21 September Ness Glen Again

Alan, Allan, Davie C, Davie Mc, Ian, Jimmy, Johnny, Malcolm, Paul, Rex & Robert

Once again this year the weather put paid to the planned outing. We had thought to do a high level walk on the Rhinns of Kells, to Carlin’s Cairn and back. But the present rain and the forecast gales and heavy rain put paid to that idea and we found ourselves gathering at the dam of Loch Doon for another circuit of the Ness Glen/Dalcairnie Linn walk.

The Kilmarnock contingent was late. Oh, excuses were made but the bottom line is that they were late – end of story! Still their lateness gave the opportunity for another classic Ooters faux pas. As we stood in the rain and waited, Davie Mc suggested that as soon as they drove up we would all look at and point to our watches to indicate their tardiness. Then, when Ian’s car was spotted coming along the road, Davie gave the countdown - three, two, one and we all held up watches to the car. It was not until it drove past with a stranger in the driver’s seat giving us an even stranger look, that we realised our error. Oops! There were seven rather sheepish looking Ooters standing in the rain by the roadside at Loch Doon when the Killie boys eventually arrived.

So, with the party now numbering eleven, we set off down the glen into the rain. Robert set a cracking pace on the first section, apparently not wanting to be late twice in the one day. Conversation was at a premium as the pace was kept up and the heads were kept down into the rain. Along the top of the gorge we trudged, along past ‘Fort Apache’, along past the remains of Tracy’s bench and down to the Bridge on the Craigengillan road. In trees it was difficult to decide whether the rain was still on or whether the pattering on the jacket hoods was just drips from the trees, shaken off by the freshening breeze. It was still on but, as the breeze was south-westerly, it was on our left shoulder. It might have been worse; it probably would be later when we turned out faces into the wind but for now it was on our shoulder and we trudged on tholing it.

At Bellsbank ponds we stopped for coffee. Some sat on the bench (only room for four), Johnny sat on the seat of his rucksack and the rest stood around in the constant dribble. Needless to say coffee this morning was a speedy affair. Then we trudged on down to The Promised Land.

Was the rain easing slightly? Yes it was and by the time we had gained The Promised Land, it was off. But there was no brightening of the sky; it remained as steely grey as ever. The walk along the road to Dalcairnie * was better than it might have been with only the occasional drip from the trees, the damp air and the wetness of the road to remind us of the rain. The breeze was still with us though, but as we dropped off the road to Dalcairnie Linn, we lost both the dribble and the wind. And here in the shelter of the trees at the linn we stopped for lunch.

As was to be expected on a day like this, the linn was spectacular, a forty foot wall of brown-white water roaring down into the rock-walled cauldron and sending clouds of misty spray downstream. While most were content to eat, Allan tried to capture the scene with the camera. We look forward to seeing the results.

Lunch, like coffee, was a brief affair – there are some amongst us with itchy feet and even a ten minute stop is too much for them – and we were soon on our way again. We hadn’t realised just how much shelter we had down at the linn. Now we realised for when we reached the road again, a fair old blow greeted us. And the rain was with us again. Once more it was a trudge into the elements.

We met a rather soggy-looking herd working soggy-looking sheep at the buchts at the top of the hill. He remembered us from the last time we met in the snows of December last. Had the weather been better we might have stopped longer for a blether but it wasn’t and we didn’t. The herd returned to his soggy work with his soggy sheep and we returned to our own wet travail. We trudged on over the high ground towards Barbeth.

One of us must have upset the weather god today for, at Barbeth, he unleashed his spite. Torrents of rain were thrown down on us and, if we hadn’t been so heavy with water, the accompanying ferocious gusts of wind might have thrown us off our feet. As it was, it threatened to tear limbs from the tree we chose to shelter under, great rattling and groaning above alerting us to this. Daft we may be, but stupid we are not. Needless to say, we didn’t shelter under that tree for long but chose to suffer the storm rather than be crushed by falling branches. We plodded, rather we slogged, on into the mini hurricane.

The pace was quickened as we dropped off the high ground of Barbeth into the valley of the Doon again. Here we were sheltered from the wind once more and the rain had eased to a steady dribble. Yet the pace wasn’t eased any. Jimmy, Davie Mc and Rex kept it high along past Craigengillan, down to the river again and into the gorge.

The gorge was its usual spectacular self with millions of tonnes of water roaring down through the chasm. But we didn’t take time to examine it today; we kept our heads down and the speed up. Up through the gorge we came then, up towards Loch Doon again. And somewhere along here the rain went. We arrived back at the dam in the dry just as the first patch of blue sky showed, having covered the distance in record time – 3 hours 28 minutes for a walk that would normally take us four to four and a half hours.

This was one soggy, wet walk, and windy as well on the high ground of Barbeth, but we consoled ourselves with FRT in the Dalmellington Inn, and the notion that the weather would have been ten times worse on the heights of Carlin’s Cairn. By the time we came back out of the Inn, the sun was splitting the sky and the day had turned pleasantly warm. Typical!

*Dalcairney, Dalcairny – choose your own spelling for it has been spelt all three at one time or other.