That time of year

The itch never leaves, that urge to turn your eye's to the hill's and for the ear's to strain to hear that unmistakable sound of autumn, I havn't been to the hill for several years now, except for recreational purposes, but the feelings remain. At Garry Gualach we would be getting everything ready for the upcoming stag season, we started about mid Sept there. Firewood, lots of firewood, all our guests arrived via the loch so the boats and engines would be repaired where needed and serviced in that order, the girls would be busy getting the guest's dinning room, accommodation and the ceilidh room up to scratch, many a fine evening i spent in both of these room's ( dinning and ceilidh ) with a glass of something and a re-telling of the days adventure's to ease the ache's away and warm the cockles. In earlier years the deer saddles would be taken down from the beams in the stable, cleaned with saddle soap and checked over for wear and tear, the ponies would have a trip down the lochside for new shoe's and all the tack would be checked, in later years we would take the Argo to the dealer and get it serviced, as easy as that but not better in many ways. Then to the range to check the zero on the rifles, a run into Inverness for ammo and a mooch around the shop eyeing the latest German gunmakers art lasciviously. We didn't, have a strict employee dress code, we all wore tweeds most of the time but it was of a pattern and design that appealed to each individual and was generally " of the peg ", the original GG tweed was made in Harris but was very expensive and wore very quickly in all the usuall places, so we would then stock up and replace worn or tatty items from what was available. Grey's gun shop ( long gone now ) was a wonderful place, from a long ago time you felt but in a most pleasant way. It was a great time and I miss it now and likely always will.
 
Allan
thank you for sharing with us, your time at Garry Gualach . It sounds a very special place , i often look through my diary remanisn the days and the people
i have met

Chill
 
Great post enjoyed that thanks , i get the same emotions just before the wildfowling season starts and i can feel the excitement brewing as i write.
Until a few years ago I used to keep a diary of my exploits and i get great pleasure from reading them back down the years, old mates and faithfull dogs long gone are all in there .
I havent been as consistant as i should have and there are odd years missing either through illness or lazyness, but i reccomend keeping a diary to anyone who doesn't already.
My son is coming up 25 now and the last time i had the diarys out i was taken back to the time he killed a rabbit at 9 and his first goose at 10 and the few years after we shared wildfowling together untill the whiff of perfume blew him off course.:doh: DF
 
Very good read, you should write a book of your tales and exploits bet it would sell
 
You are to kind, but I must admit the idea of a book has been in my mind for a while, that's a bonnie dog in your picture by the way.
 
HA HA, that did make me " laugh out loud ", well I hope this season brings you many fine days and heavy bags, as for your lad and I suppose with the rest of us the shine of young romance settles as we grow and our minds turn to other things we love but have perhaps put aside in the meantime. S
 
Thankyou, im glad you enjoyed it, im thankfull for my memory as I was far to lazy to keep a diary in my younger days, I hope you have many more pleasant experiences to put in your own in years to come.
 
Loved it, hard work notwithstanding, a great life and i feel very lucky to have experienced it, thanks for your reply.
 
Aye Grays was a true old gun shop, many a time I went in he was in the back shop and a rifle he was working on would be lying on the counter, aye changed days and is now a pub what a waste!

Bod
 
Dear AltAllan.

I think we may know oneanother....................

When I went on the SD just now I noticed you as a member or should I say Altallen as I know an Altallen or rather the Altallen burn at Garry Gualch because I used to stalk there for some 19 years prior to the lease ending about 8 years or so ago.

If you look at my pictures in my gallery you may recognise some of the location if not some of the characters. I totally empathise with your views and comments and I get the impression that Garry Gualch stil lives on.......

I first went there when Teddy Gray was stil running it along with his wife Libby. There was Jonney, Jane and Simon too. Ken Morrison used to come for the season as well as Dave Hall and a gillie - Sean.

I am half way through my book of which there are many references to Garry Gualch.

Attached is a personal memoir........... and a chapter in my book

Donsider

There can be no place more evocative for me than, Garrygualach. We all have our Shangri-La’s. You know what I mean, that place that to each and everyone of us is a place of sanctuary, of peace and tranquillity, a safe heaven, that place in the sun perhaps that refreshes the mind, body and soul. I suppose for a golfer it would be his favourite course, perhaps the Old Course at St. Andrews, Turnberry perhaps or Gleneagles. Or for someone who likes an exotic island with white sandy beeches then it would be an island in the Caribbean. Well, Garrygualach is my Island but without the sun, well for some of the time anyway. One thing for sure though, it is definitely my Shangri - la.

Garrygualach is a deer forest in Inverness-shire, in the West of Scotland and for the past number of years, more than I can remember at times, I have had the pleasure for a week in October of making this my Shangri-La, stalking its tawny hills that echo with the bellowing roars of stags as they fight to hold their harems of hinds against would be challengers. To those of us who are unfamiliar with this part of Scotland and in particular during the autumn, when the weather can be rather wet to say the least, and yet, unpredictable like the stalking it self, the sun can shine here too. Like it did last year for my week, making it seem more like the French Riviera than the damp and sodden Scottish highlands that usually welcomes me. That is if one can forget the midges.

It is not a large deer forest as deer forests go, but the two beats can give the rifles a full day on the hill starting with a heart pounding climb from when first leaving the lodge. Feet are not dry for long crossing the many bubbling burns and rocky gorges that one comes upon walking out along the pony path. But stopping for a while to catch one’s breath offers the opportunity to admire the odd birch tree, alder or rowan now in their full autumn glory cloaked with leaves in contrasting shades of yellows, oranges and gold. Those vivid colours of rust that sadly, now that the nightly frosts are here will all to soon disappear. Walking on, perhaps for an hour or so carefully spying the ground as you go, after all there’s no rush at Garrygualach, one eventually reaches the high tops. And when on reaching these high points, such as Sgurr Choinich, one of the highest peaks in the forest and as both lungs gasp in earnest for the freshest of fresh air, one is treated to a vista of sheer beauty as in each direction you care to look one is rewarded with the grandest of views.

To the North looking over the river Garry below and the famous Tomdoun Hotel, where many a Ceilidh is enjoyed at the end of each stalking season, is the forest of Glen Quoich. Beyond this and in the distance is Kintail and on a clear day, lit by the autumn sun, can be seen the five sisters of Kintail, a range of mountains that stand guard over Glen Shiel, the sight of the infamous battle of 1719, for this is Jacobite country.

Looking west is to look down Glen Garry, where the river which gives the glen its name, a once renown salmon fishery but sadly now only a shadow of its former past, tumbles through boiling pools before entering Loch Garry. Just before this junction the Garrygualach burn from which the forest takes its name, joins the river Garry. It is here the lodge is to be found, nestling among the birches with the mighty Ben Tee in the far distance. There can be few houses in the World that have a mountain in the back garden and a vast loch in the front garden, well Garrygualach has. It was in the Glen Garry forest more than twenty years ago that I stalked and shot my first red deer, a hind with the whole account being described in an earlier chapter.

Looking south from the top of Sgurr Choinich one looks down towards the shimmering waters of Loch Arkaig and on to the vast wilderness of Cameron of Locheils ground. A good few years ago now I met up with the present Locheil, Donald Cameron. I was making a film with the famous mountaineer and broadcaster Tom Weir. It was a programme in his Weirs Way series this one on Bonnie Prince Charlie. Whilst we were filming at Achnacarry, the seat of Locheil, the present Locheil and clan chief told us the story about one of his ancestors, Donald Cameron the nineteenth Locheil. H was also known as the Gentle Locheil. A brave and noble worrier who followed the young pretender during the bloody battles of the forty five. He endeavoured to ameliorate the horrors of war and when he led his troops in to Glasgow he refrained his men, eager for bounty, from ransacking and looting the city.

As well as falling away to the south and to Loch Arkaig, Locheils ground stretches much further west than Garrygualach’s where it marches with those well-known deer forests of Kingie, Kinloch Hourn and on to the Knoydart peninsular at the Sound Of Sleat and the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.

To reach Garrgualach takes about ten minutes by boat from Corrykie, close to the hamlet of Inchlaggan a small landing point on the north shore of the loch where the car is left. However, one can drive to Garrygualach by crossing the loch at the small bridge, which spans the narrows at Green Fields, and then driving along the rough track parallel to the south shore. But be warned, as only the sturdiest of four wheeled drive vehicles can make this journey and even then for a few occasions before a major refit of its suspension gear is required. To me, and to the many other visitors that stalk Garrygualach, their stay starts by crossing the loch in the boat, and as the boat pulls away from Corrykie so the experience of Shangri-la begins. For the next few days there will be no motorcars, no business pressures and especially for me, no more television. The only contact with the outside world will be the odd telephone call home advising loved ones of either success or failure on the hill. Now is the time to enjoy the melancholy of Mother Nature inspired by the vagaries of the Scottish weather and the influence it will have on the stalking that will dictate the conversation around the dinner table.

As the boat draws near to the mooring, a pontoon at the mouth of the garrygualach burn, the first you see of Garrygualach is the smoke gently rising from the chimney, as the lodge is hidden among the trees. A short walk from the boat, carrying your rifle and bag containing what few items of luggage one needs for a stay here, leads through a stony grass field where the ponies can be seen grazing in the late afternoon sun. Then there is the old wooden bridge over the burn to cross before the rough stone path leads you up to the entrance to the lodge. Do not be led into believing that this is some vast granite highland shooting lodge, built sometime during the last century in the heyday of the sporting estate. There is no huge entrance hall with the walls adorned with portraits of the lairds ancestors together with their well mounted trophy’s each one a royal reflecting the quality of deer to be seen on the ground.

On entering the lodge one is faced by an entrance hall comprising of a stone floor and a beamed ceiling. There are no paintings on the walls but a nail conveniently knocked in the wall here and there probably for the odd picture or two for there are many to be seen in and around the lodge. But are used more for guests hanging up their wet jackets after a day on the hill. On one side of the hallway there is a long pine trestle table. Its age and history are unknown, probably camouflaged by the many number of coats of varnish that cover it, but it is part of Garry Gualach. It is on this table that rifles are first left to dry when coming off the hill, along with binoculars, telescopes, and other accessories that one wishes to take to the hill. It is always wise to change out of wet clothes before relaxing by the fire and taking up the necessary but pleasant task of cleaning ones rifle and telescope. A wooden bench runs along the other wall offering the tired stalker with sodden feet and tired legs his first sit on something dry, all be it hard and like the table opposite has seen numerous coats of varnish. This offers a brief moment of relaxation as you struggle to untie bootlaces now caked in peat and heather seeds making them even more difficult as you pick away with cold hands. The main feature of the entrance hall is a huge stone fireplace between the kitchen and the dining room. Its mantelpiece stands shoulder high and always left upon it is the odd empty cartridge box, spent case contrasting with the wine bottles performing their second duty as candlesticks. How often I had hoped, on entering the lodge after a wet day on the hill, to see its hearth stacked with blazing logs, listening to the sound of spitting and the cracking whips and watching the shadows dance among the beams as the flames eat into the damp birch logs.

Little time is spent in the hall as one is whisked away to the ceilidh room. The name explains it all, for this is the main sitting room of the lodge and very little excuse is required to turn a conversation into a ceilidh. This is where we meet up with old friends and acquaintances, some of which have been coming here for far longer than me. There is Dave, who has been stalking here for over thirty years. He first came to work at Garrygualach as a gillie when he was seventeen years old from Newcastle. But that was many years ago and although he now lives and works in Edinburgh, he still finds the time for three weeks in October to come back and act as stalker. Then there is Peter, well over six feet of him and with all the strength and muscle to go with it built up over the years from dragging stags off the hill and down to the pony. But don’t let this brawn deceive you, as an Edinburgh University Graduate he is well equipped for an intellectual debate at dinner. Always in control we have Johnny, Peter’s brother in law, who now manages the stalking after taking over from his late father Capt. Teddy Gray. During my early visits Teddy often entertained me with his Gaelic prose and though I never heard him play, was also an accomplished piper. He now lies at rest in the little cemetery close to the shinty ground at Invergarry. What better final resting place could there be for this highland officer and gentleman than in the glen of his birth? Johnny, with whom I shot my first stag with at Garrygualach, also grew up here among the tawny hills and rain fed burns and lochans and of the new forestry plantations of Sitka spruce that now span the glen. So there can be no other person better suited to take over the running of the estate. Johnny, like his father is an excellent stalker and knows the ground like the back of his hand.

The aroma of wood smoke fills the room for in the corner of the room a wood-burning stove has been lit for your arrival. On a small table close by the fire lies a tray with a pot of freshly brewed tea. Tea made with water drawn from the burn along with homemade pancakes still warm from the griddle and the bottomless jam pot. I think to myself. Could afternoon tea taste better anywhere other than here? The only formality at Garrygualach is friendliness, for there are no servants and masters here. The same guests have been returning year after year, architects from London, bus drivers from Liverpool, doctors from Glasgow. Even actors and artists, all share in a common bond at Garrygualach.

Dinner is taken in the panelled dining room where, on the walls hang prints of past chiefs of the clan MacDonnell of Glen Garry, dressed in the full highland regalia. At the far end of the dining room a stone fire place with its hearth lit up by burning logs, some not quite so dry as they crack, spit and hiss among the roaring flames. And above the fire is the head of an old stag, a switch shot by Johnny many seasons ago and not more than two hundred yards from where his head now rests, eavesdropping on to the many stories that are recalled at the table of how members of his kin came to meet their end.

Before dinner as Libby, Johnny’s mother and sister Jane are busy in the kitchen preparing a feast fit for a king, a cacophony of laughter and conversation can be heard from the ceilidh room. As the drams are pored and drunk from each of the guests whiskey bottles, many if not all the stags stalked from the past are relived time and time again with stalkers, ghillies and guests all contributing and on equal terms. “Do you remember that eight pointer on the Teanga, you must remember it. It was only four seasons ago?

“I’m sure Ken would recall that old six pointer with his hinds that appeared from out of the mist on the top of Glass Bheinn?” Says one of the older guests. Sadly Ken is no longer with us. He now stalks in the great deer forest in the Sky. He farmed in southern England but each October returned to this, his favourite place in the highlands for the stalking. He was a close friend of Teddy’s meeting up as young subalterns in the dark war years. The ceilidh room is not the same without Maj. Ken Morrison, sitting in an old armchair dram in hand and puffing away on his pipe and with his black Labrador Kirsty, curled up asleep at his feet.

And so the stories continue in a haze of tobacco smoke and alcohol until, at around eight o’ clock, the call comes for dinner. By now the fire in the dining room is established and as we draw back the curtain and enter the room the warmth is inviting. It is softly lit for there is no electric light here just the flicker of candles on the table supplemented with the light from the hearth. The dining table, like the one in the entrance hall close by, is made of pine and fills the room. It can seat twelve comfortably on the bench seats and those guests that are new here always make a dash for the bench closest to the fire. They will soon learn to their cost, as the regulars take a seat nearer to the wall and away from the fire for they too have been roasted sitting to close to the Garrygualach dining room fire.

Dinner is a long drawn out affair as the conversation continues right up to bedtime, though there is always time for one last dram in the ceilidh room. No guest leaves the table wanting, for after a full and hopefully successful day on the hill, what could be more fitting than dining on roast venison fresh vegetables and followed by one of Libby’s not so calorie conscious puddings. It is not unusual for a guest to produce a bottle of port to accompany the cheese.

It is at dinner that the arrangements are made for the morrow as guests are informed as to whom they will be going with and where. “Hamish you will go out with Peter on the east beat and you Paul, you will go with Dave on the west beat and mind to take extra care when spying Glass Bhein, as a shootable stag was seen there yesterday.

Soon after dinner all that fresh air and whiskey begins to take hold and your pillow beckons. When you enter the dormitory, after climbing the steep wooden staircase you find that you are not the first to retire for three out of the five beds are already occupied. You make your way quietly to your bed and notice the tweed jackets and woollen socks over chairs ready for the next day on the hill. The air is colder here as you notice your breath condensing in the light of your torch, but not to worry, soon you are as warm as toast under the blankets. Before you drift into unconsciousness you hear the tumbling burn from beneath the dormitory window, and carried on the wind from a distance, the roar of a stag. Then sleep overcomes you.



 
We know each other very well P, as you may well recall I took your son out for a stag and he had a shot on Meall Tarsum which sadly he missed, twice, then started a long and un-fruitfull belly crawl down towards the grouse moor, just felt like getting him a wee bit dirty after the previous performance, and am pretty sure something got forgotten which you had to go back and retrieve, but it was all great fun and is looked back upon with a smile by myself as I hope you do. Im sure I took you out on occasion, I was stalking regularly for several years towards the end, can you remember ?
 
I remember the day very much.............S

What are you up to these days and how come you are in Helensburgh.?

P
 
Ah, I would need to write a book to explain how I ended up here P, been to sea as a trawlerman for 5 yrs, lived and worked in Kent for a while, been married and divorced and getting married again next year, god loves an optimist eh, ha ha. but all good really and very happy, I miss GG, which has a Facebook page btw, it would bring a tear to your eye to see the place now.
 
If my post seems a little flowery and idyllic then my apologies to you all, but that's the way it was for me.

Far from it AltAllan i have never met you but to me you are coming over in what i have read as, a true Country Man that like me lives for nature and has respect for our way of life and the creatures that we love to see.

Kind regards Jimbo
 
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