16 June River Ayr Walk – Annbank to Ayr Harbour

Over the past few years we have, as a group, walked most of the River Ayr Way, some sections more than once. The only part remaining to give us the complete walk is that section from Auchincruive westward to Ayr. Today we were to complete the distance.
On a bonny, bright June morning nine of us gathered at Annbank Bowling Club just after ten o’clock. (It should have been before ten but Peter and Jimmy had to turn back for Jimmy’s forgotten wallet and bus pass, so it was a few minutes after ten when we gathered at Annbank) We set off down the lane from the bowling club towards the River Ayr, Holly leading the way closely followed by Allan who had been desperate to move even before the arrival of the tardy two.
The path through the wood was shaded but, even here; we could feel the day warming nicely as the high summer sun broke through the canopy dappling the floor with patches of brightness. We were in light mood. The birds sang but the blethers of the Ooters outdid the birds for jollity. And in jovial mood we came to the river side and the boundary wall of Auchincruive.
As we climbed the stone stile through the wall, Davie warned us all, ‘Watch out, it’s slippy’ harking back to the last time we came this way back in December of last year when it was coated in verglas and extreme care had to be taken in the crossing. Today there was no danger of ice for the mid-summer sun was warm and the stile was in its full glare. So were we now.
We came down river under the garden of Auchincruive house. A pair of grey wagtails played in the boulders in the river and families of Mallard basked in the sun at the water’s edge. A heron flapped its lazy way downstream towards Oswald’s Brig. We wandered casually after it.
We crossed Oswald’s Brig and came to the Burns/Wallace monument for coffee. We thought that this was to be another of these relaxed days that we are becoming used to, but barely half an hour after we sat down, Davie was champing at the bit to be off. He rose. We rose to follow him. Poor Ian (he of the appetite) hadn’t quite finished his mid-morning snack and scrambled to pull himself together as we wandered away down the path and back to the brig. He caught us up just before the brig.
The official River Ayr path leaves the riverside here and stays away from it for quite a distance. There appears to be no path, not even a fishers’ one, beside the river here so we kept to the official path. We followed it up the roadside path until we found a sign saying ‘Ayr 4 1/2’ and pointing us down a farm track. This is the way we went. It took us beside field where canes marked the growth of some unseen crop, the field workers we saw being too distant to ask what the crop was, through a wee wood, and on to tarmac by Mainholm smallholdings.
For such a wee, narrow road leading to nowhere, this was busy with cars coming and going and more than once we had to step aside to let vehicles past. Yet, if we thought this road was busy, it was nothing compared to the next. The Mainholm Smallholdings road eventually decanted us on to the main A77, Ayr bypass, with traffic roaring by in both directions. Fortunately for us there was a pavement alongside for us to walk on so the traffic didn’t bother us unduly. We crossed the river by the road-bridge and came down to the waterside at the stepping stones.
Lunch was called. A relaxing hour was spent over lunch. While most lay in the sun, Johnny threw sticks in the water for Holly and Peter went on one of his walkabouts – ‘skechs’ was the word Davie used – in search of treasures. What he found was a stick for Holly. What he lost was his bottle of juice from his pocket. Peter would have to remain dry until we reached a suitable watering hole.
But, even relaxing lunches come to an end and we moved off.
We kept to the river now. Under Mainholm we came, on the old Victorian ‘promenade’ and past the old lime works. Where the ‘promenade’ rose to meet the road, Peter and Ronnie, bring up the rear, shouted us back. What had they found this time? Bright orange fruiting bodies of a fungus grew in a rather striking formation on the dead stump of a tree. But what they were no-one could tell, not even the naturalist. But they were photogenic and those with cameras snapped away. We look forward to seeing the results.
We were now in the area of Craigie; the old mansion could be seen across the river. A footbridge spans the river here and the walk crosses this into Craigie Park. ‘But’, said Davie, ‘the path on that side of the water is closed because they’re building the new university’. Jimmy wasn’t so sure for he could see folk on the other side. But Davie was adamant and a ‘debate’ arose. Jimmy won the debate (Makes a change, says Davie) for when we crossed the bridge a woman told us that the path bypassed the works and, yes, we could get through. We walked on.

Davie pointed out the swan’s nest on the far side of the river. We were now well into the town and this was the last place we expected to find a swan’s nest. But this wasn’t the only one. Another was seen as we crossed Turner’s Brig. It was tucked into the wall of the old church cemetery. Both had birds sitting on them. And it shouldn’t be too long before we see cygnets on the river.
The reason we crossed Turner’s Brig was to see the covenanters' monument in the Auld Kirk cemetery. We were standing examining the stone when we were approached by two men of our own age, one Scottish and one with a Northern Ireland accent. Fundamentalist Protestants. So determined are they to uphold the tenets of the reformation that they protested against an ecumenical service held in the Auld Kirk on Sunday past because it included Roman Catholics. They were ejected from the service and removed from the grounds of the kirk. Christians???? But, as Davie pointed out, there was no chance of converting us to their fundamentalist beliefs, ecumenical as we are.
We left the ‘Christians’ to tell others their story and walked on into the town, crossing the river by the Auld Brig (late fifteenth century – Historian) and back over the New Brig (1866). Turning right, we then came to the South Harbour expressing regret that the fish market had gone. The posh new flats were no compensation for the sights, sounds and smells of the old market. But it was between the new flats that we came, to the sea front. The great grey slab of resinous ‘stuff’ that marks the end of the walk just had to be touched just as we had all touched its sister slab at Glenbuck when we had started the odyssey all those months before.
But that wasn’t the end of the walk. We decided to extend it to the end of the pier. After Jimmy had managed to cadge a mint imperial for each of us from a woman who sat there, we strolled to the pier end, as far as we could go on our River Ayr walk.

We returned to Annbank by bus (hence the need for Jimmy to return for his bus pass) and partook of FRT in the sun on the sitootery of The Tap O’ The Brae. ‘This is as good as it gets’, said one to nobody in particular. We had to agree.