Walk 278 -- Dunoon to Largs

Ages:  Colin was 69 years and 59 days.  Rosemary was 66 years and 201 days.

Weather:  Heavy rain at first.  It did dry up, but it remained very grey with the occasional spitting.  Only at the very end of the Walk did it turn fine.

Location:  Dunoon, via McInroy’s Point, to Largs.

Distance:  17 miles, 2½ of which were ferry.

Total distance:  2700 miles.  (Three fifths of the entire journey!)

Terrain:  A lot of road-walking with much car-dodging.  Near the beginning of the Walk we took a nice path which diverted from the road for a couple of miles.  Flat.

Tide:  Coming in.

Rivers:  No.328, Firth of Clyde.  No.329, Kip Water.  No.330, Kelly Burn.  No.331, Skelmorlie Water.  No. 332, Noddsdale Water.

Ferries:  No.22, across the Clyde from Hunter’s Quay to McInroy’s Point.  Fare £4.00 each.

Piers:  None.

Kissing gates:  None.

Pubs:  ‘Charley Smith’s’ in Largs where Colin enjoyed Houston’s ‘Tartan Terror’ (the only real ale they had on) and I had a shandy.

‘Historic Scotland’ properties:  None.

Ferris wheels:  None.

Diversions:  None.

How we got there and back:  We were touring south-west Scotland with our caravan.  Yesterday we moved the ’van from Dunoon to Prestwick, using the ferry from Hunter’s Quay to McInroy’s Point.  This morning we drove to Largs in sheeting rain, parked near the pier in pelting rain, caught the 10am bus to McInroy’s Point where we alighted in driving rain.  We must be mad!

At the end it had stopped raining!  We finished the Walk by the pier and went to the pub which was nearby.  Then we returned to the car and had our tea and biscuits before driving back to Prestwick.

We didn’t much like our caravan site at the end of Prestwick Airport’s runway.  We made enquiries at a much nicer site in Ayr, but they were fully booked for the coming weekend.  We then realised just how tired we were, so we decided to go home the following day.  The journey was 130 miles less than the journey coming up — we’re getting nearer to home!

We crossed the Firth of Clyde on the ferry yesterday, towing our caravan to Prestwick which is now our base.  So today’s Walk was only fourteen miles of actual walking, from McInroy’s Point on the outskirts of Gourock to Largs.  It was very wet this morning, particularly as we began the Walk, so photos are a bit intermittent.

We took the first few pictures through the window of the ferry terminal building where we had alighted from the bus.  Then we braved the elements and walked along the pavement in a downpour.  About a mile down the road we came to a bus shelter, so we sat in there to eat our pies.  The rain started to ease off, and eventually stopped — well, more or less.

We turned a corner and passed a small lighthouse.  Approximately half a mile further on we were able to turn off the road on to a cyclepath — what a relief!  It was lined with trees, and they made a very pretty frame as we looked out across the Firth of Clyde towards Dunoon.

We came to a large and pleasant picnic area, but were shocked to discover that the robust wooden picnic tables had been ruined by disposable barbecues.  This was despite the fact that each table had a fireproof plate at one end on which to put such a barbecue.  The damage had obviously been done deliberately.  I can never understand vandalism of this type, what do the perpetrators get out of it?

We were grateful for the portaloos which were clean and in good order, then we continued along the cyclepath which clung to the coast around a muddy bay.

We passed a shack nestling on a rock at the top of the beach.  It was enclosed by fencing and even had a chimney.  It didn’t look a very nice place to live but we strongly suspected someone did, although we didn’t see anybody there.

Past the bay the path led us through a pleasant wood — still a bit drippy on such a dreary day but it was a good path all the way through.

We came out at some brand-new houses — you know, those three storey ‘town-houses’ they’re fond of building these days overlooking any place where there is a bit of muddy water.  They looked like ‘Legoland’!  Neither of us could bear to live in such a place.  That is where the cyclepath went inland, but we decided to stick to the coast for a bit longer.

We came to a marina, and tried to follow the beach.  We should have looked at the map more carefully (something I find difficult to do when I’m tired) because there was no way we could continue further south from there without crossing the entrance to the marina which is a river called Kip Water.  We lost the path and got stuck behind a bank.  We tried to follow an unofficial path over the bank, but it was very overgrown and extremely wet in the long undergrowth — fortunately we were both still wearing our overtrousers.

Eventually we came to the concreted edge of the marina, but we had to walk three-quarters of the way round it before exiting on to the road through the main gate.

Back at the coast, we came to another picnic area by the local War Memorial.  It was next to a layby and even had loos — real ones, not portaloos this time.  Well done the Local Authority!  So many Councils underestimate the importance of clean and free public toilets in order to attract visitors, with their spending money, to an area.
We sat at a table to eat our lunch because, by now, the rain had stopped.  We couldn’t believe it when we were pestered by midges!  We thought we had left those little irritants far behind in the Highlands.  I’m sure these ones lay in wait in a nearby bush until we had just settled down — then they launched their attack!  So we had to eat up quickly and move on.

We had to walk beside the main road past the old power station.  After that we were able to turn off through housing estates, and then descend steeply to Wemyss Bay seafront.  It still kept raining off and on, so we didn’t know where we were with the wet-weather gear, and few photographs were taken.  I managed to take a quick snap of a weathered red rock on the beach.  The quiet seafront road led us back to the main road, there was no getting away from it.  

I went into route-march mode and Colin stopped to faff, so I was way ahead of him.  As we approached Wemyss Bay station, I realised we could turn off the road and walk inside the linear station car park.  So I sat on a low fence to wait for Colin to catch up in case he didn’t see that I had turned in there.  He didn’t, and I had to call him back as he went marching past.

We went inside the station and found a bench to sit on.  We were hot, and had decided to remove our kags and overtrousers because the rain had sort-of stopped — but not quite which was annoying.  As we were doing this, we realised that the station building is quite spectacular, especially the roof.  The platforms are curved and so is the amazing roof.

A wide curved corridor leads down to the ferry — which crosses to Rothesay on the Isle of Bute — and the magnificent roof follows the curve.  Curves are so much more pleasing to the eye than straight lines.  It all looked spruced up and fresh.  Sure enough we found a notice which told us this station had been restored in 1994.  This magnificent building had been erected in 1903 to replace the original station built in 1865.  And it had won a Brunel Award — from Washington DC!

Wemyss Bay Station is easily the most magnificent station building I have ever seen!  I loved it!

We had a look at the ferry, which was loading up, and later we saw it leave to cross the water.

(The swans we saw didn’t need a ferry, they could make their own way across if they so wished.)

Now we were on the main road for a good many miles, all the way to Largs in fact.  We weren’t very happy about that.  We saw signposts for the ‘Argyll Coastal Path’ but they pointed uphill and inland, well away from the coast.  So we ignored them, we had seen how close the contours were on the map!

We walked through Skelmorlie where we thankfully found a seat to rest and eat our apples.  Colin admitted he was flagging, I think he was feeling the mugginess of the weather.  He reckoned the apple revived him, so we continued.  Perhaps he was a bit dehydrated, he doesn’t drink enough water on these Walks.

Out of Skelmorlie the pavement came to an end, so we donned our bright yellow vests.  We had to go ‘car-dodging’ for miles and miles, which we didn’t enjoy at all.  The road was very busy, constant traffic in both directions.  It was particularly difficult where there was a fence because we had nowhere to go.  The road was fairly narrow so the traffic couldn’t pull out to pass us, and much of it was loathe to slow down.  We dreaded it every time a bus came along.

We came to a layby where there was a caravan parked.  No towing car, and by a busy road like that.  It looked in good nick — a better state than ours and probably younger (ours is now 19 years old).  We couldn’t understand why someone would leave a caravan in such a place.  It had its curtains drawn but it had no hitch-lock nor wheel clamp, so anyone could have hitched it up and stolen it.  Perhaps it was already stolen and had been dumped, who knows?

The rocks on our right hand side were interesting, but we didn’t want to keep stopping once we were in ‘march-mode’, nor was it a good idea to pause and take photos with all that traffic speeding past.

After many miles, we came to a gap in the fence which was filled with a very old seat facing the sea.  We sat on it with relief and ate our chocolate.  An almost illegible plaque told us that this bench was “the property of ‘Largs Visitors Society’ in 1897”.  Thank you!  Presumably in your day you didn’t have constant traffic whizzing past a couple of feet from your backside whilst sitting on this bench admiring the view.  Nevertheless, we were very grateful for the tiny sanctuary it offered 114 years later!  Further on we passed another such bench, but that one had collapsed — old age!

We resumed car-dodging, but made slow progress.  We had to stop and press ourselves into the fence every time a vehicle passed, which was most of the time.  We were heartily relieved to reach Largs where a pavement appeared and we were able to relax and put our yellow vests away.

We crossed the river, then took a path alongside it down to the seafront.  From there we were on a nice wide seaside promenade for the rest of the Walk.

Largs is a real seaside town, the first since we can’t remember when.  The rain had stopped completely, and even the sun was out at intervals.  Everything looked bright and jolly, so different from the dark, grey and wet town we had parked in this morning before catching the bus to McInroy’s Point.

We watched a ferry go out to Great Cumbrae Island.  This morning ‘The Waverley’ had been moored in Largs, but we were unable to photograph it in the pelting rain.  By this evening it had gone, which was a disappointment.

There were kiddies’ rides and candy shops open this evening, and a feeling of bonhomie in the air.

We dumped our rucksacks etc in the car as we passed, and walked as far as the ferry terminal.

That ended Walk no.278, we shall pick up Walk no.279 next time by the ferry terminal in Largs.  It was six o’clock, so the Walk had taken us seven and a half hours.  We went to the pub which was nearby, and afterwards we returned to the car for our tea and biscuits. Then we drove back to Prestwick.

We didn’t much like our caravan site at the end of Prestwick Airport’s runway.  Yesterday we made enquiries at a much nicer site in Ayr, but they were fully booked for the coming weekend.  Today we realised just how tired we were, so we decided to go home tomorrow.  The journey was 130 miles less than the journey coming up — we’re getting nearer to home! 

Walk 277 -- Auchenbreck to Dunoon

Ages:  Colin was 69 years and 57 days.  Rosemary was 66 years and 199 days.

Weather:  Sunny and very hot.  A cooling breeze when we were out in the open.
Location:  Auchenbreck to Dunoon.
Distance:  14 miles.
Total distance:  2683 miles.
Terrain:  All road-walking.  Quite undulating.
Tide:  Mostly in.
Rivers:  No.324, Auchenbreck Burn.  No.325, Balliemore Burn.  No.326, Glentarsan Burn.    No.327, Little Eachaig River.
Ferries:  None.
Piers: None.
Kissing gates:  None.
Pubs:  None.
‘Historic Scotland’ properties:  None.
Ferris wheels:  None.
Diversions:  None.
How we got there and back:  We were touring south-west Scotland with our caravan, and we were staying near Dunoon.  This morning Colin drove to Hunter’s Quay where he parked the car and caught a bus back to the caravan site.  Then we both walked a mile down the road to a bus stop where we could catch the one and only bus to Auchenbreck.  (It didn’t go past Hunter’s Quay.)  We alighted at the road junction where we finished the last Walk.
At the end, we walked past the car to the ferry terminal because we wanted to finish the Walk on the slipway.  Then we returned to the car and drove straight back to the caravan to have our tea in comfort.

We trudged away from the midges at the road junction as quickly as we could.  It was a very hot day, and we didn’t get any pleasure out of walking uphill on a road well away from the coast.  There was no breeze at all, but we had plenty of water with us to stop ourselves getting dehydrated.  The sun was behind a misty cloud at first, which was a slight relief. 

We were slightly amused to learn we were on a weak road — we felt pretty weak ourselves in this hot weather.  We knew that today would be a pretty dull Walk compared with the last one, so we made the most of the colourful wild flowers we passed on the way in an effort to keep our spirits up.

 

We decided to have our elevenses at exactly eleven o’clock, so as our watches reached that hour we sat on a roadside bank to eat our pies.  The sun came out as we did so, and it was cruel!  We both hate the heat — a holiday in a hot country lying on the beach in the sun is our idea of hell!

It was much too hot to walk today, but having gone to the expense of bringing our caravan so far from home we really had no choice.  So we just got on with it.  At least the next bit was downhill.

We descended towards Loch Striven where we had good views across this narrow loch.  It is surrounded by wooded mountains, and there were a few rocky outcrops we could see above our heads.  According to my geology map, the rocks in this area are mainly metamorphic — a quartz-mica-schist.  (I wish I knew more about the complexities of metamorphic rocks.)  We could see a pipeline coming down the mountain just across the loch, and on the OS map is marked ‘Striven Power Station’.  We assumed it is a hydro-electric plant, though a very small one.

We crossed Balliemore Burn at the top of the loch, the northernmost point of this walking session.  Ever since we were at Southend on the southernmost tip of the Kintyre Peninsula, we have been walking north.  It was with relief that we started walking south after crossing the bridge.

We were happy that our route would now be almost due south for a good many miles hence.  Nearby was a paper notice pinned to a post warning about the danger of ‘Naturally occurring algal poison’.  It went on to say, “Mussels / Cockles / Periwinkles etc from this area as from the date of this notice should not be eaten.  They may be contaminated and therefore pose a risk to health.”  We couldn’t read the date of the notice because it had been smudged by the rain.  This warning didn’t concern us, but must be devastating to local people who have been harvesting these shellfish for generations.  We really felt for them, and wondered whether the power station had had anything to do with this algal bloom.

About a mile down the road we passed the entrance to the Ardtaraig Estate.  This was significant because we should have turned off the road here and followed the driveway.  According to the OS map this would have turned into a track, then further on into a mountain-footpath across the rocks.  After many miles we would have come out on to a ‘yellow’ road which leads round the end of the peninsula to Dunoon.  But after our experiences on Walks 237, 238, 245, and on Walks 271 and the last Walk—276 when we were on way-marked footpaths, we said we wouldn’t risk any more mountain footpaths in Scotland.  Besides, after Walk 245 when we had been so badly frightened, we made up Additional Rule No.16 which specifically forbade us to follow such a path!  So we continued on the road, dull as it was.

The road was busier than we thought it would be, which was a dampener of our spirits.  There were also a few cyclists, but we met no other walkers.  It was very hot as we ascended to the dams.  On the way up we sat on a bank in the shade to eat our sarnies.

A reservoir has been formed between the mountains, the water trapped by two dams.  We came to the larger of the dams first, called ‘Tarsan Dam’.  A little further on we came to another paper warning notice pinned to a post.  This one told us, “DANGER  Mud is sticky and deep.  Be very careful when fishing from bank or when wading.”  We wondered whether anybody had come to a sticky end whilst fishing in the reservoir, causing the authorities to put up this notice.

We passed the second dam which was smaller, then we descended through a glen.  We seemed to be making good progress timewise — the Walk was a bit tedious so there was little to distract us.  We noted the odd flower and butterfly.  We glanced at the rock outcrop by the side of the road (metamorphic rock again, that quartz-mica-schist) and we passed an awful lot of conifer woods with their regimental trunks reaching for the sky.   

But it was really too hot to be out walking — Mad Dogs and Englishmen……!

We came to the village of Clachaig which is little more than half a dozen cottages lining the road.  But it also boasts a bus stop which we had noticed the other day — that’s how we cottoned on to the fact that there was a bus service we could use today.  We had noticed it when travelling to and from the previous Walk — the website ‘Traveline’ had told us there was no bus route along this road, and we had planned to thumb a lift which is something we only do in desperation, when there is no other way.

We sat on a wall in the shade to eat our apples, but the midges found us almost immediately so we had to walk on quickly.  We continued downhill until we crossed the Little Eachaig River, then there was a little bit of ‘up’ before we descended to the main road into Dunoon.  Colin was really feeling the heat by now and I was way ahead of him.  So when I reached the bus stop where we had caught the bus this morning, I sat on the seat to wait for him.  We then walked together to a picnic area at the end of Holy Loch where we sat and ate our chocolate.   We idly watched two children play with their Dad on the strip of stony beach.

Holy Loch opens out into the Firth of Clyde, and we felt we had just entered suburbia.  After all that wildness of north-west Scotland, this was quite a shock to the system!  The toilets by the bus stop were locked up, houses we passed were derelict and vandalised — two of them had been destroyed by fire.  What sort of a place were we coming to?

There was regeneration happening on the beach — well, the area was being flattened — and I had to take a picture of a pretty row of cottages to show not all was doom and desperation.  But I must admit we were both shocked.  It seemed so sudden after the rural bliss we had been walking through for so many miles.

A floral trough welcomed us to Sandbank, but even this had a ‘wild’ look.  (What made it worse was that we were staying at a very run-down caravan site along the road.  The pity of it is that the site is secluded, roomy and green.  It has so much potential, but it has been left to go to seed.  The facilities are diabolical, and neither of us have dared to take a shower — we don’t trust the electrics!  Perhaps that’s why we feel so hot and sticky.  We can’t wait to pack up and leave on the morrow.)

We passed a man who made that age-old skiing ‘joke’ about my walking poles, which annoyed me intensely.  I expect he thought he was being hilarious and original, but if he knew how many times I have heard that stupid remark……..

It was very much a working beach as we turned into the waterfront road towards Hunter’s Quay.  Now we were by the open loch, we had a bit of a breeze which made us both feel a lot brighter.  We were intrigued by some turf-covered floating sheds in the loch, alongside a few snazzy yachts.  Ducks were floating along in the current and fisherfolk were busy along the shore with a backdrop of mountains, so perhaps all was not lost.

We could see ferries criss-crossing from Hunter’s Quay to McInroy’s Point on the edge of Gourock.

We passed the War Memorial on the corner, and shortly afterwards came to our car parked by the side of the road.  We put our rucksacks and poles inside before walking on to the ferry terminal at Hunter’s Quay.

That ended Walk no.277, we shall pick up Walk no.278 next time at McInroy’s Point, across the Firth of Clyde.  It was ten past five, so the Walk had taken us seven hours.

We had a chat with a man directing traffic on to and off the ferries.  He told us that if we bought our tickets tomorrow at a garage up the road rather than on the ferry we could save ourselves a lot of money.  A new firm has recently opened this vehicle ferry from Hunter’s Quay to McInroy’s Point, and they are very much cheaper, more frequent and more efficient than CalMac who have operated the ferry from Dunoon to Gourock for decades.  In fact, so successful has been this new crossing that CalMac have closed their ferry to vehicles — it is for cyclists and pedestrians only as of this week. 
We returned to the car and drove back to our grotty caravan site where we could have our tea in the comfort of our own van.  It was good to finish the Walk at a reasonably early-ish hour, and good to feel we can leave this wretched place in the morning for pastures new — and further south!