by Allan Martin
Dunagoil (centre) and Litle Dunagoil (right); Arran behind
WE OFTEN visit the Isle of Butte; it’s easy to get there and back in a day from our home in Greenock, and since the introduction of RET the ferry prices are more affordable, especially as there are now just the two of us again. Dunagoil is one of our favourite places on the island. It’s a ridge-like outcrop on the island’s west coast, and, as the name suggests, there was an iron-age fort there.you can still recognise bits of the stone walls. We park the car in the layby on the single track road that runs down to the old monastery site at Kingarth, and walk down a track between two big fields to the gate in the wall at the end. The narrow path that gets you to the summit is near the south end of the ridge on its eastern lank. Once on top, you can see up and down the coast of Butte, but especially fine is the view across to Arran. We bring a picnic and eat it siting near the cliff at the northern end where we can see the sun gilding the water below and beyond it the cloud hanging over the peaks that form the Sleeping Warrior. As the seasons change, so does the view, from Alpine snowscape through rain-girt gloom to the jagged profile rising sun-warmed from the heat haze.