Rock and rollers

3 days ago , by Richard Lutz

RICHARD LUTZ fights the mist and the stumbling shore

We’re sitting by a loch with no name. It’s tucked under Blacktop Hill and it’s packed between rills of hills and forests.

‘Those ducks are sitting still on the water.’ I said.

‘That’s because they’re wooden decoys.’ said Michael. He’s right. They’re not moving.

They barely drift blindly by on this speck of loch with no name. Around us are The Carrick Hills. They’re covered by mist. You can’t see the sea, the Ayrshire coast, the next hill. Just the anonymous patch of water and duck decoys.

‘Maybe this should be called Loch of Blacktop Hill.’ I said. South of us, further away in another fold of this rolling range, is the actual Loch of Blacktop Hill. It’s getting confusing.

Around us The Carrick Hills sleep in a shroud of mist. Wind shushes through the trees. The Carricks are not high but they get tricky in messy weather, messy in tricky weather. Like today.

The eyes play games. I see a wall of a sharp hill rear above me. I peer and it’s a line of forest, trees as thick as hair on a dog’s back. My perception changes….fake ducks, hillsides that become woods, a well worn path that turns to a bleak massive mudbath, moorlands that stretch and dip and disappear, invisible cattle that moan, flocks of silent sheep, all ghostly in the fog.

We leave the ducks and get to the rounded peak of Blacktop Hill. The mist vaporises. Pasturelands ripple towards the shore and yellowing fields of wheat are ready for harvest:

And then the return to the coastal path following the rocky line between water and land. We used it earlier. It’ s rough, littered with boulders, crevices, ravines and jags of ancient stone to stumble over:

But there’s a tumbling little waterfall:

There’s a welcome sweep of Bracken Bay:

….and traces of an old rail line that used to link farms and coastal villages:

The weather has been damp, so warm(ish) that musk mallow decorates the autumn headlands:

and there’re families of mushroom:

I’m careful not to look down all the time. Volunteers keep the coastal path clear. But keep looking up and forward; there’s nothing you can do but slam your head on a low hanging sycamore if you’re not careful:

I don’t follow my own advice. I’m not careful. I don’t look up. I bang my head.

Pix: Leslie Barrie, Denis Duke, Mary Hogg