THIS time last month (as I write this), I left my hotel rested (and breakfasted) but I found myself in no immediate hurry to leave the town of Ayr (Inbhir Àir). Instead I bought myself a coffee and ambled idly through its streets, randomly taking in the sights.
Category: Scotland
CLI – Girvan to Ayr
THE sky was blue and the sun blazing fiercely when I returned to Girvan late in August. Doused head to toe in my own bodyweight of sunscreen, I strolled back towards the harbour ready to continue from more-or-less where I left off. This would be the first of three days of walking, covering the sixty-odd miles or so between Girvan and Largs. Day one’s objective was Ayr, Ayrshire’s historic county town, where I would stay overnight.
CL – Cairnryan to Girvan
WITH wonderful synchronicity my one hundred and fiftieth walk also included my two thousand five hundredth mile. The objective for the day was to walk from Cairnryan to Girvan, which I made to be twenty-three miles.
CXLIX – Portpatrick to Cairnryan
THIS year has been shaping up to be my least perambulatory year since I set off from Gravesend, with less mileage achieved than even the year that I injured my knee and couldn’t physically walk. Partly this is because of bad weather earlier in the year and partly because of distractions. The logistics of actually getting up to Galloway have also presented some challenges but at the start of August I was able to do so and get in a couple more walks. This was an opportunity I grasped with both hands — with my hand-eye coordination, I’d only have dropped it otherwise.
CXLVIII – Port Logan to Portpatrick
HAVING enjoyed several weeks of decidedly un-Londony sunshine, I returned to Galloway at the beginning of June to find it just as bakingly hot but underneath muggy, grey skies. The humidity didn’t make for perfect walking weather but I didn’t care; I walked anyway.
CXLVII – Drummore to Port Logan
AFTER a day and night of continuous rain, I was unsurprised to find the sky grey but delighted that it seemed to have temporarily run out of water to drop on my head. I came within seconds of missing the bus by dint of waiting at entirely the wrong bus stop but the driver took my stupidity in his stride. It was only after the bus was underway that I realised that my stupidity extended further than that — I had left my delicious packed breakfast in the fridge at my B&B. Still, at least this meant I couldn’t sit on it.
CXLVI – Glenluce to Drummore
LURED by a weather forecast that promised sunshine in Scotland and rain in London, I headed back to Galloway in the middle of April in order to get in a couple more days of walking. The weather was sunshine and small fluffy clouds for most of the journey to Scotland. It was also sunshine and small fluffy clouds for most of the journey home. Can you guess how it was in between?
It rained. A lot. Well, obviously.
Continue reading “CXLVI – Glenluce to Drummore”CXLV – Port William to Glenluce
THE final day of my mid-March adventure did not begin with blue skies and sunshine but with a comfortingly familiar overall greyness and grimness. Having prepared myself for meteorological misery with a hearty breakfast and warm clothing, I ventured out once again…
CXLIV – Isle of Whithorn to Port William
DAY four of my mid-March march across Galloway saw me wake rested but still tired — my legs weren’t as keen as the rest of me to get out and do some more walking. I cajoled them into compliance by means of tasty breakfast plus the promise today’s walk would be shorter than the previous ones.
I’m not sure they believed me but bacon silenced dissent.
Continue reading “CXLIV – Isle of Whithorn to Port William”CXLIII – Newton Stewart to Isle of Whithorn
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.