Walk 297 -- Caulkerbush to New Abbey

Ages:  Colin was 70 years and 53 days.  Rosemary was 67 years and 196 days.

Weather:  Mostly cloudy, but we did have fleeting glimpses of the sun.  Showers, some very heavy.  There was a cool wind.
Location:  Caulkerbush to New Abbey.
Distance:  13 miles.
Total distance:  3006 miles.
Terrain:  Mostly roads, some of which were quite busy.  A track and a lovely beach.  Flat, mostly.
Tide:  Out.
Rivers:  No.360, Southwick Water.  No.361, Prestonmill Burn.  No.362, Drum Burn.
Ferries:  None.
Piers:  None.
Kissing gates:  None.
Pubs:  None.
‘Historic Scotland’ properties:  No.44, Sweetheart Abbey.  No.45, New Abbey Corn Mill.
Ferris wheels:  None.
Diversions:  None.
How we got there and back:  We were staying in our caravan in Dalbeattie.  This morning we drove to New Abbey and parked by the abbey.  Then we caught a bus to Caulkerbush.
At the end we came to the car park in New Abbey.  We drove straight back to Dalbeattie for our tea and biscuits in the caravan.

Once more we are walking on our grand-daughter’s birthday!  Kelly is 21 today, though kids celebrate their ‘Coming of Age’ at 18 these days — not like in our day.  Kelly is a sensible and mature young lady now.  She has been accepted on a nursing degree course by Sussex University on conditions she gains at least a C grade in the Maths GCSE exam she took earlier this month.  Results are due in August, and the whole family are keeping our fingers crossed for her.  She has a lovely manner, she will make a wonderful nurse!

We started today’s Walk in the hamlet of Caulkerbush, also known as Southwick.  My Canadian cousin, Paul Scott, married a fellow Canadian, Suzanne Dempster, back in the 1970s.  Suzanne’s ancestors came from Southwick, so we took lots of pictures of the village to send to her.

We crossed Southwick Water on a bridge which was originally built in 1789, but demolished and rebuilt in 1999 — funded by Europe, no less.
We passed the grand entrance, with lodge, to Southwick House, and wondered if Suzanne’s ancestors used to work on the estate.  Looking over the wall we could see the main house with its clock tower.

Opposite was the entrance to Mereshead Nature Reserve.  We decided not to go down there even though it was nearer the sea, because it looked as if it was a dead end from the map.  Later, in Southerness, we picked up a leaflet which indicated we may have missed out on four miles of sandy beach by this decision!  (But then, again, we may have come unstuck with barbed wire fences or soft sand dunes impeding our progress — who’s to know?) 

We passed a cottage owned by a timber contractor — we knew that because a sign on the wall told us alongside a beautiful painting of shire horses.  We found out later that this painting, and others we passed along the way, were done by a talented local artist.

Honeysuckle was in full bloom at one of the cottages — I could smell its sweet scent but Colin couldn’t as he seems to have lost his sense of small recently.
We passed what looked like the back entrance to the Southwick estate.  On a blind bend in the road we noticed a mirror which had been put there to enable people emerging from the adjacent driveway to see traffic approaching.  We made use of it to take our 3000-mile photograph because we had reached that milestone, more or less.  Yes, we have walked 3000 miles along the coast from Bognor Regis!  Quite an achievement, and it has only taken us fourteen years!

We came across a seat that was shaped like a dog, so we sat on it to eat our pies.  We had lovely views across to the Solway Firth, and beyond to the Lake District, but it was cold!  You wouldn’t think it was the end of June and officially Summer.  We remembered a geology field day we enjoyed back in March on our own Malvern Hills when we had basked in the sun on the top of Ragged Stone Hill in a heat wave.  The weather’s gone crazy!

We turned into a lane towards Southerness, and passed a ruined tower called ‘Wreaths Tower’ in ancient script on our map.  Apparently it was another tower house built in the 16^th century, quite the fashion in this part of Scotland at that time when influential people had to constantly watch their backs.  For all its grandeur, there’s not much of it left 500 years later.

We came to a scattering of cottages at West Preston.  A man with a Geordie accent hailed us from his cottage.  I thought he said, “You can’t get through!” and was puzzled.  But he had said, “You can get through!” indicating the track past his home leading westwards back towards the nature reserve.

We said we wanted to walk along the beach, but when he started talking about double barbed wire fences, etc, we lost interest!  He thought we were going west, but we said, “No!  We’re going east!”  There seemed to be a lot of misunderstandings, and we came to the conclusion that his mind was a little up in cloud-cuckoo land.

But he did tell us that all the paintings we would be seeing on cottages further down (including the timber merchant’s we had already seen) had been done by a local artist.  We listened politely to his chatter — perhaps he lived on his own and had no one to talk to — and we left him to his musings as soon as we could do so without causing offence.

We continued towards Southerness, passing several cottages with beautifully executed paintings on their walls.  Even the plea to park safely outside a house selling bread, jam, cakes etc was delightfully illustrated.

Further on, a notice on the gate of a field told us the horse inside had been micro-chipped.  Rural crime is on the increase these days, and horses all over the country have been targeted — it is a sad reflection of our times.
The resort of Southerness is caravans, caravans, karaoke bars and chip shops — not our type of place at all.  In the public toilets we found all the locks ripped from the doors and the cisterns held on by chains.  BUT it was clean and everything worked as it should — well done the local Council in the face of such vandalism!

We walked on to the seafront.  There, on the beach, was the old lighthouse with its door open.  So we went inside to find an information room on the ground floor, and a notice inviting us up to the ‘lantern’ room.  We could hear an odd noise coming from above, and it took us a while to realise it was someone sweeping.  We climbed the stairs and the sweeping stopped as we neared the top.  There was the man with the broom, tidying the little ‘lantern’ room which he had set out as a shop.

We read the history of the lighthouse — it was built in 1748 but was too short.  It’s light couldn’t be seen from very far, so in 1791 the top was raised.  It closed in 1931 because it had outlived its useful life due to fewer ships passing along the Solway Firth on their way to Carlisle.  It was bought by its present owners in 1995 as a tourist attraction.

We thought it an odd thing to do, buying a redundant lighthouse, but each to his own.  We didn’t want to purchase any of his knick-knacks, but we felt we had to make a donation by the way he was standing in the corner staring at us!  So we looked at the views, dropped a few coins in the box and made our escape!

We walked eastwards along the top of the shelly beach.  There were wild roses growing there which looked and smelled wonderful — though Colin couldn’t smell them.  As we turned a corner we found we were out of the wind, so we sat on a rock and ate our sarnies.

Round the next corner we came to a wide expanse of sandy beach.  The tide was right out, so we took a short cut straight across.  There were two small streams to cross but they were both very shallow so we kept our feet dry.  We avoided all the pools.  The wind was blowing sand up, but it was behind us pushing us along, so that was no problem either.  What was of more concern to us was the colour of the sky — it was black!  We put on our wet-weather gear so we were ready.

We left the beach by the car park at Powillimount where one of the ponies in a field was wearing a coat to keep it warm.  (It’s the end of June!)  As we walked up the road we got pounded with rain, almost hailstones it fell so fast.

We turned right at a lodge and passed a private cemetery belonging to the Blackett family.  A memorial plaque listed four military members of this family from the 19^th and 20^th centuries, one of whom died in the First World War “of wounds”.  Another plaque told us that the lychgate was made from oak grown on Arbigland — the estate we were walking through.

The rain had eased, but we were being bothered by flies.  Next we passed “John Paul Jones Cottage” which is a museum.  John Paul Jones was born in this cottage in 1747, the son of a gardener on the Arbigland estate.  At the age of thirteen he joined the Navy, and became known eventually as the “Father of the American Navy”.  But the British regarded him as a pirate!  He had a colourful career and died in 1792, at only 45 years old.  We didn’t visit the museum as we hadn’t time — we still had a lot of walking to do.
We turned left through some woods, then right on to a road.  We were still bothered by flies, and couldn’t shake them off until we got to the top of a hill where the wind blew them away.  Relief at last!  But it was still very damp with misty rain in the air.

We walked down into the village of Kirkbean where we crossed a ford to get to the church.  It is an odd looking building, erected in the 18^th century.  Unfortunately it closed two years ago and may be sold with planning permission to turn it into a private house.  I don’t know what will happen to the graveyard in that case.

We sought out the name “Dempster” because my Canadian cousin-in-law’s ancestors are buried here.  We found the grave of David Dempster who died in 1935 aged 73 years — before Suzanne was born so she never knew him.  But she did have relatives in Lockerbie whom she has visited occasionally.
We returned to the village and walked along the stream to the main road junction through a little park.  It was pouring with rain, but we found a delightful little verse on a fence, written by the Kirkbean School in the summer of 2000.  It said: 

I  listen  to  the  river  run

Birds  sing  like  never  before

I  smell  all  sorts  of  flowers

You  could  not  ask  for  more 

We came to the bus shelter and sat in there out of the rain to eat our apples.  The shelter had been decorated by the local schoolchildren back in 1991, and was a lovely mass of colour.  They had painted jungle scenes, and it really cheered us up on such a miserable day.  We do hope that these colourful paintings are not left to go to wrack and ruin — already they are showing signs of neglect.  On the seat in the corner was a copy of today’s newspaper, the Sun, with a house number and road pencilled on it.  We have seen this before, in parts of rural Scotland, newspapers being ‘delivered’ to the village bus shelter for the locals to pick up.  Obviously the recipient of this paper hadn’t yet made his or her way down to the pick-up point today.
Before we left I took some painkillers because a blister on my heel was causing me grief.  Colin has glued a small piece of foam rubber into the hole in the back of my boot, but it doesn’t seem to have done any good.  I have put a large ‘Compeed’ plaster over my heel, but that hasn’t given me much relief either.

We donned our high-viz gear and started down the road.  The rest of this Walk, all the way to New Abbey, was along this fairly busy road.  Traffic was fast and few vehicles slowed down.  In places there were no verges to escape to and one car ‘bipped’ me because I stayed on the road.  I don’t know what he expected me to do!  We had magnificent views across the Solway Firth from our route, and we stopped at a viewpoint to eat our chocolate.  We didn’t really appreciate the magnificence of the mountain called Criffel which rose to nearly six hundred metres to our left because we were too close to it.  When we were further away on subsequent Walks, we were able to see just how much it stands out.

We route-marched on, observed by the local cattle in adjacent fields.  We passed a wooden squirrel gatepost, and then came to another decorated bus shelter.  This one was festooned with children’s self-portraits painted in 1991.  Those ‘children’ would be about thirty now — I wonder what they think of their artwork today!

The children are very active in this area, obviously taking on a lot of local concerns.  As we entered the village of New Abbey we came across an illustrated poster tied to a post which told us: 

Dogs  are  nice

Poo  is  nasty 

Quite right too!  People should clean up after their dogs.

Twisting through the narrow streets past an ‘Eggs for sale’ notice with a toy chicken on top of the post, we came to Sweetheart Abbey where our car was parked. 

That ended Walk no.297, we shall pick up Walk no.298 next time by the entrance to Sweetheart Abbey in New Abbey.  It was five o’clock, so the Walk had taken us eight and a half hours.  It was pouring with rain, so we drove back to the caravan in Dalbeattie for tea and biscuits. 

Sweetheart  Abbey 

We visited Sweetheart Abbey in New Abbey the following day, but we didn’t stay long because it was still pouring with rain and somebody has nicked the roof!

This Cistercian abbey was founded in 1275 by Dervorguilla of Galloway in memory of her husband, John de Balliol.  Built in a deep red local sandstone, it was founded as a daughter house to Dundrennan Abbey.  Because it was a new monastery, it became known as New Abbey.
When Dervorguilla died, her husband’s embalmed heart, in a casket of ivory and silver, was buried alongside her.  The monks renamed the abbey Sweetheart Abbey as a tribute to her.  Both graves have since been lost.

The monks dominated the area for three centuries with their increasingly rich farms and horse-breeding centres — until this abbey went the way of all abbeys at the time of the Reformation. 

Monks’  Mill 

There has probably been a mill in the centre of New Abbey since the 13^th century as part of the Cistercians’ agricultural empire.  But the present buildings were erected in the 18^th century, long after the monks had departed.  Even so, it is known locally as “Monks’ Mill”.  In the 19^th century the building was heightened, and the number of millstones increased from two to three.

It closed in the late 1940s when increased mechanisation made it non-viable, but everything was left in place just as it was.  It is now owned by ‘Historic Scotland’ who only run it occasionally due to the fragile nature of the machinery. 

We had a guided tour of all the levels and found it to be very interesting.  Colin bought some porridge oats, having been persuaded that they were far superior to that bought in any supermarket!  (Certainly a superior price, but he didn’t think they tasted any different.  I don’t like porridge, so I couldn’t give an opinion.)

Walk 296 -- Dalbeattie to Caulkerbush

Ages:  Colin was 70 years and 51 days.  Rosemary was 67 years and 194 days.

Weather:  Torrential showers with a very warm sun between.  Hot and humid.  Later turning breezy and cooler.
Location:  Dalbeattie to Caulkerbush.
Distance:  14 miles.
Total distance:  2993 miles.
Terrain:  Some road-walking, some coastal path.  Slippery (mud) in places, uneven ground in others but some pleasant grass paths.  Could be very undulating — quite a few steps.
Tide:  Out.
Rivers:  No.358, Kirkgunzeon Lane in Dalbeattie.  No.359, Barnhourie Burn at Sandyhills.
Ferries:  None.
Piers:  None.
Kissing gates:  Nos.313 & 314 as we approached Rockcliffe.  Nos.315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 320, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, 330, & 331 on the coastal path.  (19 in all!)
Pubs:  None.
‘Historic Scotland’ properties:  None.
Ferris wheels:  None.
Diversions:  None.
How we got there and back:  Yesterday we towed our caravan from home to Dalbeattie.  This morning Colin drove the car to Caulkerbush where he parked it and caught a bus back to Dalbeattie.
At the end we came to our car parked by the side of the road in Caulkerbush.  We drove straight back to Dalbeattie for our tea and biscuits in the caravan.

Nearly six weeks later, and here we are back in Dalbeattie.  My foot feels fine and I can walk properly, so we are looking forward to a couple of weeks good walking.  But the weather is not co-operating.  As we walked through Dalbeattie to the starting point of today’s Walk (at a crossroads by the end of the causeway near the river) the rain poured on to us.  We passed people scurrying into a church for a funeral, and felt the weather was quite appropriate for such an occasion!
Despite wearing full wet weather gear, we had to stand under a tree at the crossroads for five minutes or more because it was raining so hard.  Hence we were reluctant to take our cameras out, and the photos taken were fewer than we would have liked.  And all of them were taken on Colin’s ‘instant’ camera because it was easier to slip it in and out of our pockets.
About a hundred yards down the road a track forked off next to a triangle of grass.  Some horses were tethered to a post on this piddly bit of greenery, and they looked very miserable in the pouring rain.  From a distance I thought a man in the adjacent bus shelter was their rider, but it turned out he didn’t have anything to do with them, he was just sheltering from the rain.  I really felt for those horses, and hoped they hadn’t been abandoned.
We crossed a stream into a yard, then followed a track through a gate and on towards the sewage works.  There were lots of horses and ponies in adjacent fields — this seems to be a very ‘horsey’ area.  It was muddy underfoot and still pouring with rain.  We came to the sewage works, but inevitably it had a locked gate.  So we went into the field next to it and walked alongside the perimeter fence.  But we were faced with a hedge and a fence at the other end, with trees and dense undergrowth beyond.  There was no way we could have got through.
Disappointed (we had hoped to walk, for a bit, by the river) we retraced our steps to the locked gate, then tried to walk the other way round the sewage works.  This time we were thwarted by a hedge and a double barbed wire fence.  So we had to walk back in a northerly direction which is exactly what we didn’t want to do.  We were inside one of the fields with horses — they came right up to us and were very nosey!  We walked all round their enclosure but couldn’t find any way out to the road.  It was quite muddy and slippery in places, so not easy going.  I was glad I had brought my walking poles.

Then the sun came out — we couldn’t believe the huge amount of blue sky after all that rain!  But it didn’t last, so we whipped out the camera to take the first picture of the day — me with some of the ponies.  It got very hot, so we started to peel off layers — they soon had to go back on!  We admitted defeat, went back to the yard where we were able to exit to the road.  We had wasted a lot of time and made very little progress on our Walk.

We walked down the road to a picnic area where we stopped to eat our pasties.  By then it was raining again, and that remained the pattern of the day though it did remain warm.

Then we continued down the road for about two miles, passing a field with ponies and their very young foals on the way.  It was a relief to get off the main road when we turned on to a minor road to Kippford.  It was still raining.

We walked down to the village where we admired shells set in a wall — but it was too wet to get the camera out, so no photograph.  We turned a corner, and a lovely view of the river opened out before us.  We were at the mouth of the estuary — at last we were back by the sea!  The tide was right out, so most of the boats were stranded on the sand/mud.  We could just make out a cormorant ‘drying’ its wings next to one of the boats — in the rain?  (It was honking down!)

We passed a Millennium ‘Saxon’ Cross, but again too wet to risk getting the camera out.  We wanted to stop and eat our sarnies and there were lots of seats with fabulous views — but all out in the open in the wet.  Frustrating!  But right at the very end was a shelter with dry seats inside facing the sea, it was clean and freshly painted.  Perfect!

 Not only could we have our lunch in comfort, but we could take photographs of the estuary without getting the camera wet.
And then it stopped raining — things were getting better!  It wasn’t clear on the map whether we could get through to the next village, Rockcliffe, at this level down by the shore.  We sincerely hoped we could because otherwise it was retrace our steps back to the main road and walk several miles round.  We asked a local lady who was out walking her dog.  She said she thought we could get through but she believed it was a bit of a steep path.  (Don’t mind that, so long as we don’t have to go back to that wretched road!)

We followed a narrow winding dead-end road almost to its end, and were surprised to be passed by a police car on the way.  Wild roses grew in the hedgerows, they looked and smelled wonderful.  A path led us up through the woods (it wasn’t very steep) and down into Rockcliffe.  We were there!

And what a wonderful sense of humour the people of Rockcliffe have!  We loved the face made out of an old log particularly, but also the other faces and animals which adorned the cottages we passed.

A ‘grotto’ was for the under 5s and over 80s, apparently.  We fit into neither category, but we still loved it!  Then it started raining again which dampened our mood a little.

We walked down to the shore and across a bit of beach.

Up on to the minor road for about a hundred yards, then we took a footpath towards Castlehill Point.  About a quarter of a mile into it we were at last told that this was the coast path to Sandyhills.  It was with some relief that we learned this because, up until that point, we hadn’t known if we would be able to get through.

The path took us to an overgrown shore where I was struck by the variety of colourful stones on the beach.  They were mostly granites, I think, and looked really good glistening in the rain.
Very soon we were directed up through woods, and finally climbed to the top of Castlehill Point.  The rain had petered out by then and we were treated to magnificent views.

I loved the way the tide was edging into the mouth of the estuary, I thought it was quite artistic.  I even videoed it for a minute or two because I wanted to preserve the gentle movement of the waves.  It was soothing to my mood.  Then we noticed a heron standing in the shallows trying to catch a fish.  That just made the picture — pity the light was so flat.

We continued eastwards on the cliff path.  We saw one person in the distance walking his dogs, but he just did a circular round a field and then disappeared in the direction of Rockcliffe.  We actually MET NOBODY.  The rain held off and it got a little breezy.  Visibility remained poor but it did improve slightly.

It was a lovely path, we did enjoy it!  The views were magnificent, and they were occasionally enhanced by bright summer flowers.  We saw the occasional bird, the occasional sandy inlet, we passed a ruined building and a hedge which demonstrated very clearly the direction of the prevailing wind!

Out in the Solway Firth we could just make out an offshore wind farm, but we couldn’t see the Lake District which we knew was out there somewhere.

Colin was thrilled to see a long-eared owl, but didn’t have time to get his camera out before it flew away.  I didn’t see it because I was trailing a bit behind at that point — the path was very up and down.

The cliffs were beautiful too, a lovely russet red colour interspersed with grey.  (A Silurian rock called Wenlock, according to my geology map, with lumps of an intrusive igneous rock called Porphyrite scattered about.)

Eventually we came down steps to a road and we thought we were there — at Sandyhills, I mean.  But of course we weren’t.  We were getting a bit tired and this was wishful thinking.  A close study of the map told us we had only got to Port O’Warren Bay and we had at least another mile to go.  We walked up the road and turned right, still following the coast path signs.
A car passed us, then stopped and the driver put out a tiny ‘Yorkie’ dog.  Then she continued to drive slowly on with the little dog running as fast as its little legs could carry it to try and catch up!  We were open-mouthed!  Then we were passed by a van who had put out a labrador to run in the same way.  Is this the way the local people walk their dogs in these parts?

We turned on to the cliff footpath again, and felt we had had enough of the ‘up & down’ despite the wonderful views.  We were really tired by then, and the path was quite slippery in places because of the earlier rain.  We were very slow over this bit.

But we persevered, and came out in a maze of paths.  There was a distinct lack of ‘Coastal Footpath’ signs, and we kept taking the wrong turning which was irritating in our state of weariness.  But eventually we found a footbridge over the burn at the edge of Sandyhills Beach.  We had made it!
It was a lovely sandy beach to walk across, but it seemed to be owned by the adjacent caravan park.  A prominent notice on the beach warned us of an offshore deep channel which is concealed by the high tide, and of the fast-flowing incoming tide.  Don’t get cut off!  There was also a signpost pointing back the way we had come giving the mileages to all the places we had passed through since Rockcliffe.  We could have done with one of those at the other end — even better, as far back as Kippford!

We exited to the car park where we found a bench to sit on and eat our chocolate.   There we looked at a ‘history board’ which told us about stake nets, saltpan rocks, Barnhourie Mill, RAF bombing targets, etc, etc.  We were really too fatigued to read it all.  We could vaguely see the platform which was the RAF bombing target, but we just wanted to get to the end of the Walk.

We put on our bright yellow waistcoats and trudged the final two and a half miles along the road.  Mostly the sea was out of sight, but occasionally there was a gap in the trees revealing the water below.  On reaching Caulkerbush we came upon our car parked by the side of the road.

That ended Walk no.296, we shall pick up Walk no.297 next time just short of the road junction in Caulkerbush.  It was twenty to eight, so the Walk had taken us nine hours twenty minutes.  We drove straight back to Dalbeattie for our tea and biscuits in the caravan.
My left heel was very uncomfortable, and when I removed my boot I discovered a nasty blister had formed.  Feeling inside my boot I found there was a hole in the lining at that spot!  I shall have to fill it with foam or something.  Those boots had cost me a small fortune — they shouldn’t go like that!