The Arctic type weather of the last couple of weeks continues with snow and ice blanketing the country. A fresh snowfall yesterday had Jimmy phoning round to suggest an alternative meeting place and an alternative walk. The plan was for all to meet in Jimmy’s in Cumnock and travel to Wanlockhead for a snowy walk on the Lowthers. But the recent snow made Jimmy’s hill treacherous, almost impassable, so a quick phone round to suggest we meet at the Cumnock Swimming Pool car park and have a walk along the river to Ochiltree was accepted.
Only four of us met in Cumnock, a small but select band, for the rest had other matters to attend to but the four who did turn up were treated to a superb winter walk. The compensation for all the lying ice and sub-zero temperatures of the night was a morning of breathless air, cloudless blue sky and a low winter sun that accentuated every bump and hollow in the snow-bound landscape – a perfect day for a winter walk. And we set off into the perfect day.
We climbed the main road towards Auchinleck, yesterday’s snowfall providing traction on the iced-up pavement, and as we climbed, the landscape behind us opened out. We looked out over snowy Cumnock to the Glen Afton Hills gleaming white against the blue. But we didn’t have too much time to look behind us for Jimmy set a good pace up towards Auchinleck and Holly, desperate for freedom from the lead, pulled at Davie to be getting on.
The Auchinleck Burn forms the southern boundary of Auchinleck town, running under the main road in a deep gully. It was here that we left the road and took a path down the side of the gully. Now Holly could be released to run on ahead, Davie could relax for a while and the pace could be eased. We wandered down the path above the burn, through a wood of pine trees that still carried snow on their branches, snow that fell before Christmas and has lain long in the still, sub-zero air. A halt was called where the path came close to the bypass; not that we wanted to look at the bypass. No, we stopped to look at a winter wonderland of snow coated spruces and fields of pristine white. The low sun refracted on each icy crystal and sent back sparkles of blue, green and red. Davie used the first of his superlatives for the day. ‘Fabulous’, said he. We agreed.
For a few minutes, we stood and discussed the scene but eventually tore ourselves away and walked down the path into the living Christmas card. The path took us down through the spruces – ‘Planted in the bog that used to be here’, said Jimmy – and down to the side of the Lugar Water. The river was partly frozen with only the midstream running liquid, looking quite black in contrast to the surrounding snowy landscape. But we didn’t stop to admire the frozen river. Without halt, we turned downstream, came under the bypass bridge and into the policies of Dumfries House. The fresh, powdery snow crunched under the boots and provided good footing on the frozen under-layer, the walking was level and the pace was easy. We took our time through the old gravel works, through the woods and on to the main drive to the ‘big hoose’ enjoying the winter sun on our backs and the light on the snow. Davie used his second superlative. ‘Superb’, said he. We agreed.
Davie thought we were going to Adam’s Brig (see 4/3/2009) for coffee but Jimmy and Peter had other ideas. We turned away from the river and took the track for the old walled garden. It was Peter’s idea to visit the old garden. What he expected to see, he wasn’t quite sure, but the garden is derelict now with only the surrounding wall and a few ruined buildings giving a hint of its former use. If he was disappointed, Peter didn’t show it too much, instead he turned his attention to the ruined buildings on the outside of the wall.
A few minutes of nosing around were enough to satisfy everybody and we started off again. We had to retrace our snowy footprints for a bit for in our enthusiasm to visit the walled garden, we had overshot the path that would take us the rest of the way to Ochiltree. But the path was found easily enough, being picked out from the surrounding snowy fields by parallel fences.
Though we weren’t the first people to use the path during the snowy spell, we were the first on the fresh stuff. We weren’t the first creatures though. Tunnel-like runs showed where mice or voles searched for food through the frozen snow; heron prints came up from the wee sheugh and crossed the path, parallel scratches in the snow showed where it had clawed at something; hare prints crossed and re-crossed our path, the long rear legs making sausage-shaped indentations in the snow. It’s a good job we had the naturalists with us to point out the various prints. And, just to prove them right, a hare loped across the face of the old Barony Pit bing as we walked towards it.
The old bing is being reclaimed by nature and an open scrubby wood of birks, sauchs and alder covers its flanks and it was through this scattered scrub that the path climbed the side of the bing. Now from a higher vantage point, we looked backwards up the valley of the Lugar to its parent hills – to Aisyart Hill (Avisyard, on the map) above Cumnock, to the southwest of our watercourse, to Cairn Table at Muirkirk and to Pepper Hill where our river has its source. And downstream, Ochiltree seemed very close. But did Jimmy let us stop here for coffee? Did he heck! He walked on.
We left the official footpath and followed a track to the site of the old Barony Pit. The pit closed ages ago but apparently, it had a unique ‘A’ frame, the frame that was used to hoist and lower the cages in the pit shaft and it was left standing when the pithead buildings were demolished. It has been restored and the site turned into a visitor attraction complete with picnic tables and children’s play area. Information panels detail the mining heritage of the area through this one pit and an audio station lets real people tell their stories of the pit. It was on the seats of the audio station that we sat for coffee, for the picnic tables, like the rest of the world, lay under many inches of snow. ‘I’m glad you brought us here’, said Davie, pressing another audio button, ‘It’s awfie interesting’.
Coffee took a wee while for the sun beat on the information panel that we leaned against and warmed our backs nicely. Then we had an investigation of our surroundings to make before making our way back down the track we had come up.
We came back down and found our path again, at least we found the compacted icy footprints that showed where the path was, and turned down it into a wood and towards the river once more. A brick shed was noticed through the trees standing beside the water some twenty feet below our path. ‘Contains some sort of pumping gear’, said Jimmy who had made an investigation in warmer days. We were inclined to take his word for it for the slope down looked treacherous and the icy water lay below. ‘We’ll come back and have a look some other day’, said Peter. It was then that he noticed the man on the ice on the other side of the water.
The man seemed in no danger; he seemed to know what he was about. A tripod stood in front of him with a long lens attached. But whether this had a camera on the end or whether he was ‘twitching’, we don’t know for none of us shouted to him for fear of cracking the ice or bringing an avalanche down on our heads from the snow-covered branches. We just left him to whatever he was doing and walked on.
Another halt was called at the foot of a slope for we were now at the riverside and we stopped to look at the frozen water. Now the river was frozen from side to side and last night’s snow dusted the ice. More animal footprints marked this snow and we stopped for a look. Our attention was pointed the way we had just come. ‘Who could ask for a better view than this?’ said one. The view backwards was indeed super with the bare tree trunks of the wood standing almost black in the surrounding snow and the branches traced in black and white against the deep blue of the sky. Davie used a superlative again. ‘Fabulous’, he said. We nodded.
We came to a holm where, Jimmy said, the made path runs out for a few hundred yards by Mill Affleck farm. Whether it did or didn’t, didn’t matter for all was lost under the blanket of snow. We followed the icy footprints around the loop of the frozen river. A rusting millwheel stood in isolation in the middle of the holm to make where the old Parish Mill, the Mill Affleck, stood. Sadly, it seems that it’s being left to rust and rot away. Perhaps some day somebody will restore it as they’ve done with the ‘A’ frame. Until then it’s being left to decay. After the budding archaeologists, Jimmy and Allan, had discovered the course of the mill’s lade and tail, we walked on.
The river was frozen solid now for we were nearing the mill dam of Ochiltree and the water here runs deep and slow. We walked the few hundred yards down the side of the frozen river to find the main road and the end of our walk in Ochiltree.
We took the bus back to Cumnock and took FRT in The Mercat there.
This was a good walk, made so by the super winter day. That Davie enjoyed it was evident from the superlatives used. We leave the last word to him. ‘A fabulous day’, said he.
Only four of us met in Cumnock, a small but select band, for the rest had other matters to attend to but the four who did turn up were treated to a superb winter walk. The compensation for all the lying ice and sub-zero temperatures of the night was a morning of breathless air, cloudless blue sky and a low winter sun that accentuated every bump and hollow in the snow-bound landscape – a perfect day for a winter walk. And we set off into the perfect day.
We climbed the main road towards Auchinleck, yesterday’s snowfall providing traction on the iced-up pavement, and as we climbed, the landscape behind us opened out. We looked out over snowy Cumnock to the Glen Afton Hills gleaming white against the blue. But we didn’t have too much time to look behind us for Jimmy set a good pace up towards Auchinleck and Holly, desperate for freedom from the lead, pulled at Davie to be getting on.
The Auchinleck Burn forms the southern boundary of Auchinleck town, running under the main road in a deep gully. It was here that we left the road and took a path down the side of the gully. Now Holly could be released to run on ahead, Davie could relax for a while and the pace could be eased. We wandered down the path above the burn, through a wood of pine trees that still carried snow on their branches, snow that fell before Christmas and has lain long in the still, sub-zero air. A halt was called where the path came close to the bypass; not that we wanted to look at the bypass. No, we stopped to look at a winter wonderland of snow coated spruces and fields of pristine white. The low sun refracted on each icy crystal and sent back sparkles of blue, green and red. Davie used the first of his superlatives for the day. ‘Fabulous’, said he. We agreed.
For a few minutes, we stood and discussed the scene but eventually tore ourselves away and walked down the path into the living Christmas card. The path took us down through the spruces – ‘Planted in the bog that used to be here’, said Jimmy – and down to the side of the Lugar Water. The river was partly frozen with only the midstream running liquid, looking quite black in contrast to the surrounding snowy landscape. But we didn’t stop to admire the frozen river. Without halt, we turned downstream, came under the bypass bridge and into the policies of Dumfries House. The fresh, powdery snow crunched under the boots and provided good footing on the frozen under-layer, the walking was level and the pace was easy. We took our time through the old gravel works, through the woods and on to the main drive to the ‘big hoose’ enjoying the winter sun on our backs and the light on the snow. Davie used his second superlative. ‘Superb’, said he. We agreed.
Davie thought we were going to Adam’s Brig (see 4/3/2009) for coffee but Jimmy and Peter had other ideas. We turned away from the river and took the track for the old walled garden. It was Peter’s idea to visit the old garden. What he expected to see, he wasn’t quite sure, but the garden is derelict now with only the surrounding wall and a few ruined buildings giving a hint of its former use. If he was disappointed, Peter didn’t show it too much, instead he turned his attention to the ruined buildings on the outside of the wall.
A few minutes of nosing around were enough to satisfy everybody and we started off again. We had to retrace our snowy footprints for a bit for in our enthusiasm to visit the walled garden, we had overshot the path that would take us the rest of the way to Ochiltree. But the path was found easily enough, being picked out from the surrounding snowy fields by parallel fences.
Though we weren’t the first people to use the path during the snowy spell, we were the first on the fresh stuff. We weren’t the first creatures though. Tunnel-like runs showed where mice or voles searched for food through the frozen snow; heron prints came up from the wee sheugh and crossed the path, parallel scratches in the snow showed where it had clawed at something; hare prints crossed and re-crossed our path, the long rear legs making sausage-shaped indentations in the snow. It’s a good job we had the naturalists with us to point out the various prints. And, just to prove them right, a hare loped across the face of the old Barony Pit bing as we walked towards it.
The old bing is being reclaimed by nature and an open scrubby wood of birks, sauchs and alder covers its flanks and it was through this scattered scrub that the path climbed the side of the bing. Now from a higher vantage point, we looked backwards up the valley of the Lugar to its parent hills – to Aisyart Hill (Avisyard, on the map) above Cumnock, to the southwest of our watercourse, to Cairn Table at Muirkirk and to Pepper Hill where our river has its source. And downstream, Ochiltree seemed very close. But did Jimmy let us stop here for coffee? Did he heck! He walked on.
We left the official footpath and followed a track to the site of the old Barony Pit. The pit closed ages ago but apparently, it had a unique ‘A’ frame, the frame that was used to hoist and lower the cages in the pit shaft and it was left standing when the pithead buildings were demolished. It has been restored and the site turned into a visitor attraction complete with picnic tables and children’s play area. Information panels detail the mining heritage of the area through this one pit and an audio station lets real people tell their stories of the pit. It was on the seats of the audio station that we sat for coffee, for the picnic tables, like the rest of the world, lay under many inches of snow. ‘I’m glad you brought us here’, said Davie, pressing another audio button, ‘It’s awfie interesting’.
Coffee took a wee while for the sun beat on the information panel that we leaned against and warmed our backs nicely. Then we had an investigation of our surroundings to make before making our way back down the track we had come up.
We came back down and found our path again, at least we found the compacted icy footprints that showed where the path was, and turned down it into a wood and towards the river once more. A brick shed was noticed through the trees standing beside the water some twenty feet below our path. ‘Contains some sort of pumping gear’, said Jimmy who had made an investigation in warmer days. We were inclined to take his word for it for the slope down looked treacherous and the icy water lay below. ‘We’ll come back and have a look some other day’, said Peter. It was then that he noticed the man on the ice on the other side of the water.
The man seemed in no danger; he seemed to know what he was about. A tripod stood in front of him with a long lens attached. But whether this had a camera on the end or whether he was ‘twitching’, we don’t know for none of us shouted to him for fear of cracking the ice or bringing an avalanche down on our heads from the snow-covered branches. We just left him to whatever he was doing and walked on.
Another halt was called at the foot of a slope for we were now at the riverside and we stopped to look at the frozen water. Now the river was frozen from side to side and last night’s snow dusted the ice. More animal footprints marked this snow and we stopped for a look. Our attention was pointed the way we had just come. ‘Who could ask for a better view than this?’ said one. The view backwards was indeed super with the bare tree trunks of the wood standing almost black in the surrounding snow and the branches traced in black and white against the deep blue of the sky. Davie used a superlative again. ‘Fabulous’, he said. We nodded.
We came to a holm where, Jimmy said, the made path runs out for a few hundred yards by Mill Affleck farm. Whether it did or didn’t, didn’t matter for all was lost under the blanket of snow. We followed the icy footprints around the loop of the frozen river. A rusting millwheel stood in isolation in the middle of the holm to make where the old Parish Mill, the Mill Affleck, stood. Sadly, it seems that it’s being left to rust and rot away. Perhaps some day somebody will restore it as they’ve done with the ‘A’ frame. Until then it’s being left to decay. After the budding archaeologists, Jimmy and Allan, had discovered the course of the mill’s lade and tail, we walked on.
The river was frozen solid now for we were nearing the mill dam of Ochiltree and the water here runs deep and slow. We walked the few hundred yards down the side of the frozen river to find the main road and the end of our walk in Ochiltree.
We took the bus back to Cumnock and took FRT in The Mercat there.
This was a good walk, made so by the super winter day. That Davie enjoyed it was evident from the superlatives used. We leave the last word to him. ‘A fabulous day’, said he.
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