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.

Route - De'il's Back Door

Distance: 15.4 km

17 June The De’il’s Back Door – Third Visit

Since it takes eight pints of water to make one pint of whisky, I console myself by thinking ‘The more it rains, the more whisky they can make '.

Jimmy’s philosophy for life

The rain came in the night and put an end to the dry spell we’ve enjoyed over the last few weeks. When we gathered at Jimmy’s in Cumnock, it still poured down and the forecast was for a wet day. But our weatherman had consulted his seaweed and predicted that the rain would go by eleven o’clock so, while not fully trusting our weatherman’s prediction and despite Allan’s protestations, we set off for Muirkirk and the De’il’s Back Door. (We felt this was a far better alternative to looking at more of Robert’s holiday photos)
Logistical problems were overcome the same way we overcame them on our first visit to the Back Door (26/4/06) by leaving two cars at Dalblair, though we had to prevail on Jimmy’s good lady to get all of us to the walker’s car park at Kaimes, Muirkirk.
Still the rain came down.
Waterproofs were worn from the outset and we set off, heads down, into the weather. The rain came down and a wind blew but it wasn’t particularly cold and sweat built up under the waterproofs with nowhere for it to evaporate. It was to be a wet day one way or the other.
We took the old Sanquhar turnpike road, past McAdam’s Cairn and the Whisky Knowe, to the Sanquhar Brig, Rex and Robert setting a good pace. There was to be no hanging about to examine silly things like cairns, flowers or stones today. And no looking back for the view either for in that direction blew the wind. We walked on with heads down.
Still the rain came down.
But the fast pair did ease the pace as the slope steepened and the track climbed to the highest point of the day at the Black Gitter but there was still no halt to look at things and the only time we looked back was to check on those bringing up the rear. We waited for them at the gate at the Gitter. ‘The walk hasn’t been too bad so far’, said the novice.
‘Just wait till we get to the dougals’, said Rex.
It was now ten past eleven and still the rain came down. And the wind had freshened as well. We were beginning to loose faith in our weatherman.
The old road degenerates after the fence. Having been abandoned some two hundred years ago, it is now being claimed by the bog around it. Normally this is continuous sphagnum swamp but the long sunny spell had dried it so that, despite the day’s rain, some relief could be found in drier sections. Yet, we had to take time to loup the many sheughs that cut across our path. And by dint of walking and jumping and plunging through bogs, we came to the Ra’ens Cleugh.
Coffee was called for, for it was now well after half past eleven, and in as much shelter as a grassy bank could provide, we sat down for a bite. And still the rain came down.
‘That was slightly harder’, said the novice, ‘but not as tough as I expected’.
‘We’re not at the dougals yet’, said Rex and passed round the Aussie soft liquorice before comment could be made.

We left the old road at the sheep bucht and took to the open hill. One thing we have come to expect of a Jimmy walk is that, it may not involve a lot of climbing, but it is never easy. This section was tough. Feet had to be lifted high over the tussocks, reeds had to be skirted round and sheughs had to be louped. Every step was a different length and at a different height. It was tough. The group split into two, Rex, Jimmy and Johnny making up the first and the rest taking a sensible pace, as we contoured the flank of Connor Hill.
And still the rain came down.
Only two things took the mind off tiring legs. The first was witnessed by all. A deer, some distance away, stopped its grazing to watch and listen to the noisy bunch of men getting too close to it before bounding effortlessly over the stuff through which we struggled. We envied it its grace and energy.
Only Jimmy and Johnny saw the second thing. The skylark showed exactly where her nest was by flying off in a panic as a foot got too close to her. And in the nest were two mottled brown eggs. ‘A second clutch, at this time of year’, said the expert.
They left the nest to allow the adult to return and tried to catch up with Rex who had marched on oblivious to the pair nosing about in the grass. The rest trailed on behind.
Rex was carried away by his enthusiasm for the rough stuff and overshot the gully we should have gone down. The rest followed him only to have to turn back over the flank of the hill to find the top of the stone-chute that dropped us down to the base of the waterfall known to the locals as the De’il’s Back Door.
And the rain stopped!
The rain stopped and the wind dropped. Lunch was called. We settled down on a grassy island in the burn to eat our lunchtime sandwiches. The novice could contain his curiosity no longer. ‘OK, Rex’, said he, ‘What on earth are dougals?’ Rex let him in on another piece of Ooter-speak. ‘They are the tussocks of grass we have just come through.’ Only in the short upland summer do these show green shoots. For most of the year they are covered in long, brown trailers of dead grass, each tussock looking for all the world like the dog, Dougal, from ‘The Magic Roundabout’. Hence, Rex christened them ‘dougals’, and dougals they have remained.
The rain had stopped, the wind had dropped and the midges took full advantage. Fresh blood was on their lunch menu. They bit cruelly and bit often. And there were many of them. We never thought that we would wish for the rain to come again. Now we did. The rain did come again, but not until the midges had driven us away from our island and down the burn towards Glenmuirshaw.
We had to cross the burn to avoid the Connor Crags that dropped directly into the water. Once across we decided to stay on this bank rather than risk watery accidents. (Remember, we had Paul and Jimmy with us.) This was a bad move. Two rocky outcrops that hung above the burn had to be negotiated. The adventurous hung close to the burn and swung precariously round the rock. Those who think themselves more sensible opted for a higher route and a scrambled descent. They thought this would be the safer route. More fool them! It was on the second descent it happened.
Allan, spread like a stranded crab, searching for a foothold on the wet rock with his left foot, lost traction with his right. Down he came, the full four feet to the grassy ledge above the burn. Fortunately, he stopped there but not before bashing himself about a bit on rocky spurs. With nothing but a large graze on his arm to show for his misadventure, a rather paler and quieter Allan walked down the side of the burn. But he had recovered his colour by the time we came to the bridge at the sheep fanks at Glenmuirshaw.
And still the rain came down.
At Glenmuirshaw, we picked up the track that we would stay on for the rest of the walk. The abandoned farmstead of Glenmuirshaw had to be examined, mainly to get us out of the rain for a while but the rain hardly let up at all so we went back out into it and continued along the road. It was now a four-mile walk along the road to Dalblair.
And still the rain came down.
Three miles form Glenmuirshaw there was a brightening in the sky and a cooling in the wind. Was this an indication of the warm front passing through and bringing and end to the rain? Yes, it was, but by the time the rain went, we were only half a mile from the end of the walk, a dry half-mile for a change.

Somewhere else in these annals, it has been said that some of our walks will be remembered for a long time while others have probably been forgotten about already. Today’s walk might have fallen into the second category – it ticked all the boxes – but, for some reason, was quite enjoyable. Or is your scribe showing his masochistic tendencies again?

We returned to the Coach House Inn in Muirkirk for a pleasantly dry, warm and convivial FRT today.

17th June 2009: The Deil's Back Door

Lunch at the Back Door

Allan's Trophy

The Twins

Refreshments at the Coach House Inn.