud, hopefully by the time we take a glass of wine to the stern tonight the cloud will have dispersed.

On Tuesday we had decided to leave Pilgrim for a day or so, to visit Sandaig where Gavin Maxwell, wrote his book ‘Ring of bright Water’. The book concerns the years he reared two pet otters at his home Camusfearna.

The beginning of many books and novels can have a habit of becoming part of our literary sub-conscious, often becoming the focus of pub quiz questions. For example, the beginning of Daphne du Mauriers, Rebecca, “ Last night I dreamt I was at Mandalay.” Or the beginning, of Dickens ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ “ It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” But even though I am familiar with so many novels for me, the one that gets the ‘Ahh factor’ is Gavin Maxwells ‘Ring of Bright water.’

I sit in pitch pine panelled kitchen-living room, with an otter asleep upon its back among the cushions on the sofa, forepaws in the air, and with the expression of tightly shut concentration that very small babies wear in sleep.............

Beyond the sea, whose waves break on the beach no more than a stone’s throw distant, and encircling, mist-hung mountains. ............

This place has been now for ten years and more, and wherever the changes of my life may lead me in the future it will remain my spiritual home until I die.

In the book Maxwell describes his rearing of the otter Mijbil, and her successor Edal. Since reading the book in my early twenties I have always wanted to visit the site of Camusfearna  (The name of Maxwell’s House)

Sadly the house was burnt down, during Maxwell’s residency, tragically the otter Edal was a victim of that fire.  It was arranged that Edal should be buried at Sandaig, and when Maxwell died he arranged to have his ashes buried there.

Maxwell’s life was nothing like as it was portrayed in the film, of the same name.

( Although he did live in the Arabian marshes, as was suggested in the film.) He was an adventurer, artist, he had seen active service e during the war, and trained to be an artist. However he was a man with personal demons, and although he related so well to animals, he often had problematic relationships with people close to him.

In fact in his biography, he had a friendship with the metaphysical poet Kathleen Raine. They ended up falling out, and she was very hurt, and it seems that she put a curse on the land. Of course when Camusfearna, burnt down this was something Maxwell remembered.  After the house burnt down life was never the same again for Gavin Maxwell.

So often when one goes on a pilgrimage, you wonder if the place will be as you imagined.

So Chris and I left Pilgrim on the Caledonian Canal. We caught a bus from Laggon Locks, which would take us to Shiel Bridge, we would get another bus eight miles to Glenelg from which there would be an approximately five mile walk. The first bus we caught, no problem. But at Shiel Bridge, we waited for our next bus, which was late, after three quarters of an hour it hadn’t arrived.  So Chris telephoned the number that was on the timetable. A woman answered the phone, the woman who was married to the driver of the bus. Apparently the bus ‘only comes on request.’ Silly us we thought that ‘on request’ meant we put our hands out to when the bus came inform the driver to stop. Anyway we were told that the bus would be at Shiel Bridge in two hours time. Luckily we had packed sandwiches. Shiel Bridge is surrounded by mountains, and we sat by a beautiful old bridge eating our lunch and admiring the view.

The next two hours passed quickly, and the bus came at the time arranged. There were already four ladies on the bus. Very chatty and keen to point out various mountains and beauty spots. The ride was certainly a white knuckle ride, turning corners on high mountain ranges. These four ladies where interested in our trip, and were used to visitors making their way to Sandaig, to visit the isolated spot where Gavin Maxwell had made his home.

It turned out that one of these women, Liz ran a bed and breakfast, we said we may be interested, as the plan had been that we would stay the night in Glenelg. She was dropped off at her house and this arrangement was left open. The bus took the rest of us into the main street of Glenelg, with the Isle of Skye, just acoss the water. We disembarked, and the local shop keeper, heard us talking and saying our farewells to the last of the ladies on the bus. He mentioned that he was about to go off on his deliveries and would be passing the path that takes visitors to Sandaig islands. The lady we had travelled with said she would ring Liz, to say we would take up her offer of B&B.

Chris and I were knocked out by the kindness and hospitality of people........generally the kind of hospitality you only find in isolated areas where people live on the edge and rely on one another.  

The shopkeeper dropped us of at a path that runs down, to Sandaig, we started our walk down to the bay, the site of Camusfearna, which took us through Forestry Commission land. There was much active logging going on, although much of the land was made up of felled or dead trees, and the landscape looked something out of battlefield scene of a film. There were no signs down to the bay, but we continued walking in this very uninspiring landscape.

Eventually we entered a wood, which opened up on the beach of ‘Camusferna’ where the house stood and is covered in waist high Ferns, but there were some well worn paths. We found the memorial stone where Maxwell’s house stood, and where his ashes are buried. I turned towards the sea, and there was the view that he would have seen, the view that appears in the illustrations and photographs in his books, as well as the breathtaking view of the mountains of the Isle of Skye. We walked along the beach, and we saw footprints. Chris looked closer at them..................could they possibly have been otter footprints we like to think so, particularly as otters have been seen in that area again.

I collected some shells and also a piece of driftwood. We walked over to the stream from the waterfall, imagining the otters, Mij, Edal and Teko playing in the water. Eventually making our way to Edal’s grave, the otter who died in the fire which destroyed Camusfearna. On the grave is written ‘ Whatever joy she gave you, give back to nature.’ After laying some shells, on Edal’s grave adding our offerings to the hundreds already there.

We made our way back over to were the remains of Gavin Maxwell lay, again laid some shells, but I also laid the piece of driftwood I had picked up on the beach. Driftwood because to me towards the end of his life, he was like a person adrift, engulfed in his bitterness and broken dreams.

As we looked back over the bay, before leaving I couldn’t help feeling that there was a pervading sense of sadness hanging over the bay. I don’t know what I expected on coming here, but there is no visitor centre, speaking about Maxwells life with the otters and other animals that came into the bay, or of the work of conservation that his work inspired, the ongoing conservation of otters, and other animals. I can’t say I was disappointed in our visit, Sandaig is isolated, wild and atmospheric, just as he described in his books. But it does seem strange that he is not acknowledged here in any way. But maybe that’s the way he would have wanted it.

We returned to the footpath up the hill. We were looking at the devastation of the trees, when suddenly Chris stopped me, and pointed up, and there on a ridge was a deer looking down on us. This was a wonderful moment as in the books Maxwell writes about the deer that go down to the bay. This deer represented for us what ‘Camusfearna’ meant to us, an affinity with nature and wild life.  Luckily Chris was able to capture the deer on his camera, that picture will go on my study wall, and remind me of our pilgrimage to ‘the ring of bright water.’

We made our way up the hill back to the road, and to our four and half mile walk into Glenelg, where an apartment and a hot bath were waiting.