A walking guide to Inchcailloch Innis Cailleach leabhar-iil do luchd-coiseachd Please give this leaflet back to the visitor centre when you have finished with it! A jewel in Loch Lomond Seud ann an Loch Laomainn lochlomond-trossachs.org Welcome to Inchcailloch Discover how dramatic natural forces and The Summit Path is more strenuous with a steep years of human use have combined to climb to the top of the island. Here you’ll find out how dramatic forces of nature have sculpted the create an island of remarkable diversity. island and created lots of different homes for plants There are two walking routes and animals. on the island – the Low Path You can visit the island all year and the Summit Path. They round weather permitting. can be enjoyed separately or If you don’t have your own boat, together. Stopping points you can be taken there from are marked with numbered Balmaha or Luss by one of the posts on each path which ferry services. More information relate to the sections in this is on the Inchcailloch section Walking Guide. The points run of our website. consecutively from one path to the other. Each path takes 30- The wooded island of Inchcailloch 45 minutes, but take your time is a gem in the loch and part of and enjoy the view. Loch Lomond National Nature Reserve. Loch Lomond & The The Low Path is a gentle Trossachs National Park Authority woodland walk with a few manages the island for people slopes. At first sight the woods and nature. National Park Rangers look untouched by man, but are available on the island for look closer you’ll discover that much of the year. people played an important part in creating this wonderful home for wildlife. Cover image: Inchcailloch from Conic Hill © Lorne Gill SNH At a glance North Pier Balmaha 5 1 On-demand service from Balmaha boatyard To Luss Inchcailloch 6 8 4 7 11 12 9 13 3 10 14 2 The Kitchen 1 Port Bawn Information points 1 Starting out 2 Well stocked larder 3 Woodlands of choice 4 Drop dead gorging Clairinsh 5 Island harvest 6 Lonely home 7 Between two worlds 8 Stuck in the mud 9 Balloch nan Eun 10 Nature’s concrete 11 Endrick view 12 Summit view 13 Life on top 14 Fit for a king © Crown copyright and database rights 2017. Ordnance Survey Licence number 100031883 Aerial photography © Getmapping plc Starting out A well stocked larder You can begin your walk at For a bird flying into this wood either Port Bawn or the is like taking a trip to the North Pier. supermarket. 2 The Low Path sets off Hidden in the bark, under leaves and from the beach at Port on the ground are masses of insects Bawn and goes clock- and other invertebrates that form the wise round the island. diet of birds such as redstarts, wood warblers, The Summit Path sets woodpeckers and treecreepers. off close to the North Oakwoods are home to a greater variety of plant Pier. From there follow and animal life than any other habitat in Britain. the path up from the shore, the Summit Path is on Such rich biodiversity takes a long time to develop. your left. A path links North Pier and Port Bawn. The woodlands are very During your visit you’ll old, but they can be find the island a wild damaged in an instant. place. Please help us Please extinguish to keep it that way by cigarettes carefully and taking your litter home only use the designated and leaving plants and barbeque areas for animals where you cooking. When walking find them.Remember here remember the – leave only footprints, woods are home to lots take only photographs. of other animals, so please stay on the paths. It will also reduce your chance of encountering some of the islands less pleasant residents – ticks. Some paths are quite steep, so be careful. Take your time... you’ll enjoy it more that way! Oak w de oodland s provi rds ry bi foo d for hung Woodlands of choice Drop dead gorging These woodlands aren’t here by Look around you and you’ll see plenty of chance – they’re here because dead wood here. These dead trees and we want and need them. branches are a vital resource for many of the woodland’s inhabitants. Once there were oakwoods all around the When a tree dies a new world for insects is created. loch. Over thousands of First flies and wasps lay their eggs in the bark and years they disappeared their grubs gorge themselves on the nutritious as trees were cut for softwood just underneath. Later, when the firewood, building and bark has gone, beetles lay their eggs in the dry charcoal. Then around The woodlands provided tannin heartwood. Eventually, the munching insects, other 200 years ago, in far and dyes for factories in the south. invertebrates and fungi break down the tree until all off towns and cities, something happened that its goodness is returned to the soil. brought woodlands back to the loch. The Industrial Revolution began. Long horn beetles live on dead wood For many years dead wood was removed from woods like these, Nothing went to waste - a factory at Balmaha produced dyes threatening the survival of some and other products from the wood. of our largest and most beautiful Britain’s new factories needed leather insects. belts to drive the machinery. Leather is softened and made supple with tannin, Now, when a tree dies it is left to rot where a natural material found in oak bark. it falls and is only moved if it blocks a path or become a threat to visitors’ safety. Loch Lomond’s landowners were quick to tap into this new market. New trees were planted all around the loch. Today we need the woodlands for another reason – for biodiversity. D ead Oakwoods are a vital habitat for many woo s d is full of juicy grub species and we need to care for them to protect the environment for our future. Island harvest Lonely home for The pile of stones and ruined walls give a an Irish Princess clue to the lives of the last people to live on the island. Tradition has it that around 1,300 years ago Saint Kentigerna, daughter of an Irish They were farmers and this is King and mother of Saint Fillan, settled where they had their home. here and set up a nunnery. Before timber and bark were harvested here, oats and barley This was the Golden Age of the saints, a time when were the usual crops. Christianity was spreading east into Scotland from The family that lived here Ireland. probably kept a few hens, some Men and women like Kentigerna dedicated cattle and some old fashioned themselves to a life of poverty, hardship and Scottish sheep. Like other quiet devotion. She died here in 734AD and is families they would have paid remembered in the name of the island - their rent in kind, with butter, Inchcailloch. It means island of the old cheese and grain. or cowled women. By the end of the 18th Five hundred years later a church was built centuries, landlords needed here and dedicated to her memory. It was in more money to support their constant use until 1770. Long after lavish lifestyles. They replaced the church fell into ruin local people small farms with large-scale continued to use the cemetery. sheep farms or woodlands. The last burial took place here in 1947. Around 1796 the farmer was asked to plant acorns and more than 2,000 years of farming tradition on Inchcailloch came to an end. Artist’s impression of St Kentiera’s Church Between two worlds Stuck in the mud You’re walking in a kind of no-man’s land Most trees don’t like very wet between two different landscapes: the conditions, but alders don’t Highlands and the Lowlands. mind getting their feet wet. They are separated by the Highland Boundary Fault, This is the wettest part of the island and alders which splits the island in two. Despite its popular thrive here. They have special adaptations that name, the Highland Line, it’s not a fine line. It’s a allow them to grow in waterlogged conditions. broad crumple zone, marking a deep fracture in the Earth’s crust. Alder seeds have tiny air sacks, like life jackets, which help them stay afloat for up to a month. Around 450 million years ago The seeds are contained in little cones, making the land we now know as w in tin alder the only native gro y co s ne Scotland was spread ed s LAURENTIA broadleaf tree to e s across five islands r produce cones. e ld on the edge of the The seeds are a ancient continent IAPETUS OCEAN popular with birds of Laurentia. such as siskin, This continent also AVALONIA which can often be included North America seen here in winter. and Norway. England was on a separate continent, Avalonia. Nitrogen is an important plant food Over the next 40 million years the two that’s hard to come by in continents moved towards each wet soil. Without it plants other, pushing these landmasses become pale and stunted. together to form Scotland. The Alder teams up with a Highland Boundary Fault is where friendly-bacterium, frankia these two continents met. alna. The bacterium grows in nodules on the tree’s roots and helps it to fix nitrogen from the air.