Arran Wild Walks with Lucy Wallace

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Arran Wild Walks with Lucy Wallace

Discover the breathtaking mountains, moors and coastline of Arran with a qualified Mountain Leader.
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Walking on Arran is the best way to experience the beauty of Arran’s scenery and magnificent wildlife. See charismatic animals such as otters, golden eagles and red deer in their natural habitat.

27/11/2024

📣 Over the next few months there'll be a few updates to the page and website, starting with this bright new logo. The latest incarnation is based upon the old, image of a tree, but with some mountains added to better reflect what Arran Wild Walks represents.

There's always been an image of an ancient alder on Arran Wild Walks marketing material. The tree itself is a real tree in Glen Rosa. 🌳Over the last 18 years since I qualified as a Mountain Leader, (is it really that long?😳), this tree has stood as a lone beacon of hope against the deforestation in the glen. However, it has been slowly succumbing to rot and storm-fed spate waters and is now a spindly almost dead tree. However! There is good news because the new deer fences in the glen have provided a sanctuary for new trees, and this alder's babies are now springing up along the river bank. 🤩🌳🌳🌳🌳 The parent tree has almost gone, but it will live on in the logo as a symbol of restoration and rebirth. 🥰

You may also notice that Wally's name has dropped off the page. Don't panic, he's just fine... but is focusing on his own business Wally's Wheels Cycle Repairs , so not actively leading for Arran Wild Walks these days. However, if you need a bike fixed on Arran, you know where to go. 😄

13/10/2024

It's all kicking off in Lochranza! 🦌🦌

October is when the red deer are in rut and one of the best places to experience this natural spectacle is Lochranza. 🤩

⚠️Remember! Red deer are big wild animals and this is a stressful time of year for the stags. They are pumped up with testosterone and have lost some of their fears and inhibitions. Do not approach or corner them, as they can be unpredictable and potentially dangerous. Keep dogs on the lead at all times.

05/10/2024

Sea asters are looking amazing on Arran just now. Lovely lilacs heralding the turn of the season 💜. These are some of the last flowers of the year to reach their peak and provide essential late season nectar to pollinators. From Lucy's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Snoweider/

26/09/2024

Wild and autumnal today on Arran 🌬🍂. The woods are changing colour and the leaves are whirling about. Great weather for a walk up to Eas Mor and Loch Garbad. 😄

12/09/2024

The Saddle: a dip in the skyline between Cir Mhor and North Goatfell that links Glen Rosa and Glen Sannox. The Glen Rosa side is a nice walk, but the Glen Sannox side is steep, intimidating, and tricky! Pam and Anthony got in touch with me because Pam has amazing memories of doing the traverse as an 18 year old student of geology, and she wanted to show it to Anthony. After a bit of shoogling of dates to get the nicest weather this week, we picked a belter of a day for it. It was pretty chilly, but the sun shone, and the brisk north wind kept the midges away, so we could enjoy the journey and the views. 😍

11/09/2024

September = Waterfall season! 🤩

25/08/2024

Mission: Lorna's Corbetts. Yesterday I helped Lorna tick off Cir Mhor and Caisteal Abhail. This is a big day by anyone's standards, and Lorna needed to do it between ferries. No problem! A great effort, (Lorna has already done her Munros so she's no slouch!), the rain held off, and also nice to be joined by Emily, aspirant ML, and my Mountain Training mentee, who was shadowing the day.

Arran has four Corbetts mountains between 2500 and 3000 feet/762-914.4m). These are Cir Mhor (799m), Caisteal Abhail (859m), Beinn Tarsuinn (826m) and Goatfell. Goatfell is the highest at 874m above sea level, but not necessarily the hardest. All four are brilliant days out, whether done singly or in one massive push. If you fancy climbing Arran's Corbetts and with us then get in touch! 😀

17/08/2024

Treated to my favourite view today! I was leading Helen and Mike up Caisteal Abhail. The forecast said it would be clagged in, and it was, for the whole way up, and even on the summit block, it was a right pea-souper. We'd left our bags beneath the block for the scramble to the top, and when we got back to them, we decided to take five for a snack. Then, all of a sudden, while we were chatting there, the clouds just melted away! 🤩

For more information about guided walks, visit our website:
https://www.arranwildwalks.com/summer-mountains

15/07/2024

Beautiful in Glen Rosa this morning! It's hard to choose, as they are all lovely, but this *might* be our favourite glen on Arran! 😍

28/06/2024

"Eggs and bacon" for breakfast? 🍳🥓
That's one of the nicknames that Bird's Foot Trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) has, thanks to its rich yellow and red colouring. Other names include "Granny's toenails" 👵and "hen and chickens"🐔🐥🐓. The yellow flowers look a bit like slippers, and because it's a legume, (pea family) it produces little claw like pods containing seeds.

Bird's Foot Trefoil, like all legumes, is a clever plant that is able to take nitrogen out of the air and use it (other plants can only access soil based nitrogen). This job is done by friendly bacteria that live within nodules on the plant's roots.🦠 This allows the plant to thrive, and also helps to enrich the soil, supporting other plants too. 😀

Bird's Foot Trefoil is common on Arran, in meadows, verges and along the sides of paths. The pretty yellow flowers grow in small clusters close to the ground and are a great source of nectar for bees and other pollinators.🐝🦋🪰 It is a nutritious plant for grazing animals and grown for silage and hay. 🐄

26/06/2024

So common on Arran you might not even notice it, and no it's not a buttercup (four petals-see?!), the humble and tiny Tormentil (Potentilla erecta) does a lot of nature's heavy lifting. 💪 You'll find this little flower everywhere from coastal meadows to the summits of the mountains, and it flowers all summer long providing food for a wide range of insects. 🤩💛

Tormentil also has loads of uses in traditional herbal medicines, and has been used to treat stomach problems, wounds and even to flavour spirits. The root was also used to make a rich red natural dye.

25/06/2024

Emblem of Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, the story goes that a barefoot marauding Norseman 🪓 stepped on a thistle while the Viking army was sneaking up on the Scots at Largs (just across the water from Arran) way back in 1263. In the ensuing battle, the Scots were victorious and the Vikings banished from Scotland for good.

If the story is true, chances are it was a Marsh Thistle (Cirsium palustre) that bothered the barefoot norsemen. This spiny little gem is often overlooked and is common in wet meadows, bogs, river banks and ditches round Arran (and Largs). The deep purple flowers are adored by bumblebees and other pollinators especially fritillaries. 💜🐝🦋

24/06/2024

Look at these delicate pink blooms 😍!🌸🌸🌸 Common valerian (Valeriana officialis) loves boggy damp places such as roadside ditches and river banks. It grows tall, often in dense stands up to 1.5m high. The fluffy pink umbels are sweetly scented and seriously attractive to insects such as hoverflies and butterflies, as well as cats, who react to it like they do to catnip. 😻

Valerian has been used as a mild herbal sedative for millenia and was known to the ancient Greek doctor Hippocrates who lived between 460-370BC.

22/06/2024

This tiny plant is Wild Thyme (Thymus polytrichus), and as you can see, the minature sweet smelling blossoms are beloved by bumblebees. 🐝Wild thyme is a close relative of the Mediterranean plant that is used to flavour food, and shares a similar, if more subtle scent. 🍝😊

Its prefers calcareous soils (in short supply on Arran) but also grows well in rocky places with a sunny aspect, so whilst it isn't common here, there are a few fragrant patches to be discovered on the island. ⛰️

Here we see a cute male red tailed bumblebee enjoying the delicious nectar provided by the flowers in return for pollinating services. 😋

21/06/2024

OK, standby, our showcase of Arran wildflowers is about to get quite weird 🤓.

This beauty is the Heath Spotted Orchid (Dactylorhiza maculata). It is common on Arran on moorland and damp grassland and is a favourite of bumblebees. 🐝

However, it's also a bit of a cheat, because although it looks gorgeous, it provides no nectar for the bees that visit its pink spotty blooms. 🧐

That's not all, because with this plant, it's just take take take... Like all orchids, the Heath Spotted is completely dependent on a symbiotic relationship with fungi in order to grow and reproduce. The microscopic fungus lives within the plant, and provides nutrients to the orchid seed when it germinates, especially carbon, because unlike most plants, orchid seeds have no food stores of their own. While this relationship is clearly beneficial to the orchid, science has not yet established what the orchid provides in return, other than a very pretty home. 💜🩷

20/06/2024

The tiny common butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris) is here today to remind us that nature is red in tooth and claw. Even in the plant kingdom! 😬

Butterworts like to grow in wet flushes where the soils are thin and very acidic. To make up for the lack of nutrients in the ground, these mighty monsters catch insects (midges mostly) on the slimy surface of their leaves. The leaves slowly curl around the trapped insects which are broken down by enzymes and the plant absorbs the nitrogen. 🪰😲

Not only that, but the leaves, like most plants also photosynthesise, making their own carbohydrates using carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and energy from sunlight. 🌞

The lime green basal rosettes appear like little stars in the boggy heaths, with the first midges, and about now they are starting to send up their dainty stems with a purple flower on the end. 💜 The stems need to be long enough to ensure they don't accidentally trap their pollinators while they are busy catching midges. 😋

19/06/2024

Staying with the pink theme today 🩷🩷🩷🩷. Unmistakable, the tall spires of foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea) are going bananas right now. 🦊These gorgeous biennial wildflowers love to spring up anywhere that there's a bit of disturbed ground. They are often the first plants to colonise forestry clear fell and can grow up to 2m tall. Bumblebees especially love their hot pink blooms, which are perfectly shaped to transfer maximum pollen onto the bees when they visit each flower. 🐝🐝🐝
Foxgloves have the power to both kill and cure. They are extremely toxic, and contain a drug called digitalis, ⚕️💊which is beneficial in medicine for certain heart conditions. 🫀

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07825 644171

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http://www.arranwildwalks.com/

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