Tuesday 26 January 2021

Inverclyde. Simple Pleasures Missed.

                                                     ALL PHOTOS CLICK FULL SCREEN

 

As we are in full lock down at the moment and have been for a month, with possibly a second month to come I am restricted to a handful of local walks around the house. One thing that Covid has highlighted for me is how much I miss even just a 30 minute car journey to somewhere else. Being the age I am, the high mountains in full winter conditions, climbed solo,  are probably beyond me now, especially as I have a damaged shoulder at present- too much hard effort just to come back down again with the risk of a slip and fall onto my bad arm something to be avoided. 


So I don't miss access to the mountains these days. What I do miss is the simple ability to jump in a car, bus or train and travel to Renfrewshire or Inverclyde, just across the river from Glasgow City, but currently out of bounds- not just from last month but effectively from March 2020 until now. So this is a gallery of several different trips taken over the past few years around the three Inverclyde Towns. Sometimes alone, sometimes with friends. As you can see from the photos above the connected strip of towns- Port Glasgow, Greenock, and Gourock, could easily pass for a Nordic Crime series as they do resemble parts of coastal Sweden, Norway or Iceland, especially in winter. As I've been watching several Nordic Crime series recently on TV ...The Valhalla Murders (Iceland) The Bridge (Denmark - Sweden) All The Sins (Finland) I know the fantastic winter scenery around these Scottish towns can be the equal of anything further north.


Here you can be just across the water from serious, rarely climbed, mountains in Highland Argyll yet feel no compulsion to struggle up them. Rugged, mostly path free, and as wild as anything further north they fall below Munro standards so are remarkably empty of hill walkers but make for a great scenic backdrop. Even though they are under 3000 foot high they are usually desperate hills to climb, winter or summer, with few ascents and no beaten trails to follow to the summits so I'm always happy just to look and admire them from a distance these days, having sampled their vertical delights in the past.

 And there's always something going on in the Firth of Clyde anyway. A Greenock hill top view here on a windless day after heavy snowfalls with the Clyde Estuary looking semi frozen, yet still open to shipping. A sea of slush basically. It was around minus 10 below and the sea did partly freeze with solid ice in the shallower bays. Apart from the deep water channel leading up to Glasgow (See line of markers) the view here is mostly mud flats at low tide, covered at high tide with only a shallow depth of water. If the Gulf stream (North Atlantic Drift) ever changed course or slowed/ deviated slightly we may yet see this channel frozen over, coastline to coastline. And as Covid 19 has shown us- things we thought were static and reliable can change in an instant if we mess with nature enough to cross a line..


Another reason I like this area is that there's always a chance down here by the coast that the unexpected might happen, and often does. Shipping and submarines to look out for in the various sea inlets, lofty surrounding mountains, or even a Royal Navy Helicopter Rescue with a Westland Sea King, as here.

 

So unlike my local handful of well trodden walks, good though they might be for mere exercise, this is a place where interesting events might occur.


A climber trapped on the 1000 foot high Cross of Lorraine that towers over Greenock. See black dot (climber) with helicopter about to land.


Helicopter landed and a rescue attempt underway. Rope lowered down to casualty.


Rescue completed and another life saved. Hooray! Yes folks, you never know what will occur by the seaside.

 The Great Orme of Inverclyde. Over eighty feet long, nose to tail, and a fearsome ruthless hunter, despite the smile. 


Ginger. Greenock's towering heavy horse sculpture, soaring high above this coastal town's tenement districts,  watching proudly over Greenock's docklands like the Pharos lighthouse watched over ancient Alexandria.

 

Port Glasgow's Endeavour Sculpture. A representation of the tall ships that used to carve a path through the icebergs to reach this port. At one time the main gateway for goods going into the city where ships docked here before being hauled overland on wooden rollers, full masted galleons pulled through the low Renfrewshire hills by teams of panting heavy horses to deliver their goods to the eager masses waiting in the valley beyond. What a sight that must have been! 

Incidentally, in an age where no one reads books or newspapers anymore, fails to check every fact, no longer trusts government advice, science, or history... and gets all our information via the internet...or populist leaders with their own agenda to push... do you think that's a good thing for society at large? Will we even survive this bold new Eden unfolding?  'Smart' phone in hand- or soon to be implanted in wrist? Do puppets care what hand is inside them... as long as they move and come alive?


 Lang Craigs and Gourock Bay viewed from Greenock.


Greenock Docks at Night.


 Greenock and Port Glasgow, lights at dusk.

All three towns climb up steep hillsides making them a photographer's dream, day or night, to explore. I've been coming here since the 1960s and know the area well through every passing decade.


Port Glasgow daytime.

Port Glasgow at night.

 Hillside wonderland. Port Glasgow.


Ice covered streets at minus 8 below in Port Glasgow several years ago.


Tower Hill in Gourock from Lyle Hill. Dusk descending.


 Ice coated streets in Port Glasgow.


Twinkleland Empire. Exploring the hills of Greenock with Anne and Belinda in happier, free movement, times.

 The up and down nature of urban Inverclyde. Towns built over many different hillsides. A joy to explore.


Waterloo Road School. A fictional UK TV series set in a real (but recently empty) Greenock School. Would not like to chase a rolling football here.

 Warehouse apartments. Port Glasgow. 


Curious seal.

Winter ridges on Arran.


The Firth of Clyde island chain. Great Cumbrae with the mountains of Arran behind. The end.











16 comments:

Carol said...

Is that Cioch na h' Oighe on Arran in your photo? Looks like it...

I think you'll find that, even in the days where everyone read newspapers, they all have their own slant left or right - that's why people only read a certain few papers as those are the ones which agree with their viewpoint...

Carol said...

Wait a minute... do you mean that someone was actually climbing that huge man-made cross? Next question - what on Earth for?!

blueskyscotland said...

Hi Carol,
Could well be.
That's true but as I haven't read a newspaper myself for several years you do miss a lot. Also people can go far deeper into specialist fringe news channels and info sites that didn't exist before that reinforce their own particular belief system leading to a total breakdown of normal society.

blueskyscotland said...

What on earth for.... As G.L. Mallory famously said when asked why he was attempting Everest- " Because it is there."
I'm surprised you have not heard of that giant cross before. It's world famous- as is the list of rock climbers that have tried to climb it. But beware of only taking my word for that. (Now you see why the internet can be a dangerous place.)

Anabel Marsh said...

Spent every summer holiday in Greenock until I was 18! All my relatives lived there.

Rosemary said...

I also miss being able to travel around my local area. Last year the National Trust opened their grounds and gardens whilst fulfilling social distance and with timed/booked entrance only which we enjoyed. However, even that has finished for the moment.
We are all living in a very strange world currently, and even though we have been told there is a light at the end of the tunnel, that light grows dimmer as each day passes.
I have a blog friend who lives in Taiwan where they have had just 7 deaths - something seriously wrong has happened here!!!

blueskyscotland said...

Hi Anabel,
always been one of my favourite areas as there's so much to do and see there, although not your normal tourist resort.

blueskyscotland said...

Hi Rosemary,
The way things are going we might have to write off 2021 as well as far as unlimited travel is concerned. UK Covid Deaths 100,000 plus. Vietnam Covid Deaths under 40. Australian Covid deaths under 1000. New Zealand Covid deaths under 40...all low numbers from countries far closer to China. Our Government did promise after Brexit Britain would become a world leader again so it could be suggested they are keeping their word on that score. In fairness, none of the other, smaller, UK nations with different leaders are doing any better. Even with the vaccine it's going to be a long struggle ahead.

Carol said...

What's that cross made of? It looks like metal or something and, if it is, it won't have any holds surely? I can only understand people climbing natural things myself...

blueskyscotland said...

I think it's made of concrete Carol, maybe reinforced with metal rods. It's only approx fifteen foot high built to commemorate the Free French who escaped France and fought in the war against the Germans. Being concrete there's zero holds on the surface. I used it to illustrate how you can't always trust things you see or read on the internet whereas for hundreds of years we have as a society mostly believed, and in the main, trusted the media(TV) and newspapers where we used to get our facts from... but all that is in danger of breaking down in the last 10 years. There was a navy sea king rescue helicopter buzzing around the Firth so I lined the cross up with that in the distance to create the effect. I'd imagine if a 1000 foot stone cross was erected in Scotland you would hear about it before now. But it shows how easy it is to fake things online whereas news outlets tend to check their facts first before screening but even that is getting eroded.
I read something online a few years ago, with numerous believable videos attached, that American cities were rounding up all their homeless living on the streets and placing them in detention centres so the main tourist cities looked better. Still no idea if this was true but it looked real online. My point being when you used to read it in a newspaper or see it on TV news people, in the main accepted it as generally factual even though it might be slanted. Now it getting harder to believe in anything anymore as faking gets much easier... which is obviously dangerous.
Over and out.

Carol said...

That's like when I just missed the chance of lining a jet up with the top of an old mine chimney in the Coniston Hills - it looked like it was coming up out of the chimney, jet-trail and all. Would have made a superb photo but I'm just not quick enough with my camera - hence the lack of wildlife photos on my blog.

So, if this cross is concrete and holdless, how can it be climbed? I'm assuming that it is climbed and that fact wasn't part of your deception?

Wherethefatdogwalks said...

Hi Bob, long time. Hope you are keeping ok. My goodness my Wordpress browser really doesn’t like you - wouldn’t let me comment at all. Lol. Came in the old fashioned way. Your part of the world I seem to have ignored since about 1957 when I was in Greenock to see my uncle take the boat to Canada. There is clearly a lot I have been missing - was most impressed. The only thing I recognised was the channel up the Clyde - I saw it from Dumbarton Castle a couple of years back. I just kicked off the old “wherethefatdogwalks.com blog and started going through my old blog roll. It was a massacre. So many have departed since 8 years back - it was like a friends father who in his later years was going through his Christmas card list going, “Deid...Deid...Deid...”. You get the picture. Was glad to find you still on the go!

blueskyscotland said...

'Alternative facts' Carol, 'Alternative facts'. Why would you want to climb it when a. It's only 12 to 15 foot high. b. It's a war memorial.
Other untruths in post are... 1 no icebergs near Scotland, (as yet)
2. Great Orme of Inverclyde only 8 foot approx.
3. Ginger the horse. under 15 feet high( including plinth.)
4. Although Port Glasgow was Glasgow's early port heavy horses did not drag ships overland on wooden rollers to deliver the goods. ( although the viking's sometimes did use that method to reach new areas- like between a river and a large loch/lake cos they was mad and hard characters with lighter ships.

blueskyscotland said...

Hi Ken,
I'm keeping fine. Hope you are as well. Blog is still trundling along. 'A'. still goes out just doesn't blog it.
I have the same problems with wordpress sometimes- got to jump through several hoops before it lets me comment but I'm used to it now. All the best for 2021.

the23 said...

Good to see you're still at it Bob. Since I moved from Cove to Greenock three and a half years ago I've been running up and down these hills a damn lot. Haven't even been able to take the ferry over to those mountains you speak of for over a year now, so lots of time spent up on the moor, either running or walking. That school was at the end of my street, but was demolished before I moved here.

blueskyscotland said...

Yes, still shuffling along. That six inches of snow that fell last week was a real pick me up though as I could walk new routes across all the local golf courses instead of the same familiar trails I've been doing all last year.