Iona NTS Thistle Camp 12th - 20th April 2012

Well I'm back after a fantastic and inspiring week on the island of Iona on the North West coast of Scotland and what a week it was. I was a co-leader again on one of the National Trust for Scotland's Thistle Camp conservation holidays. We had the most amazing weather for the whole week, we were so lucky. I cant remember a better week for weather in the 6 years and 13 camps I have been on!

So I travelled up first thing Thursday morning from Liverpool to Edinburgh dropped my bags off at the tool store in Charlotte Square, had a quick mooch around town and then met the leader Marcus to go and do the BIG food shop for the trip. There is only a very small and very expensive shop on the island of Iona so we needed to shop for the whole trip for 12 people. This includes breakfast, lunch, dinner and tea breaks too! So that's a lot of food normally around 4 shopping trolleys and about £300+ for the week. That evening I met up with a good pal Anna and caught up with her at a lovely bistro on Dalry Road.

Friday 13th - Unlucky for some! But thankfully not for me! Look what I met on the way to meet the group in Princess Street Gardens...Vulpes vulpes!

But to be honest he didn't look too good and I worried seeing him at 8:30 on a busy Friday. After meeting the group at 9 at Charlotte Sq we set off on our travels to Oban to catch the 2pm ferry over to Mull and then one last ferry over from Mull to Iona. By the time we got there we were a bit tired. Our accommodation for the week was the fantastic hostel on Iona. A very homely building with fantastic views from the North of the island looking towards the Dutchmans Cap and Rhum in the distance a great place to spend the week and highly recommended for anyone wanting to get away from it all!
Click here for the Iona Hostel Website and John Maclean's blog

The beautiful carved hostel sign

As luck would have it there was a bit of a problem for space which meant that 5 of the group on the first night and 2 on the second had to camp as the hostel was full. Being a huge fan of camping I was so happy to get the opportunity to camp on the island and we only had to get over one fence to go to the loo in the night in the hostel! See picture of tent below!

Our tens from the Kitchen window!

John Maclean who owns the hostel has been a crofter on Iona for 12 years and has a great flock of Hebridean sheep, you can tell they have a bit more attitude than the usual white fluffy sheep you normally see. Apparently their brains are sizeably larger than the average sheep and they have some great horns, they are brilliant. John uses the wool from their fleeces to make blankets and sell them and I kicked myself at not buying a fleece to have a go at spinning myself some wool. Maybe when I am up again another year...

Some of John's Hebridean Sheep !

Saturday 14th April - This was our first work day and we woke to sunshine. Our main task for today was walking over to the marble quarry on the south of the island to prime and then pain some of the industrial machinery that has lay unused since the 1800s. Apparently the quarry was only used for less than a decade but the industrial archaeology is of interest and importance so one of our jobs was to protect it against the sea spray and elements to prolong its life as much as possible. It was a great spot to work right next to the sea and a seal came to join us for our lunch. The before and after pictures of the steam powered machinery are below!

Before the primer and top coat

After

Our lunch stop by the marble quarry

Some of the girls from the group finished off the painting whilst the boys went and hauled boulders about for a boggy bit of ground for one of the pilgrims paths. After work we headed back to the hostel to make the evening meal, we all take it in turns to cook or wash up and it always seems to work well.

Sunday 15th April - Today was another glorious day and as it was Sunday the girls decided to head off to the Abbey to get a feel of life in Iona and the birthplace of Scottish Christianity. I'm afraid that's as far as my knowledge stretches around the religious significance of the island, but to find out more Click here for the Wikipedia entry on Iona . Whilst the girls went to church and a tea room or two the guys (with my help and advice of course!) headed over to haul boulders again for a boggy stretch of path. It was a tough job as movable boulders are few and far between as most rock is bed rock. Once you have found a rock you then have to pinch bar it out and then heave it around a hill to the bog. What usually happens is the boulder gets stuck in the wrong bit of bog so you need to haul it to near its final resting place, dig out a small amount of bog then put the boulder in place. In the end we got there! see below...

Hauling the Boulder to improve the pilgrims path

It was another hot day and it was really sheltered where the bog was, it was beautiful. I found a Caterpillar during my lunch but as with most caterpillars I couldn't identify it. The afternoon was spend clearing ditches and painting the village benches and gates. See below...

One of the cross drains cleared by the Abbey

Painting one of the gates

After everyone finished work we all headed over to a disused croft to check out some storm damage (there was quite a bit) and then we headed over to the Machair and spent an hour or so relaxing by the fantastic beach on the west side of the island known by the locals as the Machair. We spend a few hours after work relaxing by it on the Tuesday and Wednesday too. But I'm sure you can see why below....

Monday 16th April - Another glorious day spent beach combing a number of coves on the West side of the island. Absolute bliss. I was amazed at the difference in beach from cove to cove both in structure of beach and what you would find washed up. Some beaches were sandy, some pebbles, some crushed shells. Some had lots of kelp washed up, others none, A few photos from Monday are below. About 4 of the group went off to Staffa for the day to see the Puffins. I have been before in June and managed to get so close to these beautiful bird but I think it was a bit early in the year for them to be nesting in April but apparently there were some to be seen in the sea.

Shell beaches

Fantastic pink seaweed to be identified shortly!

I spent two hours on this beach paddling and looking at all the shells washed up

Iona Abbey

Flag Iris - perfect ground cover for the Corncrakes found on Iona

Thrift and lichen (Ramolina?) growing on the rocks on the shore

 

Kelp filled beach

Tuesday 17th April - Today we started work on another pilgrims path which goes by the machair and up hill to eventually reach Columba's Bay. There have already been huge improvements to the paths drainage thanks to an islander who has done really great neat work with a digger creating channels down the side of the path, however there is still some water flowing down the path that needs directing off the path into said drainage channel so our task on Tuesday and for part of Wednesday was to create some water bars that are made across the path. It was quite hard and muddy work - so because of that I absolutely loved it! We split into two groups Marcus took one and I tool the other further up the path. We first had to find appropriately sized large flat rocks around the site which was easier said than done so we had a good supply to chose from when we constructed the water bars. We then had to dig a ditch across the path which followed the flow of water down the path. This took quite a while as there were son many stones. 

The before picture!

Once the ditch was dug we then had to place large stones with a flat side against the downward side of the ditch so they were only slightly higher than the path and flat facing the ditch to help channel the water down the length of the channel. Once there were all in place we had to lay the stones at the base of the channel for the water to flow over. This was trickier than it sounded as we had to watch the gradient but also make sure it wasn't too deep or too shallow. We got there in the end, but I have to admit, one of the volunteers Derek definitely had an eye for it! It seemed every rock he places was perfect and he moved at such a pace he was fantastic! Anyway here are some before and after pictures of the water bar...

After digging out the trench

Some wind battered juniper on the hill alongside the path - fantastic

After all the digging we had nearly finished the water bars and headed down to the beach to watch some spectacular waves coming into shore. The weather had definitely changed but it remained gloriously sunny and we just sat for an hour being mesmerised by the waves at the machair beach. To top it off that evening we had a fire on the beach down from the hostel underneath the stars and the satellites it was fantastic, especially with a wee dram of whiskey! Magical.

 

Fantastic waves crashing on the beach

Wednesday 18th April - Today was a mix of tasks. Again another gloriously sunny day! First we headed up to finish off the water bars which only took about an hour to complete by packing stones in behind the stones to stabilise them and tidy up the site. The finished water bar below!

The completed water bar!

Rubbish from the wee cove

We then headed over to Columbas Bay to do a quick litter pick. We headed there for a brew and then we split off into two groups. I took the larger group over to the smaller cove just east of Columbas Bay and luckily we took plenty of bin bags as we collected a depressingly large amount of plastic bottles and rubbish that had been washed up on the shore. It was really sad and eye opening to see how much rubbish there was. On first inspection it just looked like a usual stony bay with a few washed up damages bits of rope, lobster pots and buoys but on closer inspection there were hundreds of pieces of rubbish. See below for just what we managed to collect in about half an hour.

The cove where we litter picked

 The other problem with Iona is rubbish removal. There is only one large public bin on the island and anything else that is to be taken off the island by the council has to be paid for so the NTS get charged for anything additional that needs removing. I personally think this is awful, surely it is doing the island a favour but I guess when you in get into discussions like ' who owns the island?' NTS and what are their responsibilities versus the council (and community members) then it all gets a bit more complicated.


After the litter pick we headed over to the marble quarry to finish some painting. A group went to finish moving the rubbish back to the van and collected some sand that was needed for Thursday's tasks and the rest of us headed over to another boggy bit to lay some new stepping stones. The amazing Derek once again excelled prising rocks off hills and shifting them through bogs. However I'm very pleased with my contribution which is the rock that is two rocks away from the one Stuart is standing on! See below...

Our new bog crossing point!

After all this excitement we headed back to the machair to watch the waves then headed back to hostel where I made a rather fantastic apple crumble. I tried the deconstructed approach where I cooked off the crumble separately - it worked and people had seconds and thirds!!! I was very honoured!

Thursday 19th April - Our last proper work day and full day on the island. Again a day full of sunshine and cracking views. Today we worked in two groups. First we all carried cement, water and sand up to the cairn on duni hill. This was quite hard going but the steep bit was short and sweet luckily and at the top we were blessed with some fantastic views.

 A group cemented the cairn and another group which I lead headed down towards the abbey to improve the drainage on the path into the village and collect pebbles from the beach to grave the area by the kissing gate. The views were spectacular whilst we worked and I was really really happy with the improvements we made to the drainage. We removed some of the grass that had grown over the gravel path, cleared, widened and extended the drain above the path and cleared below the path.

Area of path drained in front of Abbey

After lunch and a walk to get an ice cream (it was hot in that sun!) the whole of the group head over to Moll Farm to clear away some storm damage before the croft gets tidied properly and re-let by the NTS (if anyone is interested its beautiful croft and has a great position meaning you can see both sides of the island from the croft. Since it was the last day most of the group walked back to the hostel along the coast and packed. Marcus and I made three giant lasagnas and we fed all the group plus the hostel owner, 2 hostel staff some other of the hostel guests! It was a great evening and it was sad to think the week was coming to an end. Marcus and I both got lovely thank you cards from the group which was really touching and we got the place ready to leave for the 9am ferry.

Friday 20th April - Our last day on Iona and time to travel home. I woke early so headed down to the beach at 5:55am to watch the sun come up over Ben More from the beach by the hostel. It was fantastic and was so glad I did it.

Then all there was to be done was to move everything into the van say good bye to John and head to the ferry. We got the 9am ferry from Iona to Mull and were waved off by some of the islanders doing a Mexican wave on the pier which was such a laugh. We spotted an otter on the way to Craignure. We dropped off some of the volunteers in Craignure and caught the 10.55 ferry to Oban, left some of the volunteers at Oban and drove down to Edinburgh. Marcus and I unloaded the van, caught up with Jon (one of the other paid thistle camp leaders) and then I headed off to catch my train home.

I was met at Lime Street Station in Liverpool by my fabulous Tom at 10.15pm. After 14 hours worth of travelling, 2 islands and 2 countries I was pooped and ready for bed. But a fantastic trip and one I will remember for a long time to come!