29 June Return to the Mysterious Lunky Hole

Alan, Allan, Ian, Jimmy, Johnny, Peter, Rex & Robert

Robert and Jimmy turned up in shorts today. Well Jimmy turned up in shorts; we feel certain that Robert had just climbed out of bed and came wearing his pyjama bottoms, pale tan and stripy things they were. The reason they turned up in shorts this morning was that the recent spell of summer weather had given us a morning of gloriously clear sky and warm summer sunshine, a morning meant for T-shirts and shorts. Yet, by ten o’clock when we eight of us gathered at Kames in Muirkirk, the sun had gone, the sky was overcast and there was the usual Wednesday threat of rain in the air. Would this be another disappointing Ooters day?

Disappointing or not, since we were gathered, we decided that the planned walk should go ahead - we would seek out the lunky hole - and set off up the old Sanquhar road towards Springhill, following the River Ayr Way. That’s when the rain came. There was general rush of digging into rucksacks for waterproofs for by the look of the sky, the rain might stay for a while. But it wasn’t to last. By the time we had turned right off the Sanquhar road on the track for Tibbie’s Brig, it had gone and there was a general discarding of waterproofs and stuffing them back into rucksacks. By the looks of things this might be the pattern for the day.

We stopped on Tibbie’s Brig. The eighteenth century brig (recently restored) is named after Isabella ‘Tibbie’ Pagan, keeper of an inn of dubious repute here, and a writer of poetry of sorts. It was Tibbie who wrote the poem ‘Ca the yowes tae the knowes’, a poem that a much more famous Scottish poet took, discarded the bawdy verses, rewrote more of it, transferred the setting to Dumfriesshire and matched it to an ‘auld Scotch air’. It is Burns’ version that is familiar to us. Perhaps Tibbie’s version should be more widely sung – but not in polite company.

The site of Tibbie’s ‘inn’ is marked by a cairn near the brig. At this cairn we had a minor decision to make. The track rises up the west bank of the burn and disappears round a knowe but a pad runs down the side of the burn and rejoins it further down. We took the burn-side pad for Jimmy mentioned a fossil bank some fifty yards downstream. We think Jimmy’s whisky induced hallucinations are kicking in again for, search that bank as thoroughly as we might, we found no fossils. Jimmy’s reputation is in tatters again.

Five minutes after the futile fossil search we were back on the River Ayr Way heading towards the old Muirkirk to Ayr railway. What early summers treat greeted us on that old railway. The last of the spring flowers were giving way to summer ones. A profusion of orchids, Heath Spotted and Early Purples, and white Heath Bedstraw grew on the old track and a swathe of pink Ragged Robin clothed the bank of a cutting. Small Tortoiseshell and Argus butterflies flitted from flower to flower in search of nectar. An absolute delight for the nature lovers amongst us.

But we were to leave the old railway before long and follow the path down to the river side at Adan’s Cairn. This cairn commemorates William Adam who was shot here in the killing times of the late seventeenth century. Adam was a shepherd at Wellwood. On a Sunday morning he was waiting at this spot for his fiancée when he was approached by a party of dragoons. In their eyes the fact that he had a bible in his possession was enough to mark Adam out as a Cameronian and he was shot on the spot and his body left there for his fiancé to find. He was buried where he fell and a stone was later erected over him by Old Mortality. All of this is displayed on a modern information board erected at the opening of the River Ayr Way.

We left Adam's Cairn and continued down the riverside. The caffeine addicts were beginning to grumble that their habit needed a fix so, on a wee wooden bridge over a wee burn that emptied itself into the river, we stopped for coffee. While we sat at coffee, swallows old and young skimmed the river feeding on insects totally invisible to us. A buzzard ‘meowed’ somewhere above the Wellwood trees and brown Argus butterflies flitted. And the sun came out! What a pleasant coffee stop.

Post coffee we continued down the ‘Way’, crossed the Cumnock road (with extreme care as suggested by the sign with the River Ayr Way icon on it) and came to the unclassified road for Dalfram. This road has recently been resurfaced and the walking up it was smooth and easy. We crossed the Sorn road (no ‘take care’ signs here!) and came over a moorish tract to Netherwood in the valley of the Greenock Water. Whaups and buzzard and oystercatcher all made themselves known to us as we walked along the moorland road in search of a place for lunch. And the haunting cry of the peesie accompanied us finding a suitable place.

As we sat with our backs against a drystane dyke listening to the birds and watching the changing patterns in the sky (auld romantics, we), the sun went and an ominous charcoal grey cloud, pregnant with rain, crept over us. And it wasn’t long before the expected rain came. Waterproofs went on. But the intensity of the rain and its duration were as before. Waterproofs were on and back off before we had finished the peece and peece-stops are notoriously brief in the Ooters. The sun had returned by the time we set off again.

We left tarmac at Burnfoot Farm and took to a forest road. This took us through the forest and towards the houses of Smallburn. But we didn’t want to go there. When we found a road coming from the left we took this, came past a pond with an island full of resting gulls (seagulls!!!) and on to the Glasgow road at the cemetery. Then we crossed the road and came to a small car park.

Round this car park are built examples of different types of drystane dykes and information boards describing them. This is where we found the lunky hole. For the uninitiated, a lunky hole, according to the blurb, is a hole left at the bottom of a dyke for hares to get through but as our expert* pointed out, any form of wildlife would get through. So perhaps the blurb should reflect this.

We might have gone straight down the Glasgow road into the town but we didn’t. We found a path through the Kirk Wood and followed this to the Kirk. In the kirk-yard are buried the great and the good of Muirkirk past. Had we time to spare we might have investigated this but time was at a premium today for some had appointments to keep so we walked on down to the Douglas road and back into the town that way. That’s when Alan mentioned his Muirkirk connections. His wife, Ann, is a Muirkirk body and one of her relations was Professor Tom Symington BSc, MB, FRSE etc. etc. who is commemorated by a monument on Main Street. We admired the monument on the way past. And we admired the garden at the corner of the Glasgow Road as well, a garden commemoration the mining heritage of the town and the many famous people who were born, lived and worked here. This is well worth the visit.

Now we were only half a mile or so from the starting point. We turned up Furnace road and came back to Kames and the cars.

This is a good walk in mixed terrain, one that is worth doing again.

FRT and entertainment were taken in The Coachhouse on the corner of Furnace Road.

*The Early Ooters is full of experts on all subjects under the sun. If only the authorities would consult us, we would be able to put them right on so many things.