You know the feeling when a headache suddenly clears? Everything seems better and brighter from one moment to another.
Well, that’s what happened when Camille and I went up to Dunan Muasdale (colloquially known as Muasdale Dun) for the first time this year. Described by Canmore as an “almost circular dun measuring 13.5m by 12m internally”, this old lookout spot sits on top of a rocky hill about a mile from the ocean.
Whenever I walk up the road toward the peninsula’s interior, I think, “What must it have been like to carry fish up from the sea to feed the people who kept watch in this thing?” At one point, the four-metre-thick walls were much taller. There’s probably been some type of structure there since prehistoric times – it’s such an obvious spot for a dun.
But nobody knows. Well, officially. Out here, there are still many things to discover and many structures yet to record.
Trudge up the road a couple more miles and you’ll walk straight into the clear remains of a prehistoric village, with multiple hut circles, a mound and a cist. Several thousand years ago, babies were born there and brought out to see the sun set over Islay. There were wolves and lynx living in the old-growth forest, and native wild boar on the menu for supper.
You won’t find that place marked on an Ordnance Survey map – not yet. It’s there, though.
It feels grounding to walk the same routes as our ancestors. The soil here is rich; excellent for crops. Neolithic farmers knew that when they began rolling the biggest boulders onto the edges of the ancient fields they dug. Humans know where best to settle.
I’ll show you around when it gets warmer and brighter. We’ll go to the half-built mansion house, now mostly fallen away. Then, we’ll take the winding route up to what we call “Heart Rock” – a wide, flat stone by the roadway, covered in cup marks – before visiting an ancient settlement nestling in forestry land at the top of the hill. Finally, we’ll hike back down into the woods and explore Achaglass, with its cottages, sheep pens and illegal whisky still (well, what’s left of it) embedded in the rocky burnside.
For now, here’s a glimmering view from the top of the dun. Isn’t it beautiful?
Even now, I struggle to describe just how beautiful Kintyre is – especially in summer. Life bursts out of every part of the landscape. Colours seem richer and deeper here than they are anywhere else I’ve ever been.
Let’s go on a journey from Ayrshire to Largieside.
You begin by driving northeast on the undulating A737 over shallow hills, past cows and sheep and old farms and wind turbines, through the little town of Dalry and into bustling Linwood. There, you join the M8 and get lost in traffic for a while before merging onto the A898 and passing over the swollen Clyde on the Erskine Bridge. Glasgow is a busy place, isn’t it.
After you leave the city, the route gets simpler. You turn onto the A82 and travel northwest, through Dumbarton and into Loch Lomond territory.
All of a sudden, things seem much prettier. The cascading blue loch sits to the right, sun pouring warm light over the mountains on its easterly side.
You pass the turnoff for Luss and continue on past Inverbeg and Stuckgowan before turning left onto the smaller A83.
There, the road winds down into the little village of Tarbet, which means “narrow isthmus”. Tarbet sits at the bottom of a low valley between Loch Lomond and Loch Long. Roughly 750 years ago, a band of charming Viking raiders pulled their longships out of the sea at Arrochar on Loch Long and dragged them a mile and a half to Tarbet so that they could raid settlements along Loch Lomond.
Arrochar and Tarbet together represent something of a border between public transport options in Argyll and Bute and those in the rest of Scotland. People travelling by train have to disembark at Arrochar and hitch a ride on the 926 coach if they want to keep going. The railway runs no further west: you’re heading into the wild.
Anyway, you continue on past Succoth, rounding the head of the loch. The trees on the edge of the road are sparse and through them, you can see an expanse of gentle water and beyond that, a steep vista against the sky.
At Ardgartan, the road begins to wind again, curving through dark woodland and out into sunshine again. Land falls away on the left and stretches up on the right as you travel further and further into the mountains.
If you look out of the window, you can trace the path of a burn twisting across the valley floor. Sprawling evergreen forests sprawl like giant rugs over the landscape, while yellow-blooming heathers, punctuated with ferns, tumble down steep slopes. Every now and again, you’ll see a long waterfall in the distance.
The road keeps ascending. Buzzards ride updrafts and hang in the air, while smaller birds flock across the valley. If you want a better look at the Old Military Road meandering through Glen Croe, you can swing into the car park at the infamous Rest and Be Thankful. Ahead, Loch Restil cuts a thin trough through the pass.
Next, you drive past Cairndow and on to Loch Fyne, where the asphalt winds around the edge of sparkling water again. A while later, you’ll cross a humpbacked bridge and see Inveraray Castle on your right before heading into the town itself.
Occasionally, the big sea loch disappears and you bumble through arable land, but you always met the inlet again eventually. You’ll pass through Lochgilphead and over the narrow metal Crinan Canal swing-bridge at Ardrishaig, continuing on past Inverneill and Erines and the salmon farm just offshore.
Finally, you’ll descend into Tarbert, where the main street bends around the harbour. Several cafes, a couple of pubs, gift shops, art galleries, a small supermarket, an ironmonger shop, a butcher and a newsagent line up facing the water in a semicircle. Fishing boats enter and leave the sheltered port via a narrow bottleneck several hundred metres out.
Up and out you go, past the parish church and the village hall. Soon you pass West Loch House and then a sign welcoming you to Kintyre.
You continue along the edge of Loch Tarbert, past the Kennacraig terminal with its big Islay car ferry docked and ready for departure, and on through Whitehouse and Clachan.
Then, suddenly at the top of a blind summit, the overhanging trees give way to a broad landscape and you see the sound of Gigha for the first time, water glimmering blue and green in the sunlight. Jura sits on the horizon, its iconic paps creating a natural skyline. According to local legend, Kintyre’s ancient inhabitants considered the island a mother goddess and erected standing stones on the peninsula to worship her.
As you drive south, Jura’s matriarchal peaks slide behind the northern tip of Gigha. You zip past boulder-strewn croft land covered in tough scrub grass and reeds, and on the shore side, sheep and cows of all colours graze in flat fields next to the ocean.
There are flowers everywhere in spring and summer. Rhododendrons bloom along the roadside, while yellow rock roses, daisies, red clover and purple vetch spill out of ditches and meadows and gaps in stone walls. Shades of green are incredibly chromatic.
Deserted beaches of pale sand, abandoned stone cottages, old roofless churches enclosed in ivy, clifftop farmhouses and trees covered in thick moss fly by. Seagulls congregate and follow moving tractor plows; robins chase sparrows in and out of bushes at the side of the trail.
If you pull over at Muasdale and walk down to the beach, you’ll see a gigantic weather-worn boulder in the sand. Lemon-coloured marsh marigolds and buttercups, pink vicia, herb robert and bramble flowers spring over the beach border. It’s gorgeous.
And that’s where we’ll stop, because that’s home. That’s where all our adventures begin.
