Hidden Gems

At the beach last summer, Andy’s niece became obsessed with collecting the jellyfish that had washed ashore. Every adult would take turns walking up and down the beach with her as she collected the clear blobs in her little bucket. I proved to be an inept jellyfish hunter, but she was a pro. I think the entire coastline was clear of jellyfish at the end of the week.

Andy made the mistake of telling her that she couldn’t take buckets of dead jellyfish home with her on the plane. After her initial upset, his niece decided to lay all of the jellyfish out on the AstroTurf of the backyard of our rented beach house so that the sun could turn them into “gems.”

It turns out that when you put an organism that’s 95% water in the sun, it simply evaporates, leaving behind a little glimmer of slime. Alas, no gems.

I was thinking of these jellyfish gems the other day while I was hiking. I think I found them. Perfect half moon droplets of water, clinging to the bare branches of a bush on the shore of the loch. If jellyfish gems exist, I think they’d look like this. Shimmering, delicate, refracting the waning winter light.

Linne Mhurich

I found the gems while walking along Linne Mhurich, a lake inside a peninsula that juts between a sea loch and a strait. Scotland looks as if a giant puma dragged its paws through it, leaving long and thin scratches of lakes and shredding the west coast into islands and inlets and fjords and all of the other terms you learned in elementary school geography. But of course no mythical beast created the landscape. It was millions of years of tectonic activity — northern parts of Scotland were at the equator at one point before smashing into southern Scotland, creating the Highland Boundary Fault that runs diagonally through the country and separates the dramatic scenery of the Highlands from the more gentle landscape of the lowlands. Much later, glaciers and coastal erosion carved the lochs and western coastline.

A few days later, I headed back to the peninsula to take a different route, walking on a large hill that runs through the middle of the peninsula. I turned off the little road and onto a path through the woods. Then I started the climb — a series of stone staircases that were a bit slippery from recent rains and moss (luckily there were ropes to hold onto at the steepest points).

After the final staircase, I turned around a bend and said “wow” out loud. In front of me was the famous whisky island of Jura, peach colored hills melting into the waves. To my right, I could see down the peninsula, through more hills, and into the little harbor and village where we’re staying. And behind me was Linne Mhuirich, where I found the gems, which flowed out to the much bigger sea loch of Sween. To the left stretched the rest of the peninsula, with more island groupings. A stunning combination of hills and valleys and water.

I sat on a conveniently placed bench, taking in the views and eating McCoy’s potato chips and catching my breath before continuing my walk over the spine of the hill. The trees fell away, leaving a bumpy lumpy landscape that reminded me of the Teletubby roof of the Cal Academy (IYKYK). With no tree cover, the wind was fierce and the sun bright. A descent through the forest popped me out onto marshlands and, eventually, a rather precarious but beautiful place for a picnic.

I continued on an electric green path of moss until I reached the “piggery,” a now unused pig sty made of stone. A stream ran right through middle of the structure. Further up the hill is the farmhouse, which is also built on the stream. Apparently there’s a little trap door in the kitchen where the farmers would throw their kitchen scraps into the stream. The scraps would float downstream, right to the pigs.

The piggery

Hiking through the woods on this peninsula has been surprisingly loud. Back home, I’m used to hiking through towering redwood forests that are quiet as cathedrals; the giant trees and the needles that litter the forest floor absorb the sound. But here, with short, gnarled trees, bare for the winter but covered in moss, the woodlands practically vibrate with bird song.

Unfortunately, my shoddy eyesight makes me a terrible birdwatcher. Andy and I took a trip to Pinnacles National Park specifically to see the California Condors - with a ten foot wingspan, we figured I wouldn’t be able to miss them. One of my few successful bird watching trips. (Bay Area people, if you haven’t been to Pinnacles, go! It’s easy to get to and magnificent).

Anyway, I was enjoying the bird song but wasn’t particularly hopeful about spotting any birds. And then I saw them. Two fat little birds singing back and forth as they chased each other from branch to branch. Their wings sounded like tiny revving motorcycles. I stood stock still in astonishment, watching them fly from branch to branch until they disappeared from view.