With its dramatic, rugged mountain skyline, winding roads and ever-changing weather, the Isle of Skye has long appealed to lovers of the wild. Over the last decade, however, the largest island in the Inner Hebrides has been drawing visitors for other reasons – its dynamic food and drink scene. Leading the way are young Sgitheanach (people from Skye) with a global outlook but a commitment to local, sustainable ingredients. It’s also the result of an engaged community keen to create good, year-round jobs that keep young people on the island.
Calum Montgomery is Skye born and bred, and he’s passionate about showcasing the island’s larder on his menus at Edinbane Lodge. “If someone is coming to Skye I want them to appreciate the landscape, but also the quality of our produce,” he says. “Our mussels, lobster, scallops and crab are second to none.” Montgomery is mindful of the past: “It means everything to me to use the same produce as my ancestors. My grandpa was a lobster fisherman and we’re enjoying shellfish from the same stretch of water, with the same respect for ingredients.”
Loch Fada near Portree, Skye. Photograph: Denis Chapman/Alamy
Montgomery’s A Taste of Skye menu lists the distances his produce has travelled. I eat fat scallops hand-dived in Loch Greshornish (zero miles), and creel-caught lobster from Portree (12 miles) with vegetables, foraged herbs and edible flowers from the kitchen garden and seashore (zero miles). That connection to produce and producers is key. “Last week I took a young chef out with a scallop diver so he could learn what they do. We shucked scallops straight from the water and ate them raw with a squeeze of lemon. ‘That’s the best scallop I’ve ever eaten,’ he said. That’s what we want to bring to the restaurant.”
Driving south, in the shadow of the mighty Cuillin mountains, I meet another culinary ambassador for Skye, Clare Coghill, at Café Cùil. This year Coghill represented Scotland at Tartan Week in New York, serving lobster rolls with whisky butter, and haggis quesadillas from a Manhattan food truck. She initially launched Café Cùil in Hackney, London. Returning home to Skye during the pandemic, a series of pop-ups proved there was a market here too.
Café Cùil’s blood orange and beetroot-cured trout on sourdough and creme fraiche. Photograph: Lynne Kennedy Photography
Over a machair matcha (topped with dried machair flowers) and delicious blood orange-cured trout, Coghill tells me: “I’m really proud I opened in London, but I couldn’t do what I can do here. Getting fresh ingredients was a huge mission, but here the scallops come straight from the sea to my door. My creel fisherman only speaks to me in Gaelic.” Her love of Skye’s produce, people and landscape is clear across her colourful, creative dishes, all imbued with local flavours, with a twist of Gaelic. “My connection to Gaelic culture and language is so important,” she says. Visitors can use little lesson cards on the tables to learn a few words while they eat.
Skye’s more longstanding food destinations are not resting on their laurels. Kinloch Lodge, a boutique hotel run by Isabella Macdonald in her family’s ancestral home, has long been a foodie destination. Isabella’s mother, Claire, Lady Macdonald OBE, writes well-loved books on Scottish cookery.
The kitchen continues to innovate, with a dynamic young team led by head chef David Cameron. When they’re not in the kitchen the chefs grow herbs and spices in the hotel greenhouse, and forage for wild greens in the gardens and sea herbs like sea aster and scurvygrass from the shoreline of Loch na Dal. In autumn they follow deer trails to find mushrooms in the woods.
Hogget with asparagus and spinach, at Edinbane Lodge Photograph: Lynne Kennedy
I feast on Skye scallops, pak choi and peanuts in a delicious dashi; Shetland cod with Scottish asparagus, and house-smoked lobster. Kinloch’s ghillie, Mitchell Partridge, takes guests out for activities including foraging and fishing “There’s a huge appetite for experiences from our guests,” says Macdonald. “People want to come and really get to know the island and the landscape.”
The whisky industry is also helping to keep young people on Skye, in jobs that last beyond the peak tourism months. Dougie Stewart, operations manager at Torabhaig distillery, tells me: “The fish farm was a big employer in the past, but now most of the jobs are automated. House prices have gone up so much it’s harder for young people to stay. The whisky industry has become a really important employer.”
Iona Fraser at Torabhaig distillery. Photograph: Erik McRitchie
“Distillers wanted, no experience necessary” was the notice that a then 21-year-old Iona Fraser spotted in her local paper, landing her a job at Torabhaig. “I just took a punt,” she says, “I never thought I’d get a production job, but it was a dream of mine.” Fraser had an interest in whisky, but no relevant qualifications. “To be able to train onsite and learn online was amazing.” Today she is a senior distiller, helping to train new distillers, and has recently created her own whisky using a chocolate malt, which is maturing in barrels when I visit. In other distilleries, that’s an honour usually reserved for retiring distillers. The visitor centre and cafe employ many people from around the Sleat peninsula. “We meld into the community because we brought the community here,” says tour guide manager Anne O’lone.
To pick up supplies for my journey home I stop by Birch, a speciality coffee roaster and bakery serving gleaming pastries and colourful brunch dishes. It’s owned by Niall Munro, who also founded the hugely successful Skye Live music festival. His brother Calum Munro is chef-owner at fine-dining restaurant Scorrybreac in Portree, somewhere I’m desperate to try, but I’ve sadly run out of mealtimes. More local success stories, and incredible food.
“We’re all deeply rooted in Skye,” says Calum Montgomery. “A lot of us left and worked elsewhere. We’d be seeing the produce we knew arrive miles from where it was landed, and it’s just not as good as what we grew up eating. I’m so proud of the whole place now.”
Journeying across Skye, I’m constantly asked where I’ve been and where I’m eating next. It’s a real testament to this food community that everyone is keen to champion other island businesses. It’s collaborative, not competitive, and the quality? Skye-high.
Accommodation was provided by Perle Hotels. Luxury pods at Bracken Hide in Portree from £145 B&B, double rooms at the Marmalade Hotelfrom £125 B&B
Are you ready, kids? Because you’ll soon be able to visit a certain pineapple house without going under the sea.
Universal unveiled new details Wednesday about the various themed lands of its new theme park geared toward families with younger kids. Among them are areas that will spotlight the worlds of “SpongeBob SquarePants,” “Shrek,” “Minions” and “Jurassic World” with character meet-and-greets, interactive shows, sensory gardens and, of course, rides.
Universal Kids Resort will feature seven lands: Shrek’s Swamp, Puss in Boots Del Mar, Minions vs. Minions: Bello Bay Club, Jurassic World Adventure Camp, TrollsFest, SpongeBob SquarePants Bikini Bottom and Isle of Curiosity.
“Universal Kids Resort [is] designed to bring our youngest guests and families together through play, creativity, and beloved characters and stories,” Universal Creative President Molly Murphy said in a statement. “It’s a destination made for kids and, as a regional theme park, brings Universal’s signature storytelling to families close to home.”
Guests will start their visit at the Isle of Curiosity with the chance to meet Gabby from “Gabby’s Dollhouse” or head to a dance party. Shrek and Fiona will be on hand to greet families at Shrek’s Swamp, which also includes a photo opportunity at an onion carriage and two interactive play areas for kids that want to splash or stomp their hearts out.
A rendering of a play area in SpongeBob SquarePants Bikini Bottom at Universal Kids Resort.
(Universal Destinations & Experiences)
Those interested in meeting Puss in Boots, Mama Luna and Perrito from “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” (2022) can head to Puss in Boots Del Mar, where there will also be some carnival games. The Minions-obsessed water ride enthusiasts in the family will want to check out Minions vs. Minions: Bello Bay Club, while budding paleontologists and dinosaur lovers won’t want to miss the chance to see a newly hatched baby dinosaur at Jurassic World Adventure Camp.
Poppy and Branch will be among the “Trolls” characters guests can encounter at the musical party land that is TrollsFest, while “SpongeBob” fans can expect some F.U.N. times exploring Mussel Beach and meeting SpongeBob, Patrick and Sandy at SpongeBob SquarePants Bikini Bottom.
“We envisioned this park through the unbridled creativity of kids where infinite imagination, curiosity and free-spirited play were core to our design philosophies,” Brian Robinson, Universal Creative’s executive vice president and chief creative officer, said in a statement.
Universal Kids Resort, which will also include a 300-room on-site hotel, will open in Frisco, Texas, in 2026.
‘Edible means it won’t kill you – it doesn’t mean it tastes good. This, however, does taste good,” says chef Carla Lamont as she snips off a piece of orpine, a native sedum, in her herb garden. It’s crisp and juicy like a granny smith but tastes more like cucumber. “It’s said to ward off strange people and lightning strikes; but I like strange people.”
We’re on a three-hectare (seven-acre) coastal croft on the Hebridean island of Mull. Armed with scissors, Carla is giving me a kitchen garden tour and culinary masterclass – she was a quarter-finalist in Masterchef: The Professionals a few years back. Sweet cicely can be swapped for star anise, she tells me. Lemon verbena she uses in scallop ceviche.
She points out a barberry bush whose small, sour berries, a Middle Eastern staple, she adds to jewelled rice, and a myrtle bush which, I learn, is different from the bog myrtle growing wild on the croft that, when the leaves are crushed, smells gloriously aromatic with hints of eucalyptus. Bog myrtle also protects your woollens from moths, wards off midges – and is a key ingredient in one of her cocktails.
“I had never grown anything before I came here. I was in a kitchen in the city and herbs came dried in a tub. Now, if I haven’t heard of something, I give it a go or thrust it at Jonny and say ‘Greenhouse.’”
Carla and Jonny, her husband, are part of a new wave of crofter chefs or field-to-fork farmers spreading across Scotland. Crofting is, essentially, small-scale subsistence farming, the crofter traditionally rearing a few animals and growing vegetables on the smallholding, and maintaining a job or two on the side.
Now, just as the architect-designed, off-grid bothy is a world away from the bare-bones huts that once gave shepherds shelter, the croft has been reinvented. Our back-to-the-land yearnings, fuelled by programmes such as This Farming Life and Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild, have turned crofting into a modern rural fantasy.
Fishers haul creels off the Mull coast. Photograph: David Gowans/Alamy
The new generation of crofters still juggle jobs, but today, that usually involves tourism rather than working for the local laird. For Jonny and Carla, it’s a restaurant called Ninth Wave and a cute cabin, the Sea Shanty (sleeps two from £800 a week).
They met 30 years ago when Carla, from Canada, answered an ad for a chef on the neighbouring island of Iona. Jonny’s nickname, Carla smiles, is “the lobster man”. Every day, he hikes two miles cross-country to his small boat, the Sonsie, returning with the catch that Carla cooks in the restaurant. They also cure, smoke and brine seafood and meat on Bruach Mhor croft. When Jonny’s not fishing, he’s working the land.
They grow about 80% of the fruit and vegetables for the restaurant in their kitchen garden, everything from cardoons to wasabi, and forage for wild herbs on the croft. They’ve counted more than 150 seasonal greens, herbs and edible flowers growing wild here. Bumping up the dirt track for lunch, the hedgerow is billowing with fluffy meadowsweet. “I’ll be harvesting it later for panna cotta,” Carla tells me.
“People don’t realise you can eat so many flowers.” The pots of blowsy blooms by the door, it turns out, are also on the menu. “Marigolds are edible and so are dahlias. You can eat the flowers and the tubers. The Mexicans used them as their main starch crop hundreds of years ago. They’re wonderful roasted; like a cross between a potato and a jerusalem artichoke.”
A dish at Ninth Wave, Mull
The restaurant was once the barn or bothy, with a dirt floor and tin roof, attached to their one-bedroom cottage. And while the produce for the menu might mainly be locally grown, reared or caught, the inspiration for Carla’s dishes comes from her travels. At the end of each season, the couple head off on food adventures, grazing their way through Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.
For lunch I’m tucking into a Mexican-inspired dish: Jonny’s lobster teetering on garden-grown roasted corn salsa, a creamy Yucatan avocado and hoja santo soup, laced with lemon verbena and Vietnamese coriander. “It’s not fine dining,” she shrugs, “it’s street food presented nicely.”
At the other end of the island, another restaurant on a croft is also making waves as much for its architectural wow factor as its pasture-to-plate menus. Jeanette Cutlack moved to Mull from Brighton in 2008 and ran a pop-up restaurant for 10 years in her home. Her dream, however, was to restore the abandoned croft and ruined barn down the lane.
The architect-designed Croft 3 is now a destination restaurant on Mull
With the help of an old university friend, Edward Farleigh-Dastmalchi, who founded London-based architects Fardaa, she began work. Croft 3 is now a destination restaurant, the old steading converted into a pared-back, cathedral-style dining space, open to the rafters with bare plaster walls and vast windows framing sea views; the project won a prestigious Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland award. Diners eat the simple, field-to-fork menus at long communal tables cut from a single Douglas fir. Starters such as crab arancini and lemon mayonnaise are served alongside spicy haggis, cornbread and salsa verde. Haggis is Jeanette’s speciality and she also runs haggis-making workshops.
Now that the land has been cleared, the 20-hectare croft is starting to bear fruit. Jeanette has planted a nectarine tree and kiwi vine. In a polytunnel, she and her family grow salad and herbs while a small flock of Hebridean sheep grazes the hill that is part of the land. Last September, hogget was on the menu for the first time. What they don’t grow or rear themselves, they source from neighbouring crofts and fishers.
Mull once lagged behind the Hebrides’ culinary powerhouse, Skye, but it’s starting to emerge from its shadow. A food and drink trail around the island highlights a growing number of artisan producers as well as gourmet pit stops such as pop-up turned permanent fixture Ar Bòrd (our table). Iain and Joyce Hetherington have converted their front room into a restaurant showcasing the local produce – from creel-caught shellfish landed at Croig on the island’s north coast, to organic vegetables grown by Carol Guidicelli on her croft at Langamull, near Croig, along with their in-house smoked venison. On the tiny community-owned island of Ulva, meanwhile, a short boat ride away, the Boathouse, recently revamped by Banjo Beale, winner of a TV interior design show, has become one of the hottest lunch spots, with diners crammed around picnic tables devouring plates of briny langoustine and crab claws on the water’s edge.
Sgriob ruadh farm, where they produce Isle of Mull cheese
And then there is the well established but ever-evolving award-winning Sgriob-ruadh farm, where they produce Isle of Mull cheese, just a few minutes’ drive from Tobermory’s pastel-painted waterfront. The Reade family arrived on the island with five cows in the 1980s and rebuilt a rundown dairy operation, starting cheese production a few years later. The farm’s Glass Barn cafe is a fabulous, foliage-festooned space where you can sample signature cheese and charcuterie platters or a bowl of homemade soup and a cheese scone before taking the far from run-of-the-mill tour.
Our small tour group meets the US cheese-maker Troy by the pig pen. After hearing a potted family history, we move on to the milking parlour where he weaves in science and Willy Wonka-style invention. The milk, he explains, is pumped to the cheese-making shed next door via an underground tank. The warm milk, fresh from the cows’ udders, heats the water used by the cafe. Walking us through the cheese-making process, we head underground to the vast cheese cellar, meet newborn calves and piglets and learn about innovative sustainable farming initiatives.
The leftover whey from the cheesemaking was once used to feed the pigs – until they found a better use for it. In the farmyard a smart new micro-distillery uses the whey to make gin and “whey-ski” – possibly a pun too far, a barrel-aged spirit. The tour ends with a tasting. The gin has a surprisingly distinctive creaminess, the whey-ski is pure fire water.
“It’s not sweet like a bourbon,” Troy says as he pours another dram. “It’s more like an Irish whiskey.” I knock it back, thinking that’s the thing about Mull: for outside-the-box thinking and wild culinary innovation, it’s leading the way.
Jack Kay quickly became known as the Ibiza Final Boss after being filmed dancing on the White Island and his stock continues to rise in the UK
12:00, 30 Aug 2025Updated 12:40, 30 Aug 2025
Jack Kay alongside DJ Patrick Topping at Creamfields(Image: Liverpool Echo)
He’s a phenomenon that has taken the internet by storm. He is the Ibiza Final Boss. But what does the White Island actually think of their latest craze?
Jack Kay became an overnight internet sensation after a video of him dancing in the open air club Zero Six West on the party isle went viral earlier in the month thanks to his distinctive look. He was quickly dubbed by many as the Ibiza Final Boss.
With travel companies and Lego immediately jumping on board with the craze, as well as celebrities quickly commenting on the 26-year-old’s style, he has since been swooped up by big talent agency Neon Management. The savvy experts have also represented other TV personalities and reality show stars, such as Joey Essex and Gogglebox’s Stephen Webb.
Jack Kay was dubbed the Ibiza Final Boss and has been enjoying his time in the limelight(Image: jack.kayy1/Instagram)
And now we wait to see what delights they can throw his way as he continues to tour the UK’s establishments and party festivals, living off his unique appearance. It’s also thought that the agency sees potential for him to pursue various opportunities, including TV shows and podcasts.
Some say he has hit the jackpot, with rumours suggesting he could be about to bag a six-figure income if he is to play his cards right. But after being snapped in Ibiza with the likes of Wayne Lineker after being flown back to the island in a private jet, it’s unclear if his notoriety is quite as big as back in Blighty.
Almost a month on, was it just a fad or is he here to stay? In the UK, it certainly seems as though we have not heard the last of the North East native who is quite rightly cashing in on his instant fame. Just the past weekend, he was living his best life at Creamfields, mixing it with some of the biggest names performing.
And he has also hinted at a number of big appearances back where he was first spotted. But locals on the island where he rose to fame may not be as excited – or bothered – about his partying appearances.
Jack Kay was filmed partying in Ibiza(Image: TikTok)
At Newcastle airport prior to my whistle-stop journey, there were a number of holidaymakers sharing the signature bowl cut – with one muscly man also donning a BOSS top. While it was clearly designer brand Hugo, it did feel as though he may have been playing on the latest craze slightly with the choice.
After stepping out into the Balearic sunshine, it appeared as though locals weren’t quite as keen to play up to the star of the moment. On my way to my hotel, I thought I’d drop in his moniker and was met with a ‘who?’ response.
I didn’t push it, so I can’t be sure if this was a language barrier or indeed just someone who hadn’t been swept up in the moment. I was met with similar response in a shop while looking at souvenirs. Again, my joke questioning of any Final Boss memorabilia was met with a confused gaze.
Whether I would have received a warmer interaction if I had headed closer to his usual party scene in San Antonio, I’m not sure, but sadly I wasn’t in town long enough to find out. While British partiers were more receptive of the “legend” inside one bar in Ibiza Town, when I asked if he’d been there was a simple eye roll and shrug response.
Needless to say, whether Ibiza likes it – or even knows much about it – or not, there has to be a doff of the hat to Kay for cashing in on the moment in any way possible. He was welcomed with open arms to DJ decks across the island and popped up on exclusive guest lists of some of the hottest venues. And now he could be about to set himself up for a wealthier future off the back of living in the moment with his pals on a holiday.
There are not many people out there who would turn down such a life-changing opportunity. And he certainly appears to be living his best life while he can, and I certainly don’t blame him. Let’s see what he gets up to next!
Justyna Czoska, Wojtek Kowalkowski and Simon Hewitt (right) died in the crash on the Isle of Wight
Tributes have been paid to three people who died in a helicopter crash on the Isle of Wight.
Justyna Czoska, 52, Wojciech Kowalkowski, 49, and 54-year-old Simon Hewitt were killed when the aircraft came down near Shanklin on Monday morning.
Ms Czoska’s daughters and family said she was “our best friend”, and Mr Kowalkowski’s family said the father of two would be “deeply missed”.
Mr Hewitt’s partner and family said they were “absolutely broken”, describing him as “the most wonderful, intelligent, kind man and father”.
A fourth person in the helicopter, a man in his 30s, was airlifted to hospital after the crash. Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary said he was in a stable condition.
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) has started an investigation into what happened, but said it was likely to take 12 months.
Drone footage shows view from above the crash site
Ms Czoska and Mr Kowalkowski were both from Banbury, whilst Mr Hewitt was from Barton-upon-Humber.
Ms Czoska’s family described her as “beautiful, funny, talkative, optimistic and kind”, and said she was “always wanting to make those around her happy”.
“She was our best friend, we miss the sound of her voice, we will miss her forever,” they said.
Mr Kowalkowski’s family said he was “the father of two loving children”, with Ms Czoska’s daughter saying: “He always made me happy and always made my mum happy.”
Mr Hewitt’s family said he brought “so much joy and light into our lives”.
The helicopter departed from Sandown Airport at approximately 09:00, Northumbria Helicopters said
In a post on Facebook earlier, Ms Czoska’s daughter said: “I have no words, the world took my mum too soon.”
A fundraiser for the family has been set up by Jacob Butler, who said his partner, Julia Buzar, lost her “beloved mum and her partner” in the tragedy.
In a post written in English and Polish, he said: “This sudden and devastating event has left all us heartbroken and struggling to cope with the loss.
“We are now trying to bring them both back to Poland so they can be laid to rest with their families, in the place they called home.
“The cost of repatriation, funeral arrangements, and travel is more than we can manage alone, and we are asking for support during this incredibly difficult time.”
Posting on Facebook, Ms Buzar said: “I have no words, the world took my mum too soon, she was the best mum you could ask for, loved by everyone.
“I never thought I’d be writing something like this.
“Please if anyone could help bring them back to Poland so they can be with there [sic] families it would mean the world to me.. Rest in peace mum and Wojtek.”
Ms Czoska had worked at Turpins Lodge Riding School in Hook Norton, Oxfordshire, since March 2024.
In a statement, the riding school said: “We are extremely sad to let everyone know that tragically Justyna our instructor was killed in a helicopter crash on the Isle of Wight yesterday.
“Justyna was very well liked at Turpins Lodge by staff and by customers.
“Justyna was cheerful, reliable and conscientious. She will leave a huge hole to fill.
“Our thoughts go out to Justyna’s daughters, family and friends.
“We will endeavour to carry on as normally as possible but there may have to be some changes to lessons while we adapt to this very sad situation.”
The remains of the helicopter were taken away on Tuesday
A spokesperson for the AAIB said earlier: “Our current focus is on gathering physical evidence from the accident site and interviewing witnesses.
“The remains of the helicopter will then be recovered and transported back to our headquarters in Farnborough, Hampshire, for further detailed investigation.”
The wreckage was removed from the site on Tuesday.
Witnesses reported the aircraft spiralling before crashing in a field alongside the A3020 at 09:20 BST.
A spokesman for operator Northumbria Helicopters said G-OCLV – a Robinson R44 II – had “departed from Sandown Airport at approximately 09:00, was carrying four passengers on board including the pilot, and was undertaking a flying lesson”.
A 16-year-old girl and two boys, aged 14 and 15, have been arrested by Kent Police
Three children have been arrested on suspicion of murder after a man was found dead in Leysdown-on-Sea on the Isle of Sheppey.
Officers and an air ambulance were called to Warden Bay Road shortly after 19:00 BST on Sunday, following reports of an altercation and a man being assaulted, Kent Police said.
The man, aged in his 40s, sustained serious injuries and was confirmed dead at the scene. His next of kin have been informed, the force added.
A 16-year-old girl and two boys, aged 14 and 15, remain in police custody, pending further inquiries, a police spokesperson said.
PA Media
The area is just off the north Kent coast and is a popular location for beachgoers
A police cordon has been set up in a large clearing behind the beach, in front of a caravan park.
A public footpath to the beach has also been cordoned off by police.
An officer was seen standing guard at a fenced off area of land near the beach on Monday.
Specialist officers brought a police dog to the crime scene as they continued their search for evidence.
UKNIP
Police appealed for any witnesses or anyone with information to get in touch
One eyewitness, who was on holiday in the area, told the BBC that there were about 100 bystanders as police arrived at the scene on Sunday night.
He said: “I saw the helicopter landing and a lot of police personnel trying to resuscitate someone.
“That was about 19:30 on Sunday and now it is a crime scene.”
Letitia Etherington
South East Coast Ambulance Service confirmed it had also been called to the scene
Anton Jasnu, who owns a shop in the area, told the BBC he ran out from his shop when he saw someone receiving CPR on the beach of Leysdown-on-Sea, which has a population of just under 1,000 people.
South East Coast Ambulance Service confirmed it had also been called to the scene.
Kent Police appealed for any witnesses or anyone with information to get in touch.
A zoo has announced the birth of red panda twins after introducing the parents in 2024.
The cubs were delivered at Amazon World, Isle of Wight, on 17 June.
Their mother Xiao, 10, was paired with 10-month-old male Flint after he was imported from Belfast Zoo with a view to breeding “in the next couple of years”, the zoo previously said.
The species, which lives in the eastern Himalayas and China, is endangered and on the decline, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
In a Facebook post, the zoo, near Arreton, said it was “over the moon” at its success.
It added: “The cubs are still young and there is always a risk but Xiao has done such a fantastic job so far.
“The cubs will remain hidden in the nest boxes until at least three months old.
“Senior staff have been and will continue to monitor the enclosure, nest boxes and cubs via CCTV installed to make sure all is well.”
Red pandas are poached for fur, get caught in hunters’ wild pig and deer traps and are also under threat from forest clearance, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Around 240m years ago, a 12-foot-long reptile called a chirotherium walked along a beach in what was then part of the supercontinent of Pangaea, and what is now the shoreline of Kildonan village, on the rugged, southern coast of the Isle of Arran. Natural dykes of black igneous rock – cooled magma – jut out into the ocean here. The houses on shore are backdropped by grassy cliffs.
We know that this giant proto-crocodile once roamed here because it left behind footprints – which can still be seen today. “This is older than the dinosaurs,” says Malcolm Wilkinson of Arran Geopark, as we crouch down next to the trace fossil. I place my hand in the massive print and attempt to imagine the world millions of years ago, when Scotland sat just north of the equator and the climate was tropical.
After they were made, Malcolm says, these footprints were covered in layers of silt, deposited by water or wind, which protected them from erosion and created a natural mould. Over the next few million years, layers of sediment gathered and compacted on top, cementing the grains and turning the soft mud around the footprint into solid red sandstone. The footprints turned into fossils, and were thrust back to the surface when the Atlantic opened about 60m years ago, tearing Europe and North America apart.
Malcolm Wilkinson (left) and the author examine a chirotherium footprint. Photograph: Stuart Kenny
As the younger rocks slowly eroded the trackway became visible. Similar prints were first discovered in the Victorian era, and the creature was named chirotherium – “hand-beast” – because the fossils look like giant, human handprints.
Just off the west coast of Scotland and reachable in a little over two hours from Glasgow, Arran has long been known for its rocks, regularly welcoming groups of hard hat-clad students on field trips. In April, it became Scotland’s newest Unesco Global Geopark (there are two others, in Shetland and the North West Highlands), in recognition of the world-class geology here, which records tectonic plate collisions and shifting continents.
To walk around Arran is to walk through 600m years of Earth’s history, and my plan is to hike the 65-mile Arran Coastal Way, which circumnavigates the island, over six days. Thankfully for laymen like myself, the history is spelled out through informative Geopark signage along the way.
As the ferry approaches Brodick, the serrated silhouette of the northern mountains comes into focus, the sandstone castle nestled in the greenery below and the mysterious lump of the “Holy Isle” drawing the eye south. The island is divided by the Highland Boundary Fault, a geological line where tectonic plates once collided, separating Scotland’s rolling lowlands from the mountainous highlands.
A lightning bolt recorded as a fossil in Corrie. Photograph: Stuart Kenny
On day one of the Coastal Way I head up Goat Fell, Arran’s highest peak (874 metres), and witness this: the granite mountains of the north have jagged ridgelines and tower over deep glens, sculpted by glaciation, while to the south the scenery is soft and green.
That evening I stay at the Corrie Hotel and follow a Geopark leaflet to the spot where a sand dune was struck by lightning 270m years ago, locking it in timea stone’s throw from the centre of the village. Staring at this “fossilised fulgurite” and imagining that desert lightning bolt is like staring into a different universe.
Along the coast is another trackway, in a remote spot where Arran’s only coal seam was exposed to the surface. This one was left by a six-foot millipede that lived 300m years ago, and would be easily missed without the small, oak Geopark signpost. A pod of dolphins swims by as I reach it, stealing the scene, jumping joyfully just offshore.
Four miles north sits the most famous geological site on Arran – Hutton’s Unconformity. James Hutton, the father of modern geology, visited the island in 1787. At Newton Point, a rocky outcrop in the north of Arran, he observed rock contact between gently sloping sandstone and older, steeply dipping schists. This led Hutton to reason that if natural processes had occurred in the past at the same rate observable in his day, this formation, and so the Earth, must be millions and not thousands of years old – as was widely believed by scholars at the time.
Arriving at Lochranza. Photograph: Stuart Kenny
Happily, a holidaying geologist is on hand to explain this to me, though he is, by his own admission, “more excited about the bloody otter” he’d just spotted.
I eat fish and chips at the community-owned Lochranza Country Inn and collapse into Lochranza Youth Hostel. A simple (but private) bunk bed provides all the comfort I need. The next day I walk a mighty 19 miles along the boulder-filled coastline and quiet roads around the west of Arran, camping near King’s Cave, where iron age crosses are carved into the stone, and watch gannets dive bomb into the sea as the sun sets over the Kintyre Peninsula.
Occasionally, I abandon the geological hunt altogether; stopping to watch otters fishing, indulging in a whisky and chocolate tasting at the newly opened Lagg Distillery, or relaxing at The Lagg Inn, whose leafy beer garden is tucked away next to a river.
As my walk happens to coincide with perhaps the sunniest week in Arran since Scotland sat at the equator, it isn’t hard to convince Malcolm to meet me down at Kildonan shore. “This really is a world-class geological site,” he tells me, pointing to the shoreline. While we wait for the tide to reveal our “pre-dinosaur” footprint, Malcolm explains the science of the nearby dyke swarms – the black “walls” jutting into the sea. “They’re magma which was forced up vertically through cracks in the Earth, and have since eroded away,” he says. “This is a record of a time Europe and North America were pulled apart; and the Atlantic was born.”
Seals lounge around on these globally significant rocks, digesting their breakfast in the sun. “The special thing about Arran is that it has rock types from basically every geological period of the last half billion years,” Malcolm says. “We’ve got the main part of the history of the Earth here – and it’s so accessible.”
Off shore sits the microgranite mound of Ailsa Craig, home to an enormous colony of gannets, and Pladda, an island with a scenic lighthouse, sitting on what was once molten magma.
A view of Brodick Bay with Goat Fell in backdrop. Photograph: Stuart Kenny
That evening, via the plummeting waterfalls of Glenashdale, I reach Whiting Bay, and watch an otter scurrying in the sunset before setting up camp. With careful consideration for tide times, my final day skirts along boardwalks and seabed to Lamlash, Arran’s most populous village.
I stop for a swim at a secluded bay and oystercatchers (my constant companions on the walk) squeak their farewells. Brodick soon welcomes me back with its sublime mountain vistas. As my ferry sails back to the mainland I gaze back at Goat Fell, and the words of the writer Nan Shepherd come to mind: “the shortsighted cannot love mountains as the longsighted do”.
