Images of the walk up to the Deil's Back Door

featuring Alan McQ, Allan, Davie C, Davie McM, Dougie, Gus, Ian, Jimmy, Malcolm, Rex and Robert.

(image courtesy of Dougie)

(image courtesy of Dougie)

21 August Muirkirk to Dalblair

Alan, Davie C, Davie Mc, Malcolm, Jimmy & Ronnie

There is a great swathe of wild country to the south of Muirkirk, one that is bounded by the valleys of the rivers Nith, Clyde, Douglas and Ayr. On the whole this is hill and high grassy moorland fit only for sheep and forestry and broken only by the valleys of Glenmuir, Duneaton and Douglas waters with their minor tributaries. It is a vast, pathless waste with only farming and shooters' tracks following the watercourses into cul-de-sacs and with no through roads: none that is except for the long-abandoned Muirkirk to Sanquhar turnpike. It was into this waste and on this old turnpike that we set our feet today.

            The logistics of this through walk were overcome when only five of us turned up in Cumnock with three cars. Two of these were left at Dalblair in the Glenmuir valley and the other carried the five of us to the institute in Muirkirk. That’s where we met Davie Mc. and Holly, they having come the short way from Darvel. It looked as though the forecast for the day was to be fulfilled for the overnight rain and the morning drizzle were gone and there was a brightening in the western sky. We had our hopes high as we came along the front of the institute to find the old Sanquhar road.

            The Muirkirk to Sanquhar turnpike has been described in these pages before so no further description is needed here. We wandered on, enjoying the open moor and the brightening sky. Along past McAdam’s Cairn we strolled, round the Whisky Knowe we ambled and, at the Sanquhar Brig we stopped for a rest from all this exertion. Then came the steep bit! The old road used to be maintained for shooters but now it isn’t and is beginning to deteriorate, particularly towards the head of the pass. The use of recreational quad bikes/motor bikes has taken its toll here and the old road is churned into a quagmire. We had to be careful with our steps. So careful were we looking to our steps that we didn’t notice the weather deteriorating as well. Then we reached the head of the pass and saw the rain coming in from the west.

            So carefully did the turnpike’s surveyor, John Ainslie, plan this next section of the road that it rises and falls no more than four feet in the next two miles or so. This might have been great for the coaches, carts and horses of the eighteenth century but two hundred years of weather and rain have turned this flat section into a bog, a bog cut by the occasional drainage ditch, a bog to trap the unwary and soak the feet. We had to be even more careful of the moor grasses on this section, grasses that still held last night’s rain and soaked the legs even when we managed to avoid the bogs. And that’s where the rain hit us. So now we were absorbing water from above as well as below.

At first the rain was a light drizzle, then a heavier drizzle and by the time we stopped in the Range Cleuch for coffee it was a downpour. We sat as long as was necessary for coffee and to let the rain abate somewhat before climbing out of the cleuch and continuing to follow the old road, hopeful that the rain would clear. And it did.

At the sheep buchts we, well Davie Mc and Jimmy, made a decision. We would normally walk to the south end of the buchts and hang high towards the Deil’s Back Door but the decision made was to cut through the buchts, through the long, wet grasses and thistles and head straight down over the moor to the burn and Glenmuirshaw. Easier said than done!  As has already been said, this is a trackless, pathless waste and the going through lank moor-grasses and hidden potholes and sheughs was tough. Stumbling onward, lifting feet over tussocks of grass or out of hidden ditches, we followed Jimmy who seemed to know where he was going. Seemed! Down into one burn we dropped and climbed out the other side. Then into another we dropped and climbed. Then another. And all the time through the long, tussocky moorland grasses. Rebellion was brewing in the ranks. But Jimmy ‘kenned whit was whit fu’ brawlie’ He had spotted the quad bike tracks, tracks that he hoped would lead us out of the wilderness to the safety of the road-head at Glenmuirshaw. And they did – eventually. Taking Jimmy’s lead, we came down to Glenmuirshaw everyman for himself, Jimmy to the front and Ronnie bringing up the rear. And, just to add to our enjoyment, the rain came again and went again as we did so.

Eventually a drookit and starving Ronnie found the drookit rest waiting by the sheep fanks of Glenmuirshaw looking into the gorge of the Deil's Back Door. But were we to have lunch here? No way! Half a mile down the rough, sandy track was the abandoned steading of Glenmuirshaw. We would lunch there. And, much to Ronnie’s relief, we did.

The farm track into Glenmuirshaw appears to have been abandoned to maintenance as well now for grass and weeds were growing thick and wet along it. And the grass and weeds continued to be there, less thick and less wet though, as we walked to the uninhabited farm of High Dalblair. Then the surface improved and we strode out the few remaining miles to Dalblair enjoying the ease of walking after the slog through the moor and watching the weather improve from the west. Too late for us now though for, by the time the sun came, we were at Dalblair.

We arrived at the two parked cars, piled into them and drove back to Muirkirk.  

Our usual howf for FRT at Muirkirk is was closed so we tried a new place, the Empire Bar on the Glasgow road. We think we will change howfs for this one was much more to our liking.

25 May The Deil’s Back Door

Allan, Jimmy, Johnny, Paul, Rex & Robert

Six of us ventured into the wind and rain today; wind there was for the storm that battered the country on Monday hadn’t quite subsided yet, and the rain that drummed on the car roofs as we drove to Jimmy’s place in Cumnock didn’t bode well for the day. Nevertheless six hardy souls were prepared to venture into the elements. (Peter did turn up at Jimmy’s but had already decided that a walk wasn’t for him today so it was down to the hardy six.) The walk was to be a straightforward in and back on the same route so we might, if so inclined, to walk until we were fed up with the weather and then turn back.
Though the sky remained overcast, rain that fell as we left Jimmy’s had gone by the time we drove the five or so miles to Dalblair where we intended to start and some even began the walk jacketless. We would see how long this would last.
Dalblair is a collection of houses, kennels and a farm stretching in a line beside the Glenmuir Water on the bottom of a narrow valley. What this meant for us of course was that within a few hundred metres we were climbing steeply up that valley side to the high grass moor that lies between Cumnock, Muirkirk and Sanquhar. Fortunately for us there was a road, a farm type road, to take us up the valley side and to within a few hundred metres of our destination of the Deil’s Back Door.
When we cleared the shelter of the valley we met the wind. Through it was on the right shoulder, it was fresh and blew through fleeces. The jacketless weren’t too long in donning them as a wind-cutting layer. And the jackets would stay on for the rest of the day for the wind didn’t let up at all. But, one thing about the wind, it seemed to be keeping the rain at bay – so far.
The Glenmuir Water cuts a deep glen for itself into the high moor. And in the glen, far below us, a herd on a quad bike tested the strength of a rickety wooden bridge thrown over the water. Whether he saw us or not we couldn’t tell for there was no acknowledgement and we could only assume that he was too busy to notice us high above him. We walked on.
According to the one who knows these things, this section of our ‘road’ was built in the late eighteenth century as part of a projected route from Cumnock to Crawfordjohn but was never complete beyond Glenmuirshaw. It has been maintained as a farm road and a shooter’s road ever since. We were glad it was for the moor around us was rough with tussocky grass doogals and the walking there would be extremely tough. But we were on the road and it took us to the abandoned homestead of High Dalblair. Since it was nearly that time and the drystane wall surrounding High Dalblair offered the only shelter from the wind for miles around, we settled down for coffee.

The next abandoned habitation we came to was Glenmuirshaw. After coffee we had continued along the old road splitting into two groups according to pace. And it was the first group who saw the owl as they approached the old farm. By the description given to the birder among us, it would seem to have been a tawny owl but it had disappeared up the ‘shaw’ by the time the second group including our bird man arrived on the scene. Though we waited for a few minutes, there was no sign of the owl returning. We walked on with the agreement to spend a few minutes ‘birding’ for owls on the return journey.
The road runs out at the Shaw but a grass track continues to a sheep fank. It was here that we left the track and followed a quad-bike trail to cross Glenmuir by a rather ancient and precarious looking bridge into the gorge of the Connor Burn. The burn was running high with this month’s rain and doubts were expressed as to whether we would be able to cross it. These doubts were not unfounded for the usual crossing points were all under nearly a foot of fast-flowing, peat-coloured water and we were forced to clamber round the steeper parts of the gorge. Then came a part some fifty metres from the waterfall where we little option but to clamber up the bank out of the gorge – at least three of us did, the other three choosing to have lunch where they could look up the burn to the waterfall known as the Deil’s Back Door. The clamberers took their hint and on the top of the gorge, only looking down into the pool at the base of the falls for the cascade itself was hidden from view, they settled for lunch.
The wild flower display was at its best today, blooms almost glowing under the overcast May sky. Among the usual moorland plants we had already found a clump of white saxifrage of some species in the gorge. Now it was purple orchids, violets and pale mauve mayflower that decorated our lunch stop. Our nature lover attempted to capture them with the camera.

After a few minutes the groups we reunited for the gorge lunchers had decided that clambering up the steep side was the lesser of two evils, preferable to clambering round the slippery rocks above the burn. And with us all together again, we set off on the return journey, a return that was to be the reverse of the outward.
We came back to Glemuirshaw via the lip of the gorge and the rickety bridge and we stopped here for the promised spot of owl hunting. No owls to be seen this time, though Jimmy did find a swallow’s nest complete with half a dozen hungry beaks gaping wide at his waggling finger. And wheatear kept us amused as we made the return along the old road.
The wind that was on our right shoulder on the way out had now swung round and was on the left shoulder on the way back. And the rain that almost threatened only once to come on had stayed away and it was a more comfortable walk back than we had expected.
We were nearly back at Dalblair when we met the herd. As is our usual, we stopped for a blether. This was the chap we saw in the valley this morning. Yes, he had seen us. ‘It’s guid tae see folk oot walkin’, said he. He was impressed that we had been as far as the Deil’s Back Door (I think he was impressed that we had been as far as the Deil’s Back Door at our age!) and was even more impressed when Johnny handed him our blog card. ‘Aye, I’ve got a computer’, said he, ‘but I’ll need to get the weans tae show me how tae work it’. We left him our card anyway.
We lost the wind when we dropped into the valley at Dalblair and a comfortable, slow meander brought us back to the cars around two.

This was a better day than we could have expected given the morning and the walk was easier than some remembered. Though we never got right up to the falls, this was a good day in the wilds of east Ayrshire.

FRT was taken in the Sun in Cumnock.