Around Comrie

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A few years ago I discovered a pleasant gentle walk route around the Water of Ruchill outside Comrie. Almost entirely flat, it follows a loop from the village centre through scrub woodland (ideal shade on a sunny day!) along the side of the river past fields formerly occupied by a Roman fort, down to Cultybraggan PoW camp and back along the main B-road for a bit before taking a detour along a path from a standing stone over fields into the southern end of Dalginross and back along the streets to where it started.

In the town centre, the White Kirk stands out for its architecture with prominent tower and spire. Formerly the parish church, it is now home to a community centre.

  • Scrub woodland detail: a plethora of small gnarly trees amid a sea of wild garlic. Taken on a stroll around the Water of Ruchill walking route.
  • Taken on a stroll around the Water of Ruchill walking route.
  • One of a handful of standing stones in the West Cowden farm area, hinting at possibly being a stone circle, the cup-marked “Roman Stone” sits beside the B827 south of Comrie.
  • One of a handful of standing stones in the West Cowden farm area, hinting at possibly being a stone circle, the cup-marked “Roman Stone” sits beside the B827 south of Comrie.
  • A striking building with its tower and spire, formerly the parish church but now home to the community centre.
  • A striking building with its tower and spire, formerly the parish church but now home to the community centre.
  • A striking building with its tower and spire, formerly the parish church but now home to the community centre.

Finally, a drone overview of the whole town – to the north, Dalginross, Comrie, Melville’s Monument and Glen Lednock; to the south, the Highland Boundary Fault runs from Glen Artney in the west right along the field across the road from Cultybraggan through Cowden Loch, Mill of Fortune and Newburgh Wood.

A map of the area, courtesy of the BGS Geoindex:

Concerning Rocks

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Some years ago I had a passing interest in the abstract shapes and forms rocks can take. 

Recently I was out on the Aberdeenshire coast hunting photos with a friend, who, being impressed with the rocky coastline, wondered exactly where the Highland Boundary Fault emerged at its most north-eastern extremity.

After a bit of research (particularly exploring using the BGS‘s iGeology app), I tracked it to a small headland, Garron Point, beside the golf club outside Stonehaven.

From the outside it doesn’t look like much, but on closer inspection it is awesome.

There are actually two faults – a small one at the north-eastern end of Craigeven Bay corner with Garron Point, forming a small spur off the Highland Boundary Fault which clips the coastline from the town out to sea.

On the lowland side the bedrock is metabasalt, psammite and pelite (North Esk formation) – metamorphic bedrock formed around 461-485MYa in the Ordovician period. On the highland side is gritty psammite (Glen Lethnot grit formation) – around 541-1000MYa.

The fault itself can be tracked to a matter of a few feet – a view from beside one of the golf greens shows the junction of both faults, with a strip of incredibly deformed grey rock leading away some meters rather like a line of chewing-gum.

Some of the most impressive rock outcrops I know. Toward the top-right of the frame – those cliffs are tall, especially from below! – a small fault runs diagonally down to the spray of water and out the left side; from front to back, a line of deformed pale grey rock only a foot or two wide, twisted like chewing gum, marks the Highland Boundary Fault at its most narrow only metres away from its most north-eastern extremity on land, at Garron Point headland near Stonehaven. The gnarly shapes of psammite (metamorphosed medium-grained grey former sandstone) and micro-basalt are awesome.
  • Prior to metamorphosis, this used to be sandstone. Now it forms a medium/coarse-grained rock, pale blue-green in colour, along the line of the Highland Boundary Fault.
  • This boulder marks the intersection of two fault lines; a small one, running diagonally from top-right to bottom-left, and the Highland Boundary Fault, running front to back. The zoom lens has compressed perspective, but for a sense of scale, the foreground rock in the right is maybe 15-20′ away.

My favourite image is an abstract closeup – purply-red microbasalt meeting gritty blue-green psammite in a spray of cracks and marbling lines.

Prints are available on my ShinyPhoto photo gallery: Under Pressure

Perhaps the clearest view into the workings of the Highland Boundary Fault I can think of. On the left, red-purple microbasalt (its fine cuboidal structure putting me in mind of streaky thick bacon); elsewhere the blue-green-grey of psammite and pelite, medium- to fine-grained metamorphosed former sandstones. All jumbled together with fine cracks and lines of marble hinting at the pressures involved.

Birnam Hill: Winter

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A couple of weeks ago in the middle of December, we were treated to a quick overnight blast of snow. It remains my favourite season for photography, so I staggered up Birnam Hill to fly in the late afternoon light.

Landscapes:

  • Snow-capped hills either side of the Highland Boundary Fault line – catching the last warm rays of sunset in the distance.
  • Snow-capped hills either side of the Highland Boundary Fault line – catching the last warm rays of sunset in the distance.

Straight-down abstracts – trees and outlines of the Birnam Burn flowing through the snow:

  • Wiggly shapes – the Birnam Burn running down past Stare Bridge viewpoint.
  • Wiggly shapes – the Birnam Burn running down past Stare Bridge viewpoint.

Ground-level tree abstracts:

  • Detail of tree twigs and filigree – lichen-covered branches silhouetted against the low winter sun.
  • Detail of tree twigs and filigree – lichen-covered branches silhouetted against the low winter sun.

As an experiment to help learn my way around the Shotcut video editor, I made a short video of the area too:

Sma’ Glen: liminal landscape

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Many years ago, as I was buying my first ever house in Perth, I remember the solicitor advocating the Sma’ Glen as a landscape to explore and photograph. He wasn’t wrong, but it’s taken over a decade to really start to explore it properly.

First there’s the natural appreciation of the place – light and landscape.

Taken right above the Highland Boundary Fault line looking north to the Sma’ Glen, Dallick House and plantation on the right and Roman Signal Station just visible as concentric rings in the bracken above a small burn.

Then comes the realization, due to geology, that the incredibly lumpy landscape is actually due to the Highland Boundary Fault running right through it – here, from left to right, along the line of the base of the hills and mountains. Lowlands beneath and behind, Highlands beyond to the north.

The second realization, due to heritage, is that the Romans had a series of “glen-blocker” forts along the Gask Ridge, of which one was situated here, at Fendoch. They even had a Signal Station across the road(!) – more accurately, across the fault line too – to alert the fort to incoming invasion from the north.

These days the fort itself is no great shakes – a few stone walls remaining and some faint outlines of rectangular structures beyond – and the Signal Station is a couple of concentric rings and a hint of more structure in the bracken.

Of course the final realization is thanks to the drone: rather that just the “intimate landscape” features within a few meters of one’s nose, one becomes aware of the landscape on a different scale of multiple miles and the way it’s divided up by roads and habitations (and how those have changed over the millenia).

Roads slicing up the landscape: taken above the Roman Signal Station at the foot of the Sma’ Glen, looking south-east over the Highland Boundary Fault to Fendoch Roman Fort (between the pylons and Stroness hill in the distance) and thence along Glen Almond.

Above the Highland Boundary Fault

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About 3-4 years ago, I first visited Birnam Hill. Made it around Duncan’s Hill to the south and through the woods… As I walked a path between old and new forestry, I wondered why there was a sharp drop down almost a metre to the level of the new trees.

Over subsequent visits I took a few photos, came back and took geotagged photos, all around the same area, went to the BGS, imported bedrock data via KML into Google Earth, correlated with the photos… After a couple of years I’m confident that the dip in the landscape is evidence of the Highland Boundary Fault – a line that runs all the way from Arran and Comrie to the south-west, through Stare Dam and Rohallion Loch and lodge, up along this dip between the trees and away to the east before heading off north-east to near Stonehaven. From a suitable angle it looks like someone’s taken a bicycle tyre and run it over the landscape, causing an impression relative to the surrounding hills and mountains.

Apart from that, the scene from Stair Bridge Viewpoint is highly photogenic and while I’ve made several photos of the view south and east since, I’ve always wanted to fly a drone along the line of the fault.

A few days ago, the dream came true: a perfect clear dry bright sunny winter’s day, snow lying on the ground, low sun illuminating the ground, all quiet and calm.

A clear winter’s day:

You have to be standing all-but on the HBF to take this:

A selfie, of sorts: straight down landing on Stair Bridge:

I managed a couple of runs from near Rohallion Lodge up toward the A9 with the drone, spliced them together into a fly-by to give an impression of the topology.

And a still photo (I still shoot them! – but mostly HDR panoramas…) looking east from above the cusp of the saddle landform between old and new forests:


To wrap up the afternoon, there was some lovely light on an avenue of beech trees, walking back to the main road:

Bucket-list Item: CHECKED!

Strathearn Sunset

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My sense of the geography of Strathearn has not really fitted together until quite recently. There have been a few locations, isolated points and a few lines: the A822 from Gilmerton up past Monzie to the Sma’ Glen; The Hosh at the foot to access Glen Turret; a small B-road between the two; a hill known as Kate McNiven’s Crag; and one or two other areas. More recently I’ve been climbing hills, “bagging” Torlum Hill and Laggan Hill as part of the Lady Mary’s Walk circuit out of Crieff.

The Highland Boundary Fault emerges in a burst of very lumpy landscape at the southern end of the Sma’ Glen. But what it does in the rest of Strathearn to the west, I’ve never really seen.

A couple of weekends ago I explored the Knock of Crieff independently; it struck me that the path up the north side afforded the perfect view along the length of the strath to the far mountains in the west, an elevated view along the glacial U-shape.

So late on Sunday afternoon I took the drone for a spin slightly out over the strath and made a panorama of 7 shots, each a 5-shot HDR exposure bracket sequence – blended on Linux, stitched and edited in Serif Affinity Photo for the iPad.

Lowlands to the left of me; Highlands to the right…

And just for the record, this is what it looked like in the middle of stitched the blended panorama, before I cropped and toned it:

Panorama stitching screenshot

Birnam Hill: Hunting the Highland Boundary Fault

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I’ve been to Birnam Hill and Duncan’s Hill area at least six times, so it made a good testing ground for the new Pentax K-1 camera.

It wasn’t the best of days for landscape photography – a bit early in the day for what little light there was to be really photogenic – but there was a moment when the sun broke through and illuminated some birch trees on top of Duncan’s Hill most beautifully:

For some years I’ve known the Highland Boundary Fault crosses the A9 around Dunkeld/Birnam area, but never really pinpointed the exact location.

On my first visit I walked around Duncan’s Hill through Birnam Wood and Rochanroy Wood: I observed a particular lump of rock exhibiting clear strata sticking out of the hillside:

As I passed the edge of the established woodland, there was a pronounced drop of about a metre to the level of the new conifer trees to the right. And I wondered if this was a particular noted geological formation.

Highland Boundary Fault, Birnam Hill

Three paths: this one leads down the line of the Highland Boundary Fault

On more recent visits I geotagged the location and compared with the British Geological Survey’s maps to see the rock types change either side of the dip – till, changing to slate and grit and then to psammite and semipelite typical of the Highlands.

On further investigation with Google Earth, the photo on the corner of the dip is right on the line of the Highland Boundary Fault itself, running up from Rohallion Loch through the lodge, round north-east turning easterly across the A9 south of Birnam.

My photo pinpointed right on top of the Highland Boundary Fault

The previous photo pinpointed right on top of the Highland Boundary Fault

Got it! Clear confirmation. Right on the money, first time 🙂

The path continues across a pronounced dip in the landscape before continuing up the other side to Stair Bridge Viewpoint and the King’s Seat on Birnam Hill.

Of course my favourite clear pure waterfall was still running:

The path affords some excellent views back of the Highland Boundary Fault cutting across the landscape:

Highland Boundary Fault to the east of Birnam

And finally, as far up the hills as I wanted to go that day, at Stair Bridge Viewpoint I was rewarded with a clear landscape vista over Rohallion Lodge to the Lowlands to the south:

View from Stair Bridge looking over Rohallion Lodge to the Lowlands to the south

Birnam Hill

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I’m losing count of how many times I’ve been up Birnam Hill near Dunkeld, which is no bad thing.

My favourite waterfall is still running and the scenery from Stair Bridge viewpoint, overlooking the line of the Highland Boundary Fault running past Rohallion Lodge is still beautiful.

Herewith, a comparison of colour vs black-and-white renditions.

Cultybraggan Camp

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Another set from a photo-excursion in May this year, directly contrasting with the pleasure of nature’s bluebells earlier in the day.

Cultybraggan is situated just outside village of Comrie. It was first used as a prisoner of war (PoW) camp during World War II and then became an Army training area before housing a Royal Observer Corps nuclear monitoring post and a Regional Government Headquarters. The camp ceased to be used by the military in 2004 and is now owned by the Comrie Development Trust.

The camp is also right on the line of the Highland Boundary Fault, running from Glen Artney straight through the camp and up through Dalginross and along the A85 through Strathearn.

Unusually for me, I’m trying a little artistic experiment – overlaying the same texture of trees (taken much more recently in Glen Lyon) over images, to see what can be made of it.

Above Comrie

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A selection of photos taken around Glen Lednock, mostly up the Melville Monument overlooking Comrie.

This is Highland Boundary Fault territory; the fault itself runs up Glen Artney from the south-west straight through Cultybraggan PoW Camp, on through Comrie and across the A85 to the east.

I was also struck by how vintage Comrie itself looks from afar – a nice ratio of buildings interspersed by trees, with such a low vehicular traffic flow (even on a Saturday afternoon) that one could almost imagine the cars being replaced by carriages.

And no visit to Glen Lednock could be complete without the obvious long-exposure photo of the Wee Cauldron waterfall, of course!

Around Birnam Hill: landscape old and new

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The last in a small series of photos from Birnam Hill near Dunkeld.

As far as I can tell, the first two photos are taken more or less on the Highland Boundary Fault – a line runs from Stare Dam past Rohallion lodge, up through one quarry and across the A9 through another slate quarry.

Test shots from a favourite walk, playing with the new mobile – DNG RAW files processed in Darktable.

A Favourite Walk

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Around January I discovered a new walk near Dunkeld that quickly became a favourite way to spend a weekend afternoon. Starting from the Pass of Birnam, head up the track from Bee Cottage and turn left to go around the south side of Duncan’s Hill then rejoin the path up to Stair Bridge Viewpoint and the top of Birnam Hill.

As routes go, it gives a mixture of sheltered woodland tracks and sweeping landscape views, complete with my favourite feature – you can watch the rocks changing from till to slate to psammite and semi-pelite as you cross the Highland Boundary Fault. Small wonder I’ve done it half a dozen times dragging various folks along with me, gradually exploring further each time as the winter receded.

These photos are from an experiment with a Prakticar 24mm lens (M42 fit) – acquired for cheap from ebay and stuck on a wonky adapter which might explain some focussing issues. Several of them depict the line of the HBF through the landscape, with hills on one side in the Highlands and on the other in the Lowlands.