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It was the last day of a 5-day break in Arran for a big Clan Bobble Hat re-union to celebrate my mum’s 70th birthday, and after a big party on the Saturday night, I had most of the Sunday free for a 4 or 5 hour walk before getting the 16:40 ferry back to the mainland
. Having had surprisingly good walking over the unsung Sub-2000 Marilyn of A’Chruach a few days earlier, I fancied ticking off another of Arran’s seven Sub-2000 Marilyns, and thought I’d have a look at Fionn Bhealach. This oddly named hill (“Fair Col”? How can a summit be a col
?) sits right above the sea at the top end of Arran, directly to the north of the rather pleasingly named high pass that carries the main A841 road between Sannox and Lochranza , which is known as “The Boguillie” for reasons that seem to have become lost in the mists of time.
My mum is an early riser, and offered to give me a lift round to the North Sannox Picnic Area where the walk starts, while my wife and kids had a long lie. On arrival at the recently refurbished Picnic Area (there seems to have been an EU grant involved), the sun was shining and it was a lovely November morning
. Looking to the south, Cioch na h-Oighe and the Coire na Ciche were looking unfeasibly scenic in the early morning sunshine.
However, my route lay to the north, where a track continues through the woodland along the shoreline, at the end of the tarmac track at the Picnic Area.
Although this gave a consistently scenic and interesting coastal walk, I soon fell into the shadow of the impressive crags that grow steadily along the raised beach that run along this bit of coastline, reaching their highest right under Fionn Bhealach itself. I dimly remember reading somewhere that Lochranza gets less hours of sunshine than any other village in the UK
, due to its location in a bowl of steep hills to its immediate south and east, and this bit of coastline seems to be similarly overshadowed. (My apologies to the Arran Tourist Office if this factoid isn’t accurate: Lochranza is a lovely wee place even while sitting in sempiternal darkness, and I have actually been there on a couple of occasions when it’s been quite hot and sunny. Honestly
.)
It’s a great stretch of coastal walk, this, being part of the relatively new long-distance Arran Coastal Way with an excellent newish path and everything
. Firstly comes the Fallen Rocks, an impressive stramash of big puddingstone boulders that have been eroded from the cliffs above. Fortunately, the well-maintained path finds an easy way through them. There is a particularly big rock right beside the path that would give a good bouldering opportunity, although I declined the offer
. It’s the prominent lump on the horizon here.
Next up is the Measured Mile, the second of two large white marker poles apparently used for speed trials at sea (the first post is back near the Picnic Area).
Then there is a long stretch out towards Millstone Point, with great views out over the Ayrshire coast and the Cumbrae islands.
Just before Millstone Point itself, an impressive section of raised beach carries a series of three caves, the first of which shows obvious signs of human habitation at some point, with a low wall along the front (and very possibly a satellite dish and garden gnome if you go up closer
).
Arran is famous for its raised beaches, which are a fairly impressive and unusual geological feature. Apparently at the end of the last Ice Age, although sea levels rose globally, a lot of the land (such as Arran) that had lain under the melted bits of icecap sprang upwards sharply when the weight of the ice was lifted, leaving sea cliffs, caves and pebbly “beaches” stranded about 20 metres above the current tide-line. So there you go. This section of coast has some particularly fine examples.
On passing Millstone Point, the remote whitewashed cottage at Laggan comes into view.
Just above the cottage itself, the cliffs of Fionn Bhealach rear up rather impressively:
But is “Fionn Bhealach” really the correct name for this summit
? By tradition, a hill gets named after the nearest bit of writing to it on the Ordnance Survey map, unless the writing in question obviously refers to something else. On the 1:50,000 map of Arran, “Fionn Bhealach” is indeed the closest bit of writing to the (unnamed) 444 metre trig point. However, on the 1:25,000 map, the entire line of crags running along this bit of coastline and terminating at the trig point is clearly named as “Creag Ghlas Laggan”, the Grey Crag of Laggan, which makes much more sense as a name for this hill than “Fair Col”! I hereby start a campaign to have it officially re-named...
Anyway, whatever it’s called, the path to it leaves the main coastal path just beyond Laggan Cottage, where an Arran Coastal Way sign marks an “Escape to Lochranza”. Although the crags of Fionn Bhealach (let’s agree to call it that for the time being
) rear up rather intimidatingly, the path isn’t really that steep except maybe for the first 50 metres or so, after which it zigzags lazily up the initial slopes and then begins a very long rising traverse to the right (west) to avoid all the big crags and reach the skyline well west of Fionn Bhealach summit.
Higher up, I saw a big herd of red deer on the skyline.
The Lochranza path tops out at a cairned bealach, where the main path starts descending again, but the (pathless) route to Fionn Bealach summit cuts off to the left (east) to follow the broad moorland crest as it climbs above the sea-facing crags. The foothills of the north Arran Corbetts were now visible to the south.
The pathless heather and tussocky grass isn’t particularly easy going, but at least it was fairly dry, and there were good views down to the left to the sea and Ayrshire coast
.
It didn’t seem that much further to the summit trig point, which was another great viewpoint, with the extraordinary castellated ridge of Casteil Abhail and the Ceum na Cailliche (the Witch’s Step) being very prominent to the south.
There were also fine views out north, over the Cumbraes and Bute.
And straight down over the crags, the shoreline certainly looked all of the 444 metres below
:
A bite to eat, and it was time to start back down. I was aiming to try to follow the circular route from the North Sannox Picnic Area as given in Paddy Dillon’s Cicerone guidebook, “Walking on the Isle of Arran” (this is Walk 37 in his book). Paddy’s route eschews the easy option of just cutting down directly south to the main A841 road at the high point of the Boguillie and then walking back to the picnic area beside the road. Oh no, that would be far too straightforward
. Instead, his route makes use of a faint path that marks the route of a much older historic track between Sannox and Lochranza over the Boguillie, running parallel to the modern road but at a higher level. Paddy freely admits that “the groove is little more than a boggy trough in places” but goes on to assert optimistically that it [occasionally] “can be quite clear”. Well, I’m up for a challenge and I thought I’d give it a go as an interesting alternative to a dull road walk back.
The initial descent south from the trig point was very heavy going through boggy heather, with no signs of the promised Path.
However, lower down I did pick up Paddy’s Path at the lower corner of a fenced enclosure, just as he describes. “Boggy trough” pretty much sums it up: at first I mistook it for a drainage ditch
.
However, it does improve quite a bit as it goes on, and while the “Path” itself is generally far too squelchy to actually walk on, it does mark the line of least resistance and the going generally wasn’t too bad on the ground immediately beside it.
Things were going swimmingly (almost literally, sometimes
) until I reached a wee tree-lined burn, on the far side of which the Path helpfully decided to disappear
. (It was probably there somewhere; I just couldn’t find it.)
I very nearly gave up in disgust and cut down to the A841 which was still visible to the south. However, Paddy had promised a scenic riverside path along the south side of the North Glen Sannox Burn at the end of his route, so I manfully donned my snorkel and flippers to stick with it, and aimed directly down across the swampy grass and heather towards the obvious corner of the Burn below. The terrain proved to be pretty much as squelchy as it looked
.
However, it thankfully didn’t go on for too long, and although it was something of a 1000 Metres Freestyle
, I did eventually find myself down at the North Sannox Burn, where the promised Scenic Riverside Walk duly appeared. This was much more like the thing
!
This gave an enjoyable romp back to the North Sannox Picnic Area. Shortly before reaching the road, however, the riverside path is apparently fenced off, with no immediately obvious way through
:
However, on closer inspection, there is actually a wee gap right beside the river that can easily be squeezed through:
The reason for the fencing quickly became obvious, as I found myself in a riverside paddock area complete with two friendly wee Shetland ponies. However, I refrained from taking a photo of them and pressed on to the tarmacked road just a couple of hundred metres up the track, which led back to the Picnic Area and my lift back home.
This was an enjoyable circular route, but it’s worth noting that Paddy’s Path gives fairly rough going (and is arguably left for a prolonged dry spell, i.e. possibly for a couple of geological eras or so given Scotland’s climate). Anyone looking for an easy life might be best just cutting straight down south from the trig point to the main A841 road. All the same, it was something of an Adventure, and Fionn Bhealach is a fine wee hill with great views
.
