Ness Glen, or not! 8th April

 

Alan, Alan McQ, Allan, Davie C, Davie Mc, Graham, Gus, Hugh, Malcolm, Rex

We were gathering at the car park at Craigmark Burntonians’ ground on an overcast morning when wee Davie showed us his new, expensive, waterproof cap. As he was explaining the benefits of it, Alan ‘The Waterboy’ McQ decided to test it out by pouring a bottle of water over Davie’s head. The cap was certainly waterproof but, unfortunately, the rest of his clothes were not, and so it was rather a damp Davie who started his walk today, no doubt planning revenge!

The route was to be the normal figure of eight walk, but some decided that they would cut the walk short by not going up the glen which in effect was not to be a problem, as the Waterboy had heard that the glen was closed due to a landslip. We proceeded anyway, along by the Water of Muck and then up to Dalcairney Linn and stopped for coffee at the bridge over the burn. The day was perfectly still with no wind and, with the temperature slowly rising, we enjoyed our break.

Next, it was up the hill and over to Barbeth on the path which had recently been improved. From there it was down to the road up to Craigengillan passing some workers who were carrying out a burn on some of the longer, straggly grass. The group who were going to do the shorter walk, Alan, Allan, wee Davie, Derval Davie, and Malcolm thought about taking this road back to the cars, but Davie Major said that to go up and round at Craigengillan would only add about fifteen minutes. Sceptically, the rest agreed to this, knowing full well that it was’’ Davie minutes’ we were talking about. Anyway, all ten passed the big house and assembled at the foot of the glen.

The guys who were going to do the longer walk decided to forego the option of going up to the round house for lunch via the high path and returning the same way and agreed that, in order to get back to the cars at about the same time as the others, they would continue over the wooden bridge with us and head back to Dalmellington. However, whilst the group mentioned above took lunch at the bench just beyond the bridge, Alan McQ led the others up to The Cabins at the lagoon for their pieces before returning to the cars via Bellsbank, and arriving about fifteen minutes before the others who had returned the traditional way.

FRT was taken at the 'up-for-sale' Dalmellington Inn where a good time was had. Nevertheless, there is a tale to tell. Our youngest member meticulously recorded on a bit of paper the order for the second round. We were in consternation as the pints of light beer kept coming as only one had been ordered. He blamed the error on a smudgie pen, or words to that effect. A bad workman always blames his tools? Anyway, he had to scoff an extra pint himself whilst another was only half-drank as no-one wanted it. He is working hard at not being asked to do anything, following his faux pas with a tip at the Laird’s Table and now getting the order wrong today. Justice for wee Davie?

A good day out in what turned out to be excellent conditions. Seven and a half miles with the last to arrive back at the cars taking three hours and twenty-five minutes.

 

15 May The Ness Glen Again

Allan, Davie C, Davie Mc, Ian, Jimmy, Johnny, Paul, Robert & Ronnie

            A squad of young army cadets, at least one of whom was from Newton Stewart, were feeding their faces at The Roundhouse Café by the dam of Loch Doon when we gathered there for an old favourite, The Ness Glen walk. The weather was much kinder than last week. The sun shone and the morning might have been warm but for the persistent northerly that has been blowing since the week-end. Still, we were undeterred by the chill wind and once in the shelter of the trees above the Ness Glen we were quite comfortable.

Johnny had returned from his sojourn to the antipodes and regaled us - bored us some would say - with his tales of down under. The morning was fair, the woodland a delight, the crack was good and the walk along the top of the gorge passed quickly. There was some talk, when we reached Tracy’s bench*, of a visit to The Dark Sky Observatory but those who know these things suggested it would be better to visit on the return journey so we walked on down to the bridge over the Doon.

Another party of what looked like young army cadets in civvies under the instruction of uniformed adults were preparing for a canoeing adventure on the river just at the bridge. It seems that it was a fine day for the cadets to be out. We didn’t hang about for the usual blether today but walked on down through the glen to the ponds under Bellsbank where coffee was called.

Post coffee, we ambled, well ambled as much as the speedsters would allow, down to The Promised Land #. Here, without stopping we turned along the footpath beside the Muck water. The local scouts and cadets have created a garden along here and new woven statues have been erected. It was just like us to indulge our boyish natures and have our pictures taken doing silly things with these statues. Big weans! Then we walked on along the burn side, turned left on the Straiton road, took another left and came along to Dalcairney Farm and Dalcairnie Linn. Here we stopped for lunch.

What a pleasant spot this is overlooking the gorge of the Dalcairnie Burn with the water dropping like hair into the cauldron below, particularly so this spring day with the sun shining through the fresh green of the beeches that overhang the gorge. But the sun wasn’t to last. As we sat, the sky greyed and just as we were preparing to set off again the first spots of rain were felt. Rain jackets were donned just in time for the shower came quickly.

 But the shower passed just as quickly as it had come and by the time we had climbed to the split in the path, one branch to Knockdon in the Girvan valley and one to Barbeth and Craigengillan, it had gone and the sun was re-appearing. We walked on to the ruins of Barbeth before dispensing with the waterproofs for the day.

This section of the walk over the moor is always a delight especially on a day like this with the sun shining and the rain scudding on the wind down the Doon Valley. We savoured this section until we dropped once more to the valley floor and the wooded policies of Cragengillan.

Just beyond the house itself the road spits, one branch to the bridge at the foot of the Ness glen gorge and the other to climb the ill to the Dark Sky Observatory. As we had promised ourselves earlier, we turned upward to the observatory. At first we thought it was shut but a young woman opened the door and welcomed us in despite muddy boots. The young lady (sorry, we forgot to get your name) gave us an interesting and informative insight into the workings of the observatory and gave us all a leaflet to take away. Some of us promised to return for the evening session some clear night.

Wishing our hostess farewell, we left the observatory and mad our way past Fort Carrick, the wild-west looking log fort built by the local scouts and cadets, and down past Tracy’s bench to foot of the Ness Glen Gorge. How we enjoy the walk in this gorge will be understood by regular followers of this blog. Today was no exception. The water rushed and gushed over the rocks echoing from the rocky walls and drowning out any other sounds, the fresh spring greenery overhung the rock walls and spring flowers showed wherever there was soil enough. We can thoroughly recommend this walk to anybody who hasn’t done it. We savoured it today.

But the gorge comes to a sudden end and we found ourselves in the wee wood below the dam of Loch Doon sooner than we hoped. The cars were still parked by the Round House but the young cadets had departed hours before we arrived back, happy with another days superb walking.

FRT was taken in the usual howff in Dalmellinton. We were entertained today by a party of women who were attending the funeral of a friend. This was not the sober and sad funeral expected now-a-days but the women were determined to see their friend off in the way she would have liked – by having a party. Their laughing and ribald suggestions had us entertained for the hour or so we sat there. Is there ever a dull moment in Dalmellington?

      

*The story of how we came to name this bench should be known only to us. Suffice to say that it stood at the top of a wooded slope providing a view down over Craigengillan Estate. It disappeared some years back and we suspected Tracy might have taken it as a souvenir. However the bench has been reinstated minus the graffito that gave it its name.

# For the story of how this came to be called The Promised Land see the information board at the entrance to Craigengillan Estate on the Ayr road just to the west of Dalmellington.

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.

10 February Ness Glen Again

The day dawned crisp and clear. An overnight frost left the sky cloudless and the air still and crystal in its clarity, a perfect day for a walk. And we had the perfect walk for such a day. We would visit one of our old favourites, Ness Glen at Dalmellington, for the fifth time as a group.
Loch Doon looked superb when we gathered at the dam there, dead calm and reflecting the blue sky. Ice round the shore gave a white edge to the water separating it from the yellow and orange winter-dead grasses. The mountains to the south rose yellow and brown into the clear sky. And on the heights, many white patches of snow, still lying from Christmas time, gleamed in the morning sunshine. A magnificent starting point for our walk.
But, we turned our backs to the view and dropped down a path by the face of the dam, a path that would take us into the Ness Glen.
In keeping with our new philosophy of not doing things the same way all the time, we opted to do the walk in the reverse of our usual way, for the first time ever. So, when we reached the first split in the path, we took the higher route along the top of the gorge. The walk through the woods was an absolute pleasure this sunny morning. The ground was frozen solid, making the walking easy. The low winter sun shone through the canopy to dapple the ground, light the trunks of the pale beeches and dark alders and limes, and filigree the frost-rimed branches against the blue sky – an absolute delight. The first snowdrops of the year were spotted, showing white bells through the brown woodland grasses. And we, in light spirits to match the mood of the morning, walked along the top of the gorge to where Tracy’s bench once stood.
There was some dispute about whither this was really the spot of Tracy’s achievement but ‘he who knows’ was adamant and the doubter soon conceded. This was the very spot. Ronnie, the Ness Glen virgin, was told the story of the bench and was equally as taken with it was we all were and looked forward to meeting Tracy, as we all would like to do some day, if only we knew what she looked like. For five minutes we stood there discussing this and enjoying the winter sun on our backs. Then we moved on.
From Tracy’s bench the path dropped to the riverside again, and the estate road for Craigengillan. We turned up the road and approached the house. This is where Holly disgraced herself again, running and barking at the horses being fed by two women and totally ignoring Davie’s call back. When she eventually came to the call she was put on her lead, the ultimate punishment for a dog that always has the freedom to run, and she knew she was in disgrace. Now, with the errant dog on her lead and her tail between her legs, and with Davie’s blood pressure slowly returning to normal, we walked on down the main drive.
Halfway down the drive we took a left turn and came up through the trees onto the open moor. The track – ‘The old turnpike from Newton Stewart’, said the historian - continued to rise, and we continued to rise with it. On a knoll high above the home farm and overlooking the Doon valley, we sat down for coffee. The morning was pleasant, the sun warming and the views good. We settled down and took our time over coffee, a long time over coffee. But this is still February and the air is still cool. Eventually the cold drove us on.
We came down off our knoll, found the old turnpike track again and came to the ruined house of Barbeth. The reason for stopping here has been forgotten by the scribe but stop, we did. Perhaps was just another opportunity to have a blether and take in more of the sun. Or perhaps, which is more likely, it was a call of nature that caused the halt. Whatever the reason, the scribe spent this time taking photos over the Doon and Bogton Loch to Ben Beoch and Lethanhill. But five minutes later we were on our way again
Another stretch of open moor brought us to another ruin, Nether Barbeth. This is where we left the old turnpike, it to run westward and we to turn down towards Dalcairnie.
Dalcairnie Linn is one of Ayrshire’s hidden gems. The Dalcairnie Burn drops thirty feet into a rock-walled caldron surrounded on top by mature beech and ash trees. Today, the falling water was cold and splashes solidified as ice on the boulders strewn at the bottom where the sun failed to reach. And in the gloom of the cauldron the water gathered darkly before rushing out the narrow open end. The spray of the falls was back-lit by the sun and misted the far bank and the bridge above. Ronnie was impressed, as impressed as the rest of us were, and still are by the spectacle of the Linn.
A new path running away from the low end of the caldron needed exploring and remembering our new philosophy, we explored it. It took us down the side of the burn, below Dalcairnie Farm across a field and brought us to tarmac near to Bogton Loch. The first of the deer was spotted by Jimmy who halted everybody including the couple coming in the other direction for a sighting of it. The couple pointed out another three nearer the loch edge. Jimmy, the nature lover, would have spent time observing the deer but the rest walked on and he was forced to follow. That didn’t stop him spotting buzzard soaring in the thermals above Dalnean Hill, nor the kestrel flying over the road to hunt the rushes by the waterside. He does like to see this kind of thing, does Jimmy.
By the time nature had been pointed out to us, well to some of us, we had come along the Dalcairnie tarmac and were approaching the Straiton Road. The path to the Doon footbridge is now complete (see 7/11/07 & 1/10/08) and we took it to come onto Tarmac once again. And once again poor Holly had to be leashed for this is a busy road and narrow. Despite a suggestion that we should take the path to the west of the road where Holly might be freed again, Davie insisted we stick to tarmac. We think he was getting tired and needed the dog to help him along.
However, we weren’t on the road too long, just long enough for us to get to the Muck Bridge and turn onto the burn-side path. Davie asked the question. It was the same question he has asked before and he got the same response as before; no, we didn’t know what this bit of countryside was called. We were informed it was called ‘The Promised Land’ and commemorated an escapade by one McNab during the Wars of Independence. And how did the knowledgeable one know this? He learnt it from the information board we were now approaching. The ability to read is a wonderful thing. Well done Davie.
It was nearing lunch time when we walked up Craigengillan main drive. The pace was quickened by those at the front. They knew that the place chosen for lunch had only one bench and that held only four bodies and only the fleet would get a seat. It was a quick march the four hundred metres or so up the drive to the chosen place. That place was beside the nature ponds under Bellsbank. As we sat and ate, we were passed by many people out to enjoy the sunny day, some we had already seen on the other side of Bogton Loch. Many pleasantries were exchanged for it was a day for such things and we were in no hurry to leave our lunch spot. But some ‘had promises to keep and miles to go before we sleep’. So, somewhat reluctantly we packed up and took to the road again.
The woodland of Bellsbank was every bit as delightful as that of earlier for the sun hadn’t risen too high in the sky and the soft light filtered through the branches. Holly enjoyed herself by finding sticks, more accurately in this instance, tearing up half tree trunks, and cracking the back of knees with them. We enjoyed ourselves just wandering up the tarmac road through the woods.
We left the main drive as it crossed the river for we were to take the track on the east side of the water and come under Bellsbank to the bridge at the foot of the Ness Glen gorge. We almost made a mistake here for some were for taking the high road, the way we always go. But sense prevailed and we turned our steps towards the gorge.
The gorge was as spectacular as usual, another one of Ayrshire’s hidden gems. Not as much water came down the river as the last time we were here but there was sufficient to impress Ronnie. The water roared in the narrower parts and the echoes resounded off the rock walls of the gorge. Icicles hung from the rocks above the path dripping water on to us as we passed. The inner vandal showed in one or two of us who took delight in breaking off these icicles and dropping them into the river. A few fallen trees and landslips threatened to block our path, but somebody with a chainsaw had cleared most of the wood and the landslips were easily climbed round. So, while it is always interesting in the gorge, it presented us with no danger and we came safely through.
The gorge stops abruptly under the face of the dam of Loch Doon and it was here that we rejoined the path we had come down this morning. A hundred metre saunter brought us back to the cars around one.

Fluid Replacement Therapy was taken in the Dalmellington Inn.