‘Blows
the wind today, and the sun and rain are flying,
Blows
the wind today and now’
R L Stevenson
This must have been the kind of day
Stevenson was imagining when he wrote the above lines to S R Crocket from his
new home in Samoa. The westerly wind of the past two or three days was veering
north-westerly to northerly and strengthening, sending scudding, stinging rain showers
and patches of warm autumn sunshine across the Ayrshire landscape. We were
still in Ayrshire because the forecast conditions of strong winds and heavy,
blustery showers caused us to abandon our proposed outing to Coran of Portmark
in favour of a more local one. And the one chosen was to an old favourite in
Blacksidend above Sorn.
The cars were parked at the empty
farm of High Brocklar in bright but cool conditions. ‘Not to worry’, said our
optimist, ‘the wind will be on our backs for most of the walk and the rain will
miss us’. As he said, the wind was on our back as we set off along the tarmac
for Blackside Farm, but the rain didn’t miss us. Those optimists who started
off without jackets were quickly rummaging in rucksacks for waterproofs as the
first shower of the day hit. But barely had we covered up than the shower
scudded on somewhere else. Though the rain didn’t last long - just skidding
through on the wind - the jackets remained on for the rest of the day.
Along the tarmac we came then. Where
the road splits - one branch for Blackside Farm, one branch for Blacksidend
Farm - we chose not to take our usual route on the left-hand branch but to
continue straight on and try to get some shelter from the wind on the ascent of
the hill. This we achieved by following a farm track eastward for a few hundred
yards then striking off diagonally uphill. The ascent was casual with many
stops to take in the view. And as we climbed higher the more view we got. From
Arran in the west, through the Ayrshire plain to the Heads of Ayr and Brown
Carrick, the high Galloways and the Glen Afton hills to Cairn Table in the
east, the view was getting better and better. Sometimes parts of it were
obscured as the forecasted blustery showers swept across like a moving curtain;
sometimes patches of bright sunlight spotlit the various landmarks of this part
of the county; but always the view got more extensive as we climbed.
It wasn’t until we crested the
summit that we realised how sheltered we had been. Now we found the full
strength of the northerly, a northerly that threatened to blow us back down the
hill. But at least it was a dry northerly and we fought our way through it to
the shelter of the cairn on the summit. Now the northern part of the county
opened up for us as we sat for a bite – from Arran again, through Irvine Bay
and the Cunninghamme countryside, the Renfrew Heights to the giant wind farm of
Whitelee filling the horizon for miles. And we took in the northern aspect as
we sat in the hollowed out cairn of the summit for a cup of warming coffee.
We thought we were sheltered in the cairn
but the wind was still getting to us and beginning to chill so we moved on. We had
been well sheltered in the cairn for when we rose up to move on the full force
of the gale caught at us rocking us about as we clambered out of it. It seemed
a daft idea to fight our way through the gale to Wedder Hill today so an
alternative was sought. Jimmy had a plan. (Have we not heard this kind of thing
before? - Ed.) We would hang fairly high, drift round to the ridge in the east
and drop down towards West Auchenlongford Farm.
Like all Jimmy’s plans, this seemed like
a good idea at the time but like most of his plans it involved extensive
dougaling*. We struggled over the dougals, climbed over a rusty fence, came through
some peat-hags and eventually on to the broad ridge that would drop us towards West
Auchenlongford Farm. Then we found some quad-bike tracks that eased our way
through the worst of the rough stuff and we wandered casually down the slope
losing the extensive view with every stride. A mountain hare, just changing
into its white winter coat, started up before us and bounded down the slope
much quicker than we ever could but we followed it downward, quickly losing
sight of it in the rough vegetation. Near the bottom of the hill we crossed a
track that Jimmy said would take us back to Blackside Farm if we wished to take
it. The alternative was to come through West Auchenlongford Farm, follow the
farm track to the main road and follow this back to Brocklar. We opted for the
latter.
The weather had been improving as we
came down from the summit of Blacksidend, the scudding showers had all but gone
now and the spells of sunshine were lengthening. It was in very pleasant
conditions that we came down to the farm. Three dogs, two border collies and a
brown labrador, barked what we hoped was a friendly greeting as we approached the
steading. They were friendly enough for, though they continued to bark, they
never approached within fifteen feet and were quite happy to see us on our way
down the farm road.
The road came close to the burn at one
point and down to our right in the wee wooded glen, in a wee bend of the wee
burn was a wee green, flat holm with a wee low dry-stane dyke holding back the
rough slope – the kind of place you might expect the wee people to have their
midnight dances. To us it was the perfect place for a wee spot of lunch. We sat
on the wee, green holm with our backs against the wee dry-stane dyke and
enjoyed a long, leisurely bite.
‘But
pleasures are like poppies spread....’ The hour approached and we had to be
on our way again. Down the farm road we came, and on to the main road between
Mauchline, Sorn and Muirkirk. A main road it may well be, but a very quiet main
road it proved to be today with only four vehicles passing us on the two mile
or so we were on it. Then we turned off this main road onto the minor one for
Brocklar, arriving back at the cars in pleasant afternoon sunshine.
FRT
was taken in Pussy Nancy’s in Mauchline where for most of the time we were the
only customers – ‘A merry core o’ randy,
gangrel bodies’
* A term coined by the
Ooters to describe the challenges of walking, stumbling and struggling though
lank and tussocky moor grasses, the tussocks reminding Rex of the dog Dougal
from the TV programme ‘The Magic Roundabout’.
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