Wigtown Bay and Reviewing the Walk

Back down at sea level again in Wigtown Bay after my walk this week to Cairnholy chambered tombs, the weather has not improved. But you don’t visit Scotland for the sunshine and if anything the damp weather just added to the experience in the Galloway hills.

I am afraid there is no soundscape this week – back to normal next week.

Wigtown Bay

Wigtown Bay Weather

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From Inside and Outside

With a final look across the landscape from inside Cairnholy chambered tomb and a last look back at its standing stones, we descended back down the lane through woodland to the car.  If you are ever in Galloway, StillWalks Scotland and enjoy the neolithic era of burial architecture, this is a site worth visiting. Don’t let bad weather put you off, it’s worth it in the rain as well as the sunshine.

Cairnholy chambered tomb

Looking out

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Stone Character and Looking Inside the Tomb

Looking at the second chambered tomb of Cairnholy on my walk this week in Galloway, SW Scotland and facing east (approximately), the covered chamber takes on the appearance of an oriental character in stone. I don’t speak Chinese or Japanese so have no idea if the chamber’s form seen from this angle actually does resemble anything in those languages, but it seems to have an essence of it. However, I imagine this is completely coincidental.

Cairnholy 2

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Cairnholy 2

Continuing up the hill on my walk this week we found the second Cairnholy chambered tomb site. There are not so many standing stones arranged around this burial chamber but the profile of it against the cloudy sky made for a strong composition.

Cairnholy 2

Cairnholy 2

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Cairnholy Landscape

Having said that the weather could have been better on my walk this week, today I am posting the proof. The view from Cairnholy chambered tomb on the Galloway coast in Scotland would be pretty good if it weren’t for the clouds and rain – but there you go, that’s Scotland (or perhaps I should say the UK) in these days of unpredictable seasons.

On a more positive note, the landscape did not loose any of its atmosphere or colour as a result of the weather and it seemed to make it easier (though I don’t know why it should) to imagine people there in neolithic times.

Scottish landscape

Seaview

Scottish landscape

Scottish landscape

A Place to Lie – Neolithic Chambered Tomb

It was tempting to lie down in the neolithic chambered tomb at Cairnholy but it felt like it might be dishonouring the place somehow – I would also have had to have been quite short. My walk this week to visit both the tombs at Cairnholy was well worth it even though the weather was coming in around us by the time we were up there. It didn’t stop me trying a few different perspectives on the standing stones at the entrance to the tomb but raindrops on the lens did create a bit of a challenge.

Cairn holy chambered tomb

Cairn holy chambered tomb

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My Walk this Week – Cairnholy

My walk this week’s actually taken a couple of years ago but as I am going to be in the same area again over the next week or two, it seemed a good time to post about our visit to the chambered tomb of Cairnholy in Scotland. I don’t have any field recording from this walk so I am afraid there will be no soundscape this week.

The weather on this walk could have been better but was not so bad to stop us going and the walk up the small road towards the ancient site was very attractive in itself.

Cairnholy woodland

 

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Cairnholy

Our stay in Scotland was not all sunshine and sunsets. It was pretty damp the day we went to Cairnholy, but not enough to put us off the visit and, in fact, the weather probably made the experience more enjoyable.

The atmosphere in the misty hills of Galloway in SW Scotland and the fact that we were the only people there made it me feel much closer to those that had originally constructed these  neolithic burial monuments.