18 June - Ness Glen

 

Alan McQ, Davie Mc, Doogie, Graham, Hugh, Jimmy, Paul, Rex & Robert

It seems like no time at all since we’ve done this walk but since it is an auld favourite, here we were again gathered in Dalmellington to walk the Nes Glen. Nine hardy Ooters plus a dug met but long-term injury, Davie Mc, decided that it weas too long a distance for his auld back and opted to drive to Loch Doon, tackle the gorge from there and meet us for lunch around half past twelve. Unfortunately, he took Isla with him. That left eight of us to start the main walk.

Leaving the cars at the football ground, we set off up Craigengillan estate road. The weather was overcast and it would stay that way for most of the walk but the air was warm and getting warmer as the day progressed. Taking the path down the muck water, past the Scouts’ Garden, onto the Straiton road and up to the River Doon bridge, we came to the road indicated for ‘Dalcairney Falls’. That this road, leading to nowhere in particular, was better surfaced than most roads in Ayrshire was commented on as we marched briskly along it. Half way along to Dalcairnie Linn (as the one who is steeped in local history prefers to call it) we stopped to admire a memorial garden. Then we moved on.

The tarmac ran out at Dalcairney Farm but the track continued to climb beyond it. We could hear the linn before we saw it, tumbling into its cauldron among the trees. The photographer just had to leave the track to capture, for the umpteenth time, the water as it falls over the linn. We waited patiently* for him to return before continuing to climb with the track. A left turn through a gate brought us to a coffee stop at the ruins of Barbeth where we could sit and look out over beautiful Belston Loch and bonnie Bellsbank on the brae.

We reached tarmac again on the Craigengillan estate road and followed this to the house where it ran out again. But the continuing forest-type road dropped us down to the bank of the Doon and the entrance to the ‘Amazing’ Ness Glen. Now the walk became much more interesting, more like an adventure. It was here that two opted to avoid the gorge and take the higher route above it. But the other six opted for adventure.

The Ness Glen is always spectacular: The river rushes and roars its way through the narrow gorge between vertical moss-covered cliffs rising to over a hundred feet on both sides. The narrow path finds a way alongside the torrent hugging tightly to the rocks above it. There are parts where the old path has been eroded and care had to be taken traversing the jagged native rock and the roar of the river nearly defied conversation. And then, the roar ceased and we were climbing out of the gorge beside the dam to overlook the magnificent Loch Doon.

It was here that we met up with Isla and Davie again who joined us for lunch. And a casual lunch was taken on the rocky headland that affords a magnificent view up the loch to the high Galloway hills. We had just settled when the other two joined us and we were back together as a group.

After lunch we returned to the road where we met a team from East Ayrshire Leisure who were busy preparing the osprey observation room for opening again on the 30^th of the month. Nice to know.

Leaving the EAL group and bidding a ta-ta to Isla and Davie, we opted for the high route above the gorge for the return journey. This walk through the trees is interesting in its own way as the path undulates between boardwalks and allows the occasional glimpse and roar of the waters below. Then it dropped away from the top of the gorge and brought us back to the entrance to the ‘Amazing’ Ness Glen.

We opted for the usual route alongside the river, under Bellsbank to the Craigengillan estate road. The tramp along the mile and a half of tarmac on the estate road is the least interesting bit of the walk and, had it not been for the usual banter of the Ooters, this might have been somewhat tedious. But it did bring us back uneventfully to the cars parked by the football ground.

FRT was taken in our usual howff in Dalmellington, the Dalmellingto Inn, where a good hour’s blether was had much to the annoyance of the habitual clientele who were trying to watch the horse racing on the tele.

 

*Feel free to substitute your own word here.