MOST times, if I go walking, I do two or three days at a time. Thus, I usually know, if it’s day three, that it is the last day of the trip. Not so on my last adventure, where it was the middle day of five. It was also the longest day’s walk of the trip and, coming as it did after the fatigue of two previous days of walking (which came, in turn, after five months without walks), it threatened to be a challenge.
Category: Kirkcudbrightshire
CXLII – Gatehouse of Fleet to Newton Stewart
ON THE second day of my recent Galloway gallivant, I decided to consider my options carefully. I planned to walk from Gatehouse of Fleet to Newton Stewart and three possible routes presented themselves. I could stick to the coast and dodge lorries on the A75 for fourteen miles or I could head inland and follow one of two alternatives, namely National Cycle Network route 7 and an old military road. It was time to consult the self-imposed rules by which these walks are governed…
CXLI – Kirkcudbright to Gatehouse of Fleet
I RETURNED to walking after a five month gap, the delay having come about on account of being a bit under the weather. Not me, you understand, but south west Scotland, which had spent much of the winter assailed by flooding and storms. Since I planned to go walking, not wading, I patiently waited this out until the first signs of impending spring brought calmer, warmer and — most importantly — drier weather. And then I got sunburnt. In Scotland. In March. It’s like my special super-power.
CXL – Dalbeattie to Kirkcudbright
WAY back in the distant dawn of time, known to some as ‘last October’, I plodded step by step from Dalbeattie to Kirkcudbright, fitting in my last walk of the year before the days got too short. As it turned out, they already had, which goes some way to explain why I was up and about in Dalbeattie before it was properly light.
CXXXIX – Southerness to Dalbeattie
I AWOKE in Southerness to find blue skies and warm sunshine. It was almost as if the weather had forgotten that this was October in Scotland. Still, I was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially if it was pulling the chariot of the sun.
CXXXVIII – Dumfries to Southerness
WITH autumn racing past apace, I thought I’d better get some more walking in before short days and bad weather complicate things too badly. With this in mind, the second half of October saw me return to Scotland, ready for three day’s walking in the approximate vicinity of the Kirkcudbrightshire coast.
According to the Met Office, I had three clear days before the rain swept in so that would work out nicely. If they were right.
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