Hurlford to Darvel 11 January

Allan, Davie Mc, Gus, Kenny T, Jim, Malcolm, Paul & Rex-ish

The forecast was for strong winds with wintry showers so, as we took coffee and scones at the Café Derval, many thanks again to Kay and Davie, the decision was made to stay low, take the bus to Hurlford, and walk back. Rex performed a ‘now you see him, now you don’t' act as, when arrived, he took a call and had to return to Ayr to attend to an issue at one of his properties – and he didn’t leave his fiver!

With full weatherproofing on from the start, we made our way up to the main street to catch the 9.58 bus and had to run to catch it. Thanks go to the driver for waiting for us. It was little compensation to find the bus then turned left and passed Davie’s road end. Typical!
Having reached Hurlford we took the familiar Grougar Path and made good progress, especially since the elements were coming from behind us – good planning! Davie, Paul and Holly veered off and took the lower riverside path whilst the rest decided to stay on firmer footing and followed the road up to Loudoun Kirk. They were surprised to find that they had arrived first, and sat down at the steps under the tree canopy for lunch – this was the only stop of the day. Ten minutes later the ‘stragglers’ arrived and stock was taken of the day so far. The weather had been better than forecast, and although blustery, we had encountered only a couple of short showers and, indeed, for most of the time we were in winter sunshine.
Davie’s advice was to follow the road from here as the alternative path was a ‘glaur-hole’ (Derval speak) and so we walked up to the entrance to Loudoun Estate and turned past the school, taking time to pause and wonder what would happen if we went in and asked the Headie if Alan McQ could come out to play. As we hit Galston a notion was put forward as to whether we just got the bus back from here but, before Allan could catch his breath and answer, the consensus of opinion was to finish what had been started. These guys watch too many quiz shows!
Anyway, as we followed the Valley Trail on the new cycle track, we noticed that, although money had been spent on the new path, lack of foresight (or even more money) had meant that the river bank had not been protected from erosion, as had happened before, and that it wouldn’t be long before parts of the new track were lost. Wonderful!
Newmilns was made in good time and, as we paused briefly outside the Riverside Inn, Davie said “Forty minutes from here”. And so it came to pass that forty minutes later we were back at the cars, arriving at 1.35pm.
We had ‘won a watch’ with the weather, all things considered, and headed back to the aforementioned Riverside Inn for FRT.