Las Ramblas Ramblers: August 2016

Sunday, 28 August 2016

Early Morning Saunter in Cullen

Bruce takes an early morning Stroll round the delightful village of Cullen, Shane Macgowan got waylaid on his way and passed out in a bar in Buckie but not before he sent this little ditty.

Cullen is an extremely attractive town originally built around the mouth of the Burn of Deskford. When seen from the sea it is framed from behind by higher ground carrying a disused railway line over a series of spectacular viaducts.

The town is in two parts. Sandwiched between the sea wall on one side, and the curve of the main road on the other, is the fishing village, Seatown of Cullen. This is a unique collection of a couple of a hundred small stone fishermen's cottages. At the seaward side they turn their ends to the sea, which on this north-facing coast can be a bit lumpy.

At the eastern end of Seatown, just below where the main road emerges from its viaduct, is Cullen's harbour. Again, this is a relatively quiet place that marks the junction between the Seatown's sandy beach and the rockier seascape to the east.
Cullen has a long history. It was established by 1189 on a location about half a mile inland from where you find it today, marked on maps as "Old Cullen" and close to Cullen House. A church was built in 1236, and its successor, Cullen Old Kirk, can still be visited today. Cullen's wealth in the 1700s was built on textiles, and threadmaking in particular. However the main period of growth came with the herring boom in the 1800s. New Cullen and Seatown of Cullen were built in the 1820s, the latter close to the pier built by Thomas Telford in 1819.
This fishing heritage lies behind Cullen's main claim to fame: a form of smoked haddock, potato and onion soup named after the town: Cullen Skink. The slightly odd name comes from the Gaelic word for "essence".

Route

Looking down to the sea from New Cullen

Seatown of Cullen

Looking East from the Harbour

Thomas Telford's Harbour

Oh well better head west and do some work then retrieve Magowan from the Bar.

Return to the Whangie

In a desperate desire to get out of the City for a few hours and introduce a new member to the joys of walking Linda, Neil, Sam, Alfie, Gillian, Alison and Rueben retrace their steps in the Kilpatrick Hills. Gerry Garcia had planned to join us but was somewhat perturbed that he may loose some cash to Satan.

Route

Queen Victoria stood near the start of this walk for her first view of Loch Lomond. She never ventured further up the hill and so missed the opportunity to explore the Whangie, a strange cleft in the rock that has fascinated generations of rock climbers.

Geologists would have us believe that this gash in the rocks, 50ft deep and 300ft long, was caused by a landslide, when the surface layer of black basalt moved slowly over the underlying sandstone. This created stresses within the basalt, which eventually fractured, producing thin slices of slab. However, ask any local about the Whangie and you will be told the truth. It was created by the Devil himself on his way to a witches' coven near Stockie Muir. He got so excited that he gave one flick of his mighty tail and carved a slice out of the hillside creating the Whangie. Whang is a common Lowland Scots dialect word meaning a slice.

Whatever its origin, the Whangie is still a valued training ground for Glasgow rock climbers, successors to the mountaineering pioneers of the 1920s and 30s. These working class men from Glasgow started walking out of the city to explore the surrounding countryside. Clad only in their ordinary clothes and with little in the way of equipment, save perhaps some army surplus kit or an old clothes line, they went looking for adventure.

After a hard week of work they would leave Glasgow late at night, take the last bus to the outskirts and walk into the countryside. Some of the great names in Scottish climbing were amongst these early pioneers, including W H Murray, the celebrated Himalayan climber and environmentalist, and Tom Weir, who climbed with Murray and went on to make a series of television programmes called Weir's Way.