also featuring Jupiter Rock
For the nearby crags at The Kiln o'the Fuffock see here.
Introduction The Fish Kettle, the Kiln o the Fuffock and Jupiter Rock are three adjacent climbing areas NW of Stranraer, on the coast of the North Channel. The easiest approach is a scenic 20-30 minute walk from the Portobello crags.
Access The simplest approach is from the crags at Portobello beach. To get here follow the A77 or A75 to Stranraer then the A718, B7043 and finally the B738 to Cairnbrook farm. A private track, leaving from sharp bend leads down thru two gates to a small ruin, with limited parking. The Fish Kettle is about 2km south from here, you have to walk along the landward edge of three large fields. First look out for the bay with the very steep (and loose) looking pinnacle of Juniper Rock, (marked on the OS map). The Fish Kettle itself is the steep, narrow slot below a left hand bend in the fence about 100m beyond Juniper Rock. As it is a very narrow slot the Fish Kettle can be hard to locate and the 1:25,000 OS map is recommended as a help. The southern wall of the slot is granite or diorite, the northern wall is greywacke. Routes are about 10m to 15m long.
Guidebook For a definitive list of all the climbs here see the SMC published Lowland Outcrops guidebook.
Dangers These are adventurous sea cliffs with areas of dubious rock and the protection is not always reliable. Many of the routes require abseil access, sometimes to hanging or semi-hanging belays. This is a very open stretch of coast so much of the crag will be hazardous in big seas and is open to rapid weather changes.
The Fish Kettle - North Side
A small area, with dramatic scenery and not normally affected by seabirds. The rock is good quality greywacke on the north side. These two routes require abseil approaches. There are nice comfortable boulders at the bottom of Midshipman Hornblower, but the bottom of Gullslinger Slab is a semi-hanging belay.
Linda Biggar starting off up the nice arete of Midshipman Hornblower, S 4a, Fish Kettle north. Despite all the flowers, the vegetation doesn't really get in the way of some really nice slab climbing. However better not to follow the guidebook description into the scoop at the top - it seems needlessly hard, poorly protected and off-line...!
Further out towards the sea is a steep wall with the distinctive long rising traverse of Magillas in the Mist crossing it. Descend to these routes by the right hand side of the seaward face (topo below) to belay on blocks or ledges.
Finally, at the seaward end of the slot is a small wall, only 10-12m high, foreshortened in this photo!.... ...but with some nice easy grade routes and easier (non-abseil) access.
Linda Biggar on the first ascent of "A Chimney for a Thin Lady"
The Fish Kettle - South Side
On the south wall access to most of the routes is by a broad gully near the seaward end. About 10m inland from this is the short chimney/crack of Absent Friends HS 4b and further in from the open sea is the steep and very strenuous layback crack of One Hand Clapping, HVS 5a, ***
Juniper Rock
Jupiter Rock is a scary looking fin of rock about 100m north of the Fish Kettle. Reputedly it has been climbed although it is uncertain just how hard it is. Likely to be at least HVS or E1 with poor quality rock, lots of vegetation and a very tricky looking abseil descent. Well worth going to have a look at, but needless to say I haven't climbed it!
Juniper Rock on the coast of the Rhins of Galloway.
