On Mochrum

March 4, 2025, 7:29 am , by Richard Lutz

And not a breath of warmth, says RICHARD LUTZ

Mochrum Hill rises less than 900 feet up from sea level. It doesn’t look more than a bump:

But in rapidly changing weather… clear, cloud, clear again…it can be a suddenly cold tricky walk. And arduous too. Its slopes and shoulders are riddled with a spider web of twisting curving trails and forestry roads. A steep path can turn to a river of mud, a footbridge is strangely slanted with slippery moss, a cleft in the hillside is hemmed in by wet walls and downed trees that need scrambling over. It’s not a cute place for a guy with a bad knee.

But above the maze of nature, on the windy grassy top, the world opens out. There’s a trig point with Scottish views all around.

West to clouds and the grey winter sea:

East to the Galloway hills on the horizon:

Take a wrong route on this hill, of solidified ancient lava and sandstone, and there’s a footpath post with no sign….

You can get a bit muddled.

A compass, a crumpled map and a quick peak through the thick wood gets you a better bearing. Towards a stand of birch and spruce:

…and a straight trail heading towards the contours of this tilting Ayrshire terrain

The hill is filled with the songs of wrens, robins, siskins, coal tits and, somewhere in the woods, what sounds like a thin whistling. It’s a goldcrest. I hear ‘em, never see ‘em.

Under Mochrum, despite the cold wind, there is the inevitable sign of spring- snowdrops:

and early daffodils. Or are they narcissi? I always get them mixed up:

Way below, miles away, a flight of steps wind to a winter beach. The weather has cleared. On the horizon, the seabound sister of Mochrum Hill. And like Mochrum, this islet has a volcanic past.

It’s Ailsa CraIg and it resembles an 1100 foot high Christmas pudding. The rock is ten miles off the coast and its granite provides curling stones for the world and a reminder that there is nothing but change around us.

Photo credits: Mary and Angus Hogg