Another super, sunny, spring morning saw an assembly of seven Ooters at Davie’s place for the second successive week. The intention of the day was to stay local and have a ‘leisurely’ walk so Davie was asked to find a route that would suit the intention and the morning. He did this admirably.
When we left the shelter of Davie’s house, we found the morning far from idyllic. Yes, the sun shone warmly in a clear blue sky but a northerly wind blew; a wind that had its origins somewhere in the Arctic and a wind that tried to cut its way into our old bones. Although, as shall be seen later, this wind did have one great benefit, Jackets were worn from the start.
Whether Davie considered the coolness of the wind when planning his route we can’t be quite sure – he says he did but we all know Davie – but he soon had us over the Irvine by Ranoldcoup Bridge, into the shelter of the trees in Lanfine estate and on to a good tarmac estate road. ‘There’s wild boar in the wood here’, said he. Sure enough a strong, square-meshed fence edged the road and the floor of the wood was churned to bare earth. But there were no boar. The wood was alive with bird song - blackbird, chaffinch, robin, great tit, and he who knows these things said blackcap - but no boar. We wandered up the road looking to the right and scanning the wood for strange pigs. There were no wild boar, not even mildly irritated ones. There were just no boars. We were beginning to think such things were a figment of another alcohol induced hallucination when Holly, away in advance, started barking into the trees. She had found the boar for us.
There they were, right next to the road. At least two tuskers and four sows snuffled the ground in search of something we couldn’t see. A number of brown striped piglets ran around, many still suckling at mother. All of them went about their everyday lives completely unconcerned by our presence. And our presence was obvious, a brightly clad group of Ooters lined along the fence and pointing cameras and fingers through the fence. In keeping with our new leisurely approach, we spent some time watching the boar while the camera men took as many shots as they pleased. We weren’t particularly quiet either, yet the boar ignored us, obviously used to human presence.
But enough of a good thing is enough, even watching boar snuffling at bare earth, so we moved leisurely on.
The tarmac took us up past Lanfine House - ‘Owned by Germans now’, said Davie and we thought that might explain the wild boar – and on over an old bridge towards Newmilns. This was where Johnny discovered the blister. His new boots weren’t yet worn in and the walking on tarmac het the feet. Johnny’s blister was a cracker. And it would get worse as the day went on.
But we never made Newmilns. Leaving the tarmac behind, we took to a path up the side of a wee burn. The way up through the wood beside the burn was as delightful as only a deciduous wood can be at this time of year. Birds sang, the burn gurgled, the sun shone through the budding canopy and we were still sheltered from the cold wind. We took our time climbing the slope through the wood.
The wee burn-side pad took us up to an abandoned estate road, untarmaced and grown over with grasses and woodland flowers. But it was a road and afforded an easy way upward through the valley-side wood. Eventually the deciduous trees gave way to a plantation of the ubiquitous Sitka spruce. The road continued albeit more overgrown than before and spruce and sauch branches had to be jooked under or held back to allow us through. Progress was slow but we didn’t care for this was a leisurely walk. Then, in the midst of this spruce plantation, came a mystery. Some twenty yards off the overgrown road, in the thick of the plantation, there was a tent, not a home-made boyish tent, but a bought tent, a quality tent by the look of it. The nosy went to investigate.
It was a quality tent, a three man Vango tent. Some water bottles and the remains of a fire showed that it had been occupied at one time but its collapsed state showed that this hadn’t been in recent days. Yet the collapsing was due merely to the springing of the support poles and not through any irreparable problem and the tent remains in good nick. Speculation was rife among the imaginative as to who would pitch a tent here and why and why it should be left. But the tent, its occupant(s) and the reason for it being here must remain one of life’s little mysteries for none of us really knows the answers.
In the wood, it was difficult to know exactly where we were, all we could say is that we were somewhere high on the western end of the Irvine Valley. But the road took us to the edge of the forest and we found out exactly where we were. The track continued towards the rooftops of Middle Third Farm and open country sloped down towards the valley and the plain of central Ayrshire. The view over the lowlands of central Ayrshire to Arran was superb but we didn’t spend too long admiring it for, at the edge of the forest we also found the cold northerly again so didn’t hang about to admire the view. Above us, to our left, the land rose on to Gallow Law and it was to Gallow Law we turned our steps now.
Coffee was called for and at the Covenanter’s monument on Gallow Law, we sat down for a break - after all, this leisurely walking is exhausting. Well, most of us sat at the monument. Those too tired, stiff or timorous to climb the barbed wire fence sat some ten yards away on the other side of said fence.
It has been said before that you don’t need to climb high in Ayrshire to get superb views. Gallow Law is a case in point. From a height of a little over 850ft, the western panorama from north to south, from Ben Lomond to the Galloway Hills must encompass some seventy-odd miles. The advantage of today’s Arctic wind, spoken about earlier, was to cleanse the air to crystal clearness and the view from the hill today was limited only by the horizon, with every feature picked out well by the spring sunshine. A viewfinder has been mounted on top of the monument. As far as we could see, this has been set a few degrees counter-clockwise from the true but with its help we were able to identify not only the snow-flecked Ben Lomond but the Kilbirnie Hills, the different Arran peaks, Craigie Hill, Brown Carrick, Shalloch on Minnoch, the Rhinns of Kells and, hiding behind a tree, Cairnsmore of Carsphairn. Below us, central Ayrshire with all its towns, from Mauchline to Ardrossan, was spread out like a map. Fabulous. And, on the north side of the Irvine Valley, the Windmills of Whitelees waved cheery arms at us in the fresh breeze. The viewfinder indicated places in the south and east, Loudoun Hill, Edinburgh, and Lowther Hill, but these were unseen for the forest and nearer landscape intervened. But what we could see was sufficient and more than made up for what we couldn’t. We were content and settled down to coffee.
Despite the cold wind, this was a longer, more leisurely coffee stop than we have become used to of late. We sat, we looked, we blethered and Johnny took time to doctor his blister. But the time came..................
We came off Gallow Law on its southern side and in a few hundred yards found tarmac which was kept to for a while now, always downwards into the valley, towards Galston. Swallows swooped and swung above Middle Third Farm finding insects invisible to us and a buzzard hung almost motionless above the field on our right. A JCB carrying a huge boulder trundled over a newly ploughed field and gulls chased the plough in the far corner of the same. These were the only diversions in the usual blether as we dropped leisurely down to find the Burnawn (Burn Anne) footpath.
Some were for lunching on the first picnic tables we found but Davie said that these were too near the road and much better could be found further up the burn. And he was insistent. We followed meekly behind him. Sure enough, in a wee sunny holm sheltered from the wind, we found other picnic tables and sat for lunch. When a solitary car was heard on the road we had just left, Davie felt justified. ‘See, I told you it was too busy there’. No other vehicles were seen or heard for the rest of the day.
After a leisurely lunch we continued to follow the Burn Anne – named after St. Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary, said the information board. Upward past Threepwood went the path. Upward past a ruin where a stone told us that the Covenanter James Smith ‘dayed’ here in 1685. Upward past a pond that Davie said was alive with tadpoles the last time he came this way; there were none today. Upward climbed our path till, eventually, it came to a ‘T junction’ of paths and we stopped for a breather and look back over the Irvine Valley.
What view greeted us when we turned round. Apart from what we could see on Gallow Law, a more distant prospect was in view. Ben Lomond was the marker. The more distant snow-covered peak to the right might have been Ben More at Crianlarich. Johnny found The Cobbler to the west and all the tops between these extremes could then be picked out. This was a good place for a breather.
We took the right arm of the T and came back to tarmac within a few yards. But our upward progress wasn’t finished yet. Taking a left, we followed the road up to top out on Burns’s ‘Galston Moors’ (See ‘The Holy Fair’) near Cairnhill Farm. At the farm a young woman was coming out of a car and we exchanged pleasantries as is our wont. Fifty yards along the road she hailed us. ‘If you’re going past that house’, said she pointing, ‘I should warn you that there are three dogs there that run free and don’t like other dogs’. She wasn’t concerned about us but was worried about the safety of Holly. Huh! When it was pointed out that Davie carries a big stick, she was happier.
However, we didn’t go past the house and there was no dog-fight. We turned off the road on a newish path through a newish plantation, a path that took us to the Keilands road a few hundred yards from the footpath up to Gallow Law monument. We turned towards Keilands. Johnny’s feet were in a sorry state now and he struggled on the up-slope to Keilands. But, we are nothing if not compassionate and most of us nearly waited for him. We all waited at Keilands.
It was here that some called for an afternoon halt but Davie said...............
When we left the shelter of Davie’s house, we found the morning far from idyllic. Yes, the sun shone warmly in a clear blue sky but a northerly wind blew; a wind that had its origins somewhere in the Arctic and a wind that tried to cut its way into our old bones. Although, as shall be seen later, this wind did have one great benefit, Jackets were worn from the start.
Whether Davie considered the coolness of the wind when planning his route we can’t be quite sure – he says he did but we all know Davie – but he soon had us over the Irvine by Ranoldcoup Bridge, into the shelter of the trees in Lanfine estate and on to a good tarmac estate road. ‘There’s wild boar in the wood here’, said he. Sure enough a strong, square-meshed fence edged the road and the floor of the wood was churned to bare earth. But there were no boar. The wood was alive with bird song - blackbird, chaffinch, robin, great tit, and he who knows these things said blackcap - but no boar. We wandered up the road looking to the right and scanning the wood for strange pigs. There were no wild boar, not even mildly irritated ones. There were just no boars. We were beginning to think such things were a figment of another alcohol induced hallucination when Holly, away in advance, started barking into the trees. She had found the boar for us.
There they were, right next to the road. At least two tuskers and four sows snuffled the ground in search of something we couldn’t see. A number of brown striped piglets ran around, many still suckling at mother. All of them went about their everyday lives completely unconcerned by our presence. And our presence was obvious, a brightly clad group of Ooters lined along the fence and pointing cameras and fingers through the fence. In keeping with our new leisurely approach, we spent some time watching the boar while the camera men took as many shots as they pleased. We weren’t particularly quiet either, yet the boar ignored us, obviously used to human presence.
But enough of a good thing is enough, even watching boar snuffling at bare earth, so we moved leisurely on.
The tarmac took us up past Lanfine House - ‘Owned by Germans now’, said Davie and we thought that might explain the wild boar – and on over an old bridge towards Newmilns. This was where Johnny discovered the blister. His new boots weren’t yet worn in and the walking on tarmac het the feet. Johnny’s blister was a cracker. And it would get worse as the day went on.
But we never made Newmilns. Leaving the tarmac behind, we took to a path up the side of a wee burn. The way up through the wood beside the burn was as delightful as only a deciduous wood can be at this time of year. Birds sang, the burn gurgled, the sun shone through the budding canopy and we were still sheltered from the cold wind. We took our time climbing the slope through the wood.
The wee burn-side pad took us up to an abandoned estate road, untarmaced and grown over with grasses and woodland flowers. But it was a road and afforded an easy way upward through the valley-side wood. Eventually the deciduous trees gave way to a plantation of the ubiquitous Sitka spruce. The road continued albeit more overgrown than before and spruce and sauch branches had to be jooked under or held back to allow us through. Progress was slow but we didn’t care for this was a leisurely walk. Then, in the midst of this spruce plantation, came a mystery. Some twenty yards off the overgrown road, in the thick of the plantation, there was a tent, not a home-made boyish tent, but a bought tent, a quality tent by the look of it. The nosy went to investigate.
It was a quality tent, a three man Vango tent. Some water bottles and the remains of a fire showed that it had been occupied at one time but its collapsed state showed that this hadn’t been in recent days. Yet the collapsing was due merely to the springing of the support poles and not through any irreparable problem and the tent remains in good nick. Speculation was rife among the imaginative as to who would pitch a tent here and why and why it should be left. But the tent, its occupant(s) and the reason for it being here must remain one of life’s little mysteries for none of us really knows the answers.
In the wood, it was difficult to know exactly where we were, all we could say is that we were somewhere high on the western end of the Irvine Valley. But the road took us to the edge of the forest and we found out exactly where we were. The track continued towards the rooftops of Middle Third Farm and open country sloped down towards the valley and the plain of central Ayrshire. The view over the lowlands of central Ayrshire to Arran was superb but we didn’t spend too long admiring it for, at the edge of the forest we also found the cold northerly again so didn’t hang about to admire the view. Above us, to our left, the land rose on to Gallow Law and it was to Gallow Law we turned our steps now.
Coffee was called for and at the Covenanter’s monument on Gallow Law, we sat down for a break - after all, this leisurely walking is exhausting. Well, most of us sat at the monument. Those too tired, stiff or timorous to climb the barbed wire fence sat some ten yards away on the other side of said fence.
It has been said before that you don’t need to climb high in Ayrshire to get superb views. Gallow Law is a case in point. From a height of a little over 850ft, the western panorama from north to south, from Ben Lomond to the Galloway Hills must encompass some seventy-odd miles. The advantage of today’s Arctic wind, spoken about earlier, was to cleanse the air to crystal clearness and the view from the hill today was limited only by the horizon, with every feature picked out well by the spring sunshine. A viewfinder has been mounted on top of the monument. As far as we could see, this has been set a few degrees counter-clockwise from the true but with its help we were able to identify not only the snow-flecked Ben Lomond but the Kilbirnie Hills, the different Arran peaks, Craigie Hill, Brown Carrick, Shalloch on Minnoch, the Rhinns of Kells and, hiding behind a tree, Cairnsmore of Carsphairn. Below us, central Ayrshire with all its towns, from Mauchline to Ardrossan, was spread out like a map. Fabulous. And, on the north side of the Irvine Valley, the Windmills of Whitelees waved cheery arms at us in the fresh breeze. The viewfinder indicated places in the south and east, Loudoun Hill, Edinburgh, and Lowther Hill, but these were unseen for the forest and nearer landscape intervened. But what we could see was sufficient and more than made up for what we couldn’t. We were content and settled down to coffee.
Despite the cold wind, this was a longer, more leisurely coffee stop than we have become used to of late. We sat, we looked, we blethered and Johnny took time to doctor his blister. But the time came..................
We came off Gallow Law on its southern side and in a few hundred yards found tarmac which was kept to for a while now, always downwards into the valley, towards Galston. Swallows swooped and swung above Middle Third Farm finding insects invisible to us and a buzzard hung almost motionless above the field on our right. A JCB carrying a huge boulder trundled over a newly ploughed field and gulls chased the plough in the far corner of the same. These were the only diversions in the usual blether as we dropped leisurely down to find the Burnawn (Burn Anne) footpath.
Some were for lunching on the first picnic tables we found but Davie said that these were too near the road and much better could be found further up the burn. And he was insistent. We followed meekly behind him. Sure enough, in a wee sunny holm sheltered from the wind, we found other picnic tables and sat for lunch. When a solitary car was heard on the road we had just left, Davie felt justified. ‘See, I told you it was too busy there’. No other vehicles were seen or heard for the rest of the day.
After a leisurely lunch we continued to follow the Burn Anne – named after St. Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary, said the information board. Upward past Threepwood went the path. Upward past a ruin where a stone told us that the Covenanter James Smith ‘dayed’ here in 1685. Upward past a pond that Davie said was alive with tadpoles the last time he came this way; there were none today. Upward climbed our path till, eventually, it came to a ‘T junction’ of paths and we stopped for a breather and look back over the Irvine Valley.
What view greeted us when we turned round. Apart from what we could see on Gallow Law, a more distant prospect was in view. Ben Lomond was the marker. The more distant snow-covered peak to the right might have been Ben More at Crianlarich. Johnny found The Cobbler to the west and all the tops between these extremes could then be picked out. This was a good place for a breather.
We took the right arm of the T and came back to tarmac within a few yards. But our upward progress wasn’t finished yet. Taking a left, we followed the road up to top out on Burns’s ‘Galston Moors’ (See ‘The Holy Fair’) near Cairnhill Farm. At the farm a young woman was coming out of a car and we exchanged pleasantries as is our wont. Fifty yards along the road she hailed us. ‘If you’re going past that house’, said she pointing, ‘I should warn you that there are three dogs there that run free and don’t like other dogs’. She wasn’t concerned about us but was worried about the safety of Holly. Huh! When it was pointed out that Davie carries a big stick, she was happier.
However, we didn’t go past the house and there was no dog-fight. We turned off the road on a newish path through a newish plantation, a path that took us to the Keilands road a few hundred yards from the footpath up to Gallow Law monument. We turned towards Keilands. Johnny’s feet were in a sorry state now and he struggled on the up-slope to Keilands. But, we are nothing if not compassionate and most of us nearly waited for him. We all waited at Keilands.
It was here that some called for an afternoon halt but Davie said...............
We walked on behind. Johnny hobbled on behind. We came down the track from Keilands to find a spruce plantation. Where the track entered the plantation, we left it and followed a path through the trees. By this time the party was split, Davie, Robert and Ronnie to the front, the more compassionate keeping the hobbling Johnny company at the rear The plantation was edged by mature deciduous trees and the path took us to this edge, to look out over the valley.. There came a nice, sheltered sunny spot overlooking the valley and we thought Davie might stop here for a break. Did he stop? Did he heck! We followed on. Johnny hobbled on. The buzzard was spotted by the trailing group, close at hand and soaring on the wind over the open field. Did we stop? Nope! The Tawny owl was flushed from its slumbers by the leading trio and took a flustered flight to the safety of the conifers. Did we stop? Nope! We followed on. Johnny hobbled on. Eventually, a mile and a half and half an hour after it was suggested, we stopped at the top of an old farm track for an afternoon break. Some took coffee, some sat and talked, some just sat and lazed leisuely in the sun. Johnny doctored his blister again.
We were now barely a mile away from the end of the walk, much to Johnny’s relief. The old farm road took us from our afternoon stop down to Dyke Farm where we found tarmac again. At a leisurely pace, we followed this down into the valley and back to the Ranoldcoup Bridge that we had crossed first thing this morning. Sun-burnt and wind-blown and thoroughly happy, we crossed the bridge and came back to our starting point around three.
This was another great Ooter’s ooting in super weather conditions. Davie should be congratulated on chosing a walk that admirably suited the conditions of the day.
In keeping with our new philosophy of trying new things, we chose to ignore our usual Darvel watering hole in favour of The Railway, a pub we might visit again.
We were now barely a mile away from the end of the walk, much to Johnny’s relief. The old farm road took us from our afternoon stop down to Dyke Farm where we found tarmac again. At a leisurely pace, we followed this down into the valley and back to the Ranoldcoup Bridge that we had crossed first thing this morning. Sun-burnt and wind-blown and thoroughly happy, we crossed the bridge and came back to our starting point around three.
This was another great Ooter’s ooting in super weather conditions. Davie should be congratulated on chosing a walk that admirably suited the conditions of the day.
In keeping with our new philosophy of trying new things, we chose to ignore our usual Darvel watering hole in favour of The Railway, a pub we might visit again.
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