Chapter 1 :

Link to the latest post:

Summer 2002
Winter 2002
Winter 2002 latest

Chapter 2: 2003

On the 4th of April 2002 I was sent to Rona to put up a fence around the renovated, ‘Mission House”, at Dry Harbour on the Island of Rona.

My sister was working on the Island at that time for Qinetic at the Base (100 Acres) at the North end of the Island. So I was aware of what was going on although through the lens of visiting MOD staff,
I was intrigued. The pictures below show the MV Brigadoon loaded with furniture, mainly beds, and building material in, what I later learned was the ‘Tin Can Boat’. Robin Dixon the then Factor and his trusted worker, Johnny Buchanan met me at Portree Pier, we loaded up the boat, John had picked up from the South, the holiday cottage furnishings but did not sail with us.

It was a beautiful sunny, calm day and on the way over I found out that the current Caretakers were on the point of leaving but I was not there to replace them, soley to put up the new fence. My sleeping bag and some basic stores, plus tools for the job was all I had. An interesting job.

I see from my 2002 diary that this was a recce and I left the next evening, just a flying visit to assess the job, quantify materials and make a plan for staying longer next visit.
At this time I had Lymes desease, I was struggling with it and had reduced my squad to myself, ocassionaly my son Iain would help me. I had a fairly large squad doing all aspects of forestry work, contracting to Scottish Woodlands (Dingwall) but my health meant I could no longer run a big squad so I was reduced to doing small easily managed contracts, it suited me but there were some days where Lymes won and nothing happened.

I had arrived at Dry Harbour on that day in 2002, my first sight of Rona was the pretty bare rocky place at the top of Raasay. As all the cargo was for Dry Harbour, given the tide, it was easier to unload there. I saw Big Harbour that evening, when I visited the caretakers, Ray and Mary. Coming over the hill on a beautiful calm sunny evening to find this lovely harbour.

It was an old camera so excuse the pictures, in fact they may not be mine!! But here we have Big Harbour, the Brigadoon leaving, James MacKinnon and his son, the building contractor from Ardrishaig in front of the very muddy Mission House, Ray and Mary in front of Rona Lodge then Dry Harbour on the Thursday evening 4th April ’02. I took that one.

So the adventure began, I left the next evening, excited to be coming back and little did I know what the future would bring.

So It Begins: The First few Months:

This next bit is a bit of a blur, it was a long time ago. Ray and Mary had decided to leave and by the time I had returned to my home outside Dingwall, I had been asked if I would stand in until they found someone for Rona whilst putting up the new Mission House fence and all the other tasks.

One of the main attractions apart from getting off the merry go round of my life was that I saw a way of slowing down and coping with the fatigue and illness that was later to turn out to be ‘Lymes”. Sounds strange to go to a remote Island to do so but my gut feeling was that in the short term a change of scene would be good.

Instead of packing for a week or so I then packed for an unknown time. Fencing tools, food and clothes in the bag, I was off to Rona for the forseeable future. The main job after that was ongoing maintenance and helping James MacKinnon the builder with the completion of the Mission House.

This was a new experience for sure, everything depended on weather and boats, the ferry at the time was MV Brigadoon, ran by local hotelier Peter Urquhart, he had been involved with Rona for several years. There were novel ways of bringing out equipment and as I was to find out (very quickly) we were never stuck, unless the wind decided otherwise.

When I went over for my second visit I had a feeling Rona was for me, I got in touch with the factor and put a proposal to him, he quickly came back and we agreed that I would stay for three months then take it from there. The Lodge needed knocked into shape and I could not do it alone, I called my Stalking partner George and asked if he fancied a wee holiday, little did he know that his holiday would be a week of hard graft to which I was very grateful. Back in the day Ali Noble a local guy was running boat trips on a RIB and he offered to drop George and his wife Muriel off. The MV Brigadoon must have been ‘tied’ up.

As I said dealing with tides, weather and the sea was completely new to me but you find out very quickly, hopefully not by too many mistakes. The middle picture was my first boat (no engine) the first ‘Tin Can’. It was used for towing material out and in and I left it floating full of rubbish bags by the slip, in the morning it was not floating!!! It was sitting pretty precarious, luckily it did not tip over.

Around this time, early May, I had my first yacht arrive ‘SV Providence’, the one in the picture belonged to Pam and Kevin Simmister who later became our ferry folk. At the time they were offering sailing tours. They were regular visitors.

I had quite a few visitors of my own during the intial period, but only for short spells, my companions were Choppy and Lady, my spaniel and pointer, they are no longer with us although I could write a blog on their adventures. Suffice to say it was a great place for dogs to be, my other pals were the small herd of Highland Cows that I inherited. I had worked with cattle so they were of no real concern but wondered initially, Why are they here? More on them later.

One of my first visitors to the newly (mostly) complete ‘Mission House’ was Konia Tack, my German night school teacher from Inverness, her husband Abdullah and a friend. They came over to try out the cottages and pass opinion. The weather was really lovely, a feature the whole of this year. It drew me into a false sense of West Coast weather, it was a good start weather wise.

At that time the power was from a generator which ran 8am until 10pm, I thought that was a waste so I campaigned for batteries and an inverter, which was duly okayed but there was no storage, the only way to get some was to build it and so my first building project started. The genny shed.

I had a memorable day bricklaying, during blistering hot weather, shorts no T shirt, I stepped off the scaffold into mid air, my back was not in good shape after falling against the wall. One of many lives I managed to use up in my years there.

Getting near the end of my three months there it became very obvious that the owners needed someone permanently on Rona, there were many visitors, yachts, kayakers, day trippers and motor boats. I felt that nothing would stop people being inquisitive and so I was proven to be correct in the future. It was about this time that I think nature tourism really took off. I guess ‘Rewilding’ was just around the corner and although there was and has been many West Coast marine tours, there has been a huge increase in my time. The ‘Right to Roam’ is a good thing if people abide by the rules, respect peoples place and leave no trace, my experience is far from that and the one thing I cannot to this day get my head round is how Commercial Boat operators think they can dump their paying guests on someones property, contribute no financial benefit and do what they like. They were not all bad, but some just never got it, right up until ther end, (Picture of Boat for information!!!)

I reached the end of my three months ‘Trial’ period and the owners, Dorte Jensen, Arne Fremmich and their youngest two came over for a few days holiday in July. It was an interesting visit and my first experience of Danish hospitality. We got on very well, whisky was involved and I could tell that I was working for good folk. They had a good sense of humour and were pretty laid back. Plans were made and I started to look forward positively to the future.

Summer Part 2

So here we are on a Monday morning after a weekend of a winter bug sickness, retired we may be but we are still keen to exercise and work away, at home. To-day there is not much work being done, energy levels are low. Nothing for it but march on with the story of my time on Rona.

I started these posts without much planning but now that it is underway I can see a pattern. I have been reading my 2002 diary (as much as my scrawl can be read) and it is full of happy memories or just how much was done in the early days. I pick up the story just before the summer

I see that Ray and Mary left on the 25th of May, I helped them load their furniture, so must have been there staying full time in the Lodge by then. They had several dogs and many cats so a bit of a tidy was required, my friends George and Muriel came over to help and within a week we had the place spick and span.

I moved from Lemlair Farm, Dingwall to Rona, George was the Farm Manager, my deer stalking collegue and advisor, for his help and encouragement I was very grateful. They came to Rona to help a lot in the early days.

The list of work I have here is: Feed cows, sort Dry Harbour (DH) water, sort Big Harbour (BH) water, generator servicing, fence maintenance, painting, building, decking structure, making kitchen, building two fireplaces (I had never done that before). The list goes on, without the flow of curious guests, family, factors, foresters and the odd Council official. It reads like I had a busy start to my life on a, so called remote island. A lot of very long days and hard work. For some reason I do not have many photos of the Mission House where I spent a lot of time finishing the work done by James Mackinnon and his gang, I had to follow his lead and build a kitchen from scratch, fireplaces with bricks and the decking. I may come across pictures and will come back to it if so. At BH the genny shed was taking place and I met Bill Steele who was known as the Lister man all over the West Coast. He came out quite regularly in the early days but was too good a teacher and his visits diminished.

We opened the cottages or should I say one cottage called ‘Skyescape’ in the mid summer, as far as I can gather it was the last week in July. I remember the ‘Sunday Post’ man came out to do an interview around that time so he might have been my first guest. Unfortunately I cannot find the article. There were quite a few journalists over the years.

I do have three photos of guests I remember, or at least their stories from their visit. The top picture is Tony and Ali from St Cyrus with dog and cat, they visited several times, I have a story about the water running out in the house they rented, Seascape. But that is for another day.

The ferry had to go with the tide, the weather usually changed when the tide did, a beautiful morning with too low a tide meant a wait, the afternoon came and it was often verey windy, the poor guests, we needed a pontoon!!

Morris Affaf and his family from Croydon? I think, lovely people, I ate with them often, beautiful Indian food. Myself and Morris were born on the same day and year, intriguing similarities in our lives. Finally I can only remember Maureen’s name here, she visited with her partner and the old dog nearly conked out, she asked could I put it down!!! No thanks, I called one day to find the old dog flat out on the brand new bed and bedding, Aargh!!! Ah well, it certainly was an entertaining time renting cottages.

The yacht visits were a surprise, I see I recorded 290 yachts that year and I was not there all the time so I suspect there were more. Back in the day I was perhaps a little niave to the whims of the yachting fraternity, but that was soon to change. We did provide showers, water and anything else to make their visit more enjoyable but that too came with problems. However I made many yachting friends, still in touch to this day, mostly they were interesting people just out to enjoy themselves.

All the while the work went on, the Mission House was still under construction on the second house “Seascape”. Although we were renting out the other side of the Mission House, work was ongoing in the blank weeks.

Fuel is topical at the moment but on Rona, fuel was always a source of torment. The system in the early days was that the MV Brigadoon filled drums on the pier at Portree with red derv or kerosene (Kero) into 50 gallon drums and pumped it ashore via blue alkathene water pipe. Not ideal and always spillage.

The mission above was fuel to DH but after a few years we had fuel delivered in industrial bulk containers (IBCs) and took it over to DH on the tractor. Initially as I say it caused much anguish. Leaking joints, water in the barrels which was pumped into the tanks, constant filter changing, cattle breaking the pipes by standing on joints, there was one memorable time and of course hassle from the Council pier for loading on their property.

We got past the Council by buying marine diesel from them direct, otherwise they would charege us for loading, but kero’ still had to come from the local BP depot back in the day. Always an issue until we discovered the slip was not owned by the Council and they had no sway over it, result!!!

We had few bookings in 2002 but things were shaping up, a Christmas booking had come in and I was looking forward to more in 2003. One of my visiting guests this year were JB and Tina, JB had been serving in the Middle East and they had been looking for somewhere to escape and turned up on Rona, I enjoyed their company very much and I remember that they booked to come back, possibly I invited them to help as the pictures I have of them in the winter show them working, more on that later.

September came and went, the weather was exceptional, shorts and tee shirt all summer, even on rainy days. October started well and my mind drifted back to my previous life in forestry, pheasants and Deer work. At this time I would be getting ready for the rut, but there was no deer on Rona or so I was told, all of that life had been left behind. However in July Dr Angus MacDonald who turned out to be my local Doctor reported a stag along the shore on the East side, spotted whilst sailing by. We looked for it but could not find it. A seed was sown and during the visit from Dorte in the summer we talked about getting deer and there was a plan for 2003 as there also was for a new pontoon and more.

As it happened the busy year soon became very quiet, the yachts stopped, I called the ferry man to ask him. Where are all the yachts and visitors? He replied, that is it for this year, you will not see anyone now until the spring earliest, most likely May!!!!! Oh, Oh!!

I opened a bottle of whisky and had a good drink out of it, possibly most of it, next day I woke up with a hangover, there were still no yachts in the harbour so I thought to myself, ‘What have I done’? I sat down got out an A4 pad and listed everything I would like to achieve on Rona, what else could I do, I had burned my boats as they say, this was now home, that was 24 years ago, that list was never finished but it was fun trying.

Autumn/Winter Part 3

My usual approach to a post, is to look back over the months photos and remind myself of the events, then just type away. It may not be grammatically correct but it seemed to work. This new blog needs more research and apologies for it seeming to be a bity random. There were no cameras on phones, it was still anologue photography, there is no real date order. I just banged them into the albums I bought, so I am having to go back and fore a lot.
However, I am now seeing a way forward and will no doubt go through the previous work to tidy it up.


To-day’s weather pattern usually finds Autumn morphing into Winter. Back in the day there was a distinct difference in the seasons, compared to say last year where it was nice and warm with sunny days then October came and as usual two weeks in and the weather broke with one wet and windy front after another. The pattern then forming for the next 6 month albeit a little colder in December/January.
So I guess I forgot about how Autumn used to be and how long the good days lasted in those early years.

Looking through photos from that time it seems it was not as quiet as I had thought, I certainly was not alone and it looks like the serious work was just about to begin. A flurry of visitors wanted to visit and first up were friends from the South intrigued with my career change. Stephen and Lisa from Cheshire were up to visit, staying with me, Andrew, Rosemary and their Alsation dog (Rommel) were in the cottages, I see from photos thast they came back at New Year, more on that later.

It must have been warm too, this wee fellow born late suffered fly strike, the Highlanders we had used to disappear when calving, often bringing the calves back three days later when they were difficult to catch for tagging. I was aware that this calf was due and kept an eye open, going out at night to search. I found him out in the outrun but the flies had laid their eggs on his bottom (On the Scour) and by the time I got to him he was pretty much infested with maggots. They had cleaned his backside for sure but were slowly eating their way through the afterbirth left under his coat. Not pretty. I caught him and took him into the utility room where I washed him down with a mixture of Spot-On and hot water. That did the trick and he was none the worse. His Mother spent the whole time bawling outside the house.

Fly strike is a summer problem normally but the hot summer had given way to the warmer Autumn and unfortunately he suffered. We had to deal with this a few times on Rona and sadly lost an old Ewe to the fly, I had to put her down, such are the pleasures of looking after sheep.

I have to go now but will pick up next week on the rest of the Autumn/Winter activities 2002.
I have just spotted “Beware of the Billy”, that story will come too……..

Posted on the 2nd April: Autumn/Winter continues.

Beware of the Billy!! When Stephen and Lisa were over I suspected a practical joke, such is Stephen’s way. Nothing happened when he was there but on leaving he made a remark that made me wonder.
Weeks later I had a film developed and on looking through the pictures I wondered why I had taken a picture of the ‘Beware of the Bull’ sign, only spotting that it was now ‘Beware of the Billy!!’ Stephen…..
He had taken my camera and tippex, changed the sign and waited to see what happened. The sign and the one at Dry Harbour still read the same when we left 23 years later.

I see from my diary that the list of work that took place in the Autumn/Winter of 2002 was quite long and quite a variety. The pictures above are of the genny shed, a new extension was added which was under construction during the summer was finished in the Autumn. A new inverter was to be fitted and batteries installed. This transformed the electric supply and made life so much easier for me.

I see that these batteries arrived on the 25th October, Bill Steele (the Lister man) came that day to instal them. I remember when we took them off the boat, our Factor Robin Dixon whom was over at the same time for a meeting accompanied by Jamie Reith (Scottish Woodlands Ltd at the time), who was dealing with the regeneration of the woodland on Rona. They helped with the batteries, which were heavy, I think over 30kg and wet cell. I took the first one and on the way back here was Robin Dixon carrying the battery on its side, the acid running down his coat, I never did find out if the coat was ruined.

The list of work up until the end of December goes something like this:
Changing Cottages, dealing with guests.
Cattle handling, calf tagging and finally taking them off on the Fish Farm landing craft.
The usual maintenance, fencing, feeding cows, burning rubbish, central Heanting issues,
trying to find a solution to the smoke blow back in the cottages, repair the ATV, paperwork, cutting firewood, dry stane walling!!!, culling feral sheep, landscaping the cottages, joiner work, visit to Uist to look at Highland Bulls/Ena MacNeill, visit to Tarbert for ‘Team’ meeting and much more.

On the 19th November we started the pontoon foundations and anchoring points, a major project to go with all the rest. It certainly was a busy time.

First out was the foundation sand, gravel and cement, delivered by the Fish Farm whom transported many things to Rona, including the cattle feed, sadly I think this was the last time. They also took off the calves to the sale that day, which turned into a bit of a rodeo on the day, but with local crofter, Caley MacLean’s expert handling (with a very long rope) the day was saved.

I had spent quite a bit of time getting the cattle into the fank that morning (the ruin to the SW of RonaLodge) which was always a mission, only for the calves to break out when the helpers opened the gate to go in. But a bit of lassooing took the situation under control.

Calves loaded, the boat left, myself and George left to tidy up.

With the tide rising, of course a damp day, it was a while before we sorted out the building material, covered the cement and moved the material that would float. The cattle feed was taken up to the garage by the shore. Next day first thing we started the job, shuttering out the foundations for the walkways and the main pierhead that would support the gangway. November 19th.

The New Pontoon, some background:

Apparently there were quite a few ‘meetings’ on Rona before my time where a pontoon was discussed, plans were drawn up and that is as far as it got. Nothing happened, at future meetings, same again. During 2002 our joiner, James Makinnon from Ardrishaig filled me in on progress and on his various visits we discussed the logistics of building such a construction.
Finally there was the first such meeting in my time, the Pontoon was again discussed during which I suggested they give me the plans and the budget, I would take it from there. I discovered that there were old fish farm walkways lying at Bayfield in Portree earmarked for Rona. I investigated and saw the potential. I contacted Eddie Stancliffe of Eishort Marine (Broadford) and asked him to design and quote for a pontoon and gangway.
I understood the Factor’s office would have seeked permission, however, that was above my pay grade at the time.
How to build a Pontoon and landing stage? My good friend Jocky Stewart from Burghead worked for a company in Forres that had built and installed many of these constructions, I called him, he could not help but his collegue sitting across the office did and after a long conversation, taking notes I had the gist of it.
Material was ordered and the fishfarm landing craft duly delivered. Looking back it was a combination of many things for the project to come together, luckily I had good support from folk I hardly knew and everything was planned with input from all the contractors that worked on it, very much a joint effort.
Jocky’s collegue, engineering and other plans of previous constructions sent for guidance.
Eddie, welded the fishfarm walkways and floats together at a very good price with many suggestions.
George with the energy and ideas on the intial shuttering to support the main Contractor.
James I guess was the main contractor as it was his squad that came for the big event but we all worked together to pull it off in 2003.
The Fish Farm, delivery of material, delivery of Pontoon and walkway in 2003, mooring connections.
My nephew Niaill Tonagh a stone mason, came over for a few days to widen the access track, hard Lewisian Gneiss was making it tight, he chipped away and with much drilling and his Mason’s Feathers he managed to make the access wide enough for the ATV.

November we did the preliminary work and over the winter I could plan the next stage for the bigger part of this project, more in 2003.
The next stage deserves a page all to itself due to the size of the job and the limited equipment we had.

As I work my way through my diary (and see that I have to do this in a different way) it reinforces my thought that 2002 was an exceptional weather year. The sunsets were stunning and the scenery just beautiful. Even during gales.
It was also a year of learning, with many trips back and fore to Dingwall and other places including Tarbert, Uist and Oban.
Taking on Rona meant I had to wind up my business ‘Bill Cowie Estate Services’, that was easy but I had commitments, another reason to have to go back and forward to Dingwall, but by the end of the year I was up to date.
Christmas was spent alone, not the first time!! With yet another trip home to Buckie in between,this time a funeral, my Uncle Sam had passed away.
George and Muriel came back with me for New Year and with guests in the cottages it made for a Good New Year and the adventure had well and truly begun.

Finally, at the end of this album (of my not in order photos) I have four pictures from a visit sometime before I arrived on Rona of some of the workies from the Base up North. Also in the picture are Donald and Fiona Macalman, who were the previous caretakers, living in the Lodge, before Ray and Mary, I believe. They were from Colonsay so well suited to Island life. They had their time on Rona, they were well liked being ‘Island’ people, the fish farm at Dhu Chamas was at its height during their tenure and there are many stories around that time!!!!