Darvel 1 September

 

Allan, Davie C, Davie Mc, Hugh, Jimmy, Malcolm, Paul, Rex

 Meeting at Derval Davie’s on another lovely late summer’s morning, we were introduced to Isla, the new pup, and who, no doubt, would be joining us on our walks in the not-too-distant future. She is a good- natured wee thing, well suited to joining our band of ‘retired professional gentlemen’.

Our route took us across the park to the entrance to Lanfine, but we did not enter the estate and took the road up the side of the valley to where we found the path to the woods. Entering the woods, the track was followed until the path up to Kieland was found and we followed this until again turning right into the woods again. As we stopped for coffee, we were passed by a group of teenage girls doing their Duke of Edinburgh award scheme. Their leader admitted that they had got a little bit lost but were on the right track now. Davie, half- jokingly, advised them that we were heading for the cairn and that was our lunch spot.

Anyway, when we reached the gate that took us up the field to Gallowlaw Cairn, we noticed that they were behind us and headed in the same direction, but as we veered off to the cairn, some over the rather high barbed wire fence ,whilst the rest of us continued a bit further to find the easy path, the girls passed by and continued on their way, not to be seen again.

A leisurely lunch was taken at about midday in glorious weather, sunny but not too hot, before we started off on the second leg of our walk. Having done a fair bit of climbing up the valley, we reaped the reward of the next bit being downhill all the way on the newly-resurfaced tarmac road. On reaching a T-junction we had a decision to make i.e. go left and go through the woods into Galston and get the bus back (this would be a shorter walk), or go right, follow Windyhill Road into Newmilns, and walk back along the river to Darvel. The majority were in favour of the Galston option, but Rex discovered that he had failed to bring a face mask for the bus, so Newmilns it was.

We were back at the cars at about quarter to two, three and three-quarter hours after having set off and with a tad over nine miles having been covered. FRT was taken in the very acceptable beer garden at the Black Bull in Darvel where we relaxed for the next hour. Another superb, or was it fabulous?, day out.

Underfoot conditions were dry

The view to Whitelee

Lunch at the Covenanter's Cairn