Wigtownshire Ramblers-Lendalfoot, joint walk with the Ayr Group,October 2010

It's Saturday the 9th of October 2010,and todays walk is something different.
Today we'll be walking with the South Ayrshire group on a semi-circular walk starting at Sawney Bean's car park and finishing at Lendalfoot.
Read about Sawney Bean here
Sawney Bean

We'd walked this way a couple of years ago.
2008 walk
It's worth taking a look at the profile of a certain gentleman who's with us today!

Todays post will be short on detail since I've still much to do in preparation for next weeks visit to the coast and glens of Antrim.
The press report is also light on detail,but it's what I'll use here.

Praise must go to Slew who did most of the organising of today and took charge from the outset.
Saturday the 9th of October 2010.

53 members of the Wigtownshire and Ayr groups of ramblers met at the Sawney Bean Car Park for todays joint walk.

Introductions were made by one of the walk leaders who was also the main organiser of this event.Although a member of the Wigtownshire group,he is an Ayr resident and often leads walks with the Ayr group.

The group was split alphabetically into two groups of twenty plus walkers with a good mix from both groups.The second walk leader was the secretary of the Ayr group.


The first group with a head start began by heading south along the A77 before turning southwest along the minor road to Little Bennane.Shortly after they took to the farm track leading up to South Ballaird.

The sun shone brightly as they continued eastwards,passing fields of cows with endearing young calves.

By now the fastest walkers of the second group had almost caught up with the tail enders of the first group.On reaching the ruins of the cottages at North Ballaird,a short break was taken to again separate the groups.


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Continuing on they now reached Lochton Hill with it's strange knobbly summit.

Time for group photographs


Steadily gaining height they were now looking down on Pinbraid Fishery.

Continuing on to the lower slopes of Moak Hill they now veered north to the ruins at Lochton.Here still in good condition were the pens,runs and channels of a sheep dipping operation.Farmers and ex farmers explained the process.

We took a bit of a break here...

...the two rambling groups mixed well...

...our Chairwoman used to walk with the Ayr group so she's familiar to quite a few of them.

Now it's a gentle climb to the top.

A steady climb now saw both groups reach the summit of Knockormal Hill where lunch was taken.

It was a pity about the distant haze.

During lunch the walk leaders pointed out notable landmarks.Arran and the islands were obscured by hazy sunshine,with the exception being Ailsa Craig.


After lunch, they made their way down the rolling slopes to Knockormal Farm.
Knockormal is an important geological area having a paradoxical volcanic fault amongst it's rocks.
Anyone interested take a look at this Pdf
Knockormal

Down to Knockormal Farm
Ailsa in sight.

Now with Ailsa Craig in a clear view they made their way to Carleton Castle where the walk leader recounted it's grisly history.This ruined castle is the haunt of Sir John Cathcart,a Scottish Bluebeard.After murdering his first six or seven wives, his final intended victim was May Kennedy from Culzean Castle. She realised his murderous plans and pushed him to his death from the top of the tower or from some nearby cliffs.His screams are still to be heard echoing through the ruins.

Passing Carleton Mains

Reaching Lendalfoot,a gardener known to the walk leader invited the group to look around his beautiful garden.

The majority accepted the invite,and learned something of the use of seaweed in gardening.Apples were sampled and after a round of thanks the group then moved to the seaweed strewn beach.

A couple of inquisitive seals followed our beach walk.

Big hips...and these weren't the only ones !

Still in glorious sunshine the group made their way along the beach to the Varyag Memorial and the end of the walk.

Both groups declared the occasion a great success,and hoped future joint walks would follow.

After starting out the walk with a dodgy right knee, I wondered if I'd get around.Whatever the problem was by the time we'd climbed Knockormal it had dissipated.What a good day it turned out to be.They're no too bad these folks frae Ayr are they?.