10 June Greenock Cut

They say it’s third time lucky. This was to prove true for us today as, for the third time as a group, we set out to tackle the relatively short (7.5 miles) walk of the Greenock cut. The sun shone, the air was clear and the forecast was in our favour. Only a light westerly breeze kept the temperature down and stopped us from overheating. It was a perfect day for walk on the high moors.
We knew the day was to be an improvement on the last twice we had been here when we left the car park at Cornalees, came round the shelterbelt of trees and found the sun still shining, shimmering on the water of the lower loch.

Skylark sang on the moor above us as we walked up the tarmac beside the loch towards the dam of Loch Thom. Already the naturalist had binoculars glued to his eyes though why he couldn’t see that it was a buzzard was beyond us for the rest of us could see it clearly without binoculars. But the bird then swung away over the dam and the binoculars were dropped. We continued the walk.

We came up the slope of the dam to find Loch Thom to the right of us, sparkling in the sunshine as the gentlest of breezes stirred the surface. This is where the tarmac ran out and the way continued as a track that climbed gently over a low rise beyond the loch. This was a delightful part of the walk. Butterflies, mainly whites, flitted from heather clump to heather clump and skylark sang overhead. The naturalist was in his element and the rest just enjoyed the feeling of the open moor. And the sun continued to shine.
There was a call for coffee at this point but the veterans of this walk, i.e. those who had done it twice already, said that, just over the rise, there was a pond with wee jetty and that would provide a seat for our coffee break. We walked on.
We never made the jetty. Just over the road and slightly higher than the pond was a collection of flat-topped boulders, boulders that we hadn’t seen through the rain the last time we came here, but boulders that would provide a good seat for our coffee stop.
Not only did our boulders provide us with a seat but their position on the hill provided us with a remarkable view of the Clyde Estuary and the Dunbartonshire hills. Our moor sloped down towards the blue waters of the Clyde. Helensburgh lay on the other side of the water and the Dunbartonshire hills formed the skyline behind this. What a superb view this was for so little effort on our behalf.
A peculiar shape lay in the water and Ian pointed it out as the upturned hulk of a sugar boat wrecked on its way into Greenock. The naturalist was encouraged to stop looking for moorland birds and turn his binoculars on a boat making its way upriver. According to Ian, who seems to know this kind of thing, it was a pilot boat escorting submarines upriver in a specially dug channel. We knew there was a reason we bring Ian along.
It was during the long coffee halt that the idea of the nude Ooters calendar was brought up. Jimmy refuses to be Mr. January citing reasons of shrinkage in cold weather. Paul didn’t fancy getting sunburn on tender parts so preferred to be Mr. September. Davie didn’t mind what month he was but needed the biggest picture. No, we don’t know why either!
It was noted that there are twelve months in the year and only eleven Ooters. Johnny, our mathematician did a complicated sum and found this doesn’t equate. ‘We could use Holly as a twelfth man’, said he, ‘but we would need to shave her’. We suspected Johnny’s fidophilia* was reappearing so we ended the conversation and moved on quickly before he got overexcited.
The track lay downward now so down we went down with it, towards Greenock and the Cut, still admiring the northward prospect.
The Cut was found easily enough for the track crosses it beside the keeper’s cottage. Now our walk was to be almost level, Alexander Thom’s engineering skills ensuring a minimal drop in the cut between Loch Thom and the cottage, and it was to maintain the height above Greenock, the Tail o’ the Bank and the Firth of Clyde. We enjoyed the views, changing subtly as we walked westward.
We stopped above Greenock for a look at the town. Ian pointed out the various landmarks. Here was Ravenscraig sports ground where the local athletics team train and the junior football team play; that is Greenock jail where the Lockerbie bomber is living out his final months; there was Ravenscraig Hospital; and that was the Academy where some poor souls are still chained to the chalk-face. This is probably the best place to view Greenock from for we know what would happen to strangers who ventured into the town. We kept on walking.
They say we are never too old to learn and we, at our advanced age, are proving this maxim to be perfectly true. Today’s lesson on Platonic solids was beautifully and enthusiastically delivered by the mathematician. The learning support group (Davie and Rex) exhibited disinterest but the clever amongst us know that questions will be asked in future so paid particular attention. (For the sake of Davie and Rex, the answers are A) Polyhedron, B) Tetrahedron, C) Octahedron, D) Dodecahedron, E) Couldnaecarelessahedron, F) Ba’, but don’t tell Johnny where you got them.)

But all this education was tiring and hunger-making so, when we came to a sheltered wee cleugh, we stopped for lunch. Ronnie discovered the climbing abilities of Sherpa Holly as we sat, throwing a stick well up the steep bank of the burn and watching Holly scrambling a way up to get it. Though he said he enjoyed watching Holly learn a new skill, we feel that there must be a deep-seated psychological reason why he took pleasure in torturing the poor dog like this. He needs to consult a psychologist.
Whilst Johnny’s knowledge educated us, it’s more than can be said of the botanist’s. When, after lunch, we came to a patch of white flowers growing in the shallow water of the cut and asked for enlightenment, he was unable to identify them. Poor show, botanist, we expect better. Further research by the scribe has identified them as Bog Bean.
Apart from the mysterious flowers, the northern hillscape held the attention as we walked on. From the hills of Cowal through the Arrochar Alps and the Loch Lomond Mountains to the Campsies and Ben Venue in the Trossachs, the view was superb in the sunshine. We came round a bend and the Clyde islands came into view with Arran looking magnificent as usual. Some were regretting not being on its mountains on a day like this. But we were on the Greenock cut and we had today’s walk to finish.

Another form of wildlife that couldn’t be identified accurately were the small fishes that Paul spotted swimming in the cut. Due to the recent spell of dry weather, the water didn’t flow in the cut today but lay in long, isolated pools and puddles and it was in the deeper of these pools that the fishes swam. We wondered what are their chances of survival if the dry spell continues and the pools shrink even further. Then we found the tadpoles.
Great black shoals of tadpoles swam in a shallow pool. At first we wondered what the heaving black mass at the edge of the pool was for no single creature could be distinguishes from its neighbour. Then, as our eyes isolated individuals, we saw they were tadpoles. They were in even more imminent danger of succumbing to the dry weather for their pool was shallow. Yet they strove and clambered over each other to get to the very edge of the pool. Why they did this was beyond the naturalist but he suggested that the water would be warmer there and amphibians need the heat. Nobody, even Davie, speaks Frog or we might have asked them. As it was we left them to their fate and wandered on.
Cornalees car park came quicker than we expected and we returned to the cars around two o’clock. This was another superb day and easily our best visit to the cut.

At Rex’s insistence, The Merrick in Seamill was the chosen venue for FRT today though why he insisted we go there isn’t known to us. We were almost as disappointed as Rex to find that it was a barman on duty today and not the eye candy we have become used to.