Cygnus update and other stuff. July 2014

I've been taking a few short walks this week.

Here's a few of the pictures I've taken.

Over on Blairmount Pond  the cygnet's are doing fine.

The ducks get short shrift from the swan parents if they get too close.

A chaffinch poses for a picture.

Flowers bloom in the gardens by the memorial to Randolph,9th Earl of Galloway.

A young family by the riverside.

This one goes walkabout.

Liz Niven poetry

summer cree

river traffic buzzes

mayfly, dragonfly, dipper

ripple-arc surfaces

swallows water-pattern weave

Japanese Knotweed

kimonos the earth

spring cree

Galloway greens again

the river silvered with

white eggs, sharp scent of cucumber

sweet vernal grass

vanillas air

hope buds like catkins

The riverside.

A wren at the Wood of Cree.

The Otter Pool

(That looks like a heron at the far end)

A long zoom gets the picture.

Too late to photograph the otter that put in a fleeting appearance.

A quiet pool by the burn at the Wood of Cree car park.

Zoomed in and enhanced, the Cumbrian Mountains from Baldoon.

Another full zoom towards Workington and Whitehaven.

Yacht sails perhaps (they were moving around), strange how they appear to be floating above the shimmer.

Mochrum Loch.

The Old Place of Mochrum built in 1368.

Home until her death in 2005 of Miss Flora Stuart. president of the Belted Galloway Cattle Society. 

Penningham Forest.

Loch Eldrig 

Bumble bee on a thistle.

More of Loch Eldrig

A Common Blue butterfly.

A thrush in the forest.

Wednesday night's moon.

Wigtownshire Ramblers Baldoon Kilsture January 2013

Saturday the 5th of January

Today's walk is along part of a walk we've done previously.

November 2011 Walk

Scoops November 2011

I'm the report writer for today's walk and as usual it'll be after the images.

I'll be putting a couple of pictures in from Scoop and the Milkmaid, however I'm sure Scoop's own report will also have some more cracking images.

There are seventeen of us today.

It's a potholed Shell Road 6 that gets us to the start point.

Baldoon RSPB Car Park (I haven't been down here since it became a nature reserve)

The new notice board

Baldoon Salt Marshes

Thanks to Scoop for the next two pictures

A boggy crossing at Skellarie

I copied a passage from a History of the Lands and Their Owners in Galloway by Peter Handyside MacKerlie the last time we were here. It's a free download from Archive.org.

Approaching Dunroaming Farm

Happy horses and a not so happy sheep

I like the lizards

Thanks to the 'Milkmaid' for the above picture (she got my good side)

Passing South Balfern Holdings

Kilsture Woods Car Park

Ferns, bracken and eerie pools

Lunchtime

Hazelbank

Scarlet Elf Cup (Sarcoscypha austriaca)
Identified by the 'Milkmaid'

Variable Oysterling (Crepidotus variabilis )

A previous walker's artwork (possibly not the N.E. who's initials were carved in the rock.

A view across Wigtown Bay and Dunroamin Farm

The last stretch

Wigtownshire Ramblers Walk Report

Saturday the 5th of January 2013

A cloudy but mild morning saw seventeen walkers travel down the nicely potholed Shell Road 6 to gather at the new RSPB car park at the Crook of Baldoon for the walk. Two potential new members were warmly welcomed.

The walk began on the muddy flood bank track south alongside Baldoon Sands.

Passing the remains of what was the 'Tracked Target Range' of the former Wigtown R.A.F camp they continued along the salt marshes until they reached the Skellarie Plantation. Here, a swampy burn was crossed to gain access to a grassy field leading up to Dunroamin Farm. Some friendly horses in adjoining fields came up to the fences to say hello. Evidence of the recent poor weather could be seen in the many pools of flood water scattered over the fields. A small but noisy skein of geese passed overhead.

From Dunroaming Farm a tarmac road now led through South Balfern Holdings and up to the B7004 Garlieston Road.

Crossing the road below Turkey Hill, the site of a water reservoir and a 20 m high mobile phone mast, Kilsture Forest was entered. A short stop saw the distribution of a selection of sweeties brought along by the walk leader.

There are two waymarked trails in Kilsture Forest, the Woodpecker Trail and the Deer Trail. Today the Deer Trail was taken. The dominant feature of this mixed woodland today was the moss and fallen leaves covering much of the forest floor. An amateur botanist in the group explained and showed the difference between bracken and fern. The walk continued along the often muddy track, passing reflective almost mystical pools and seeing the occasional flitting of birds. Shortly before reaching the outward loop of the Deer Trail, a lunch break was taken, a lush section of fallen branches provided excellent seating. A deer was spotted hurredly leaping across fallen trees to make a quick getaway from these interlopers.

After lunch the outward point of the walk at Hazelbank was reached. There are a number of Dawn Redwood trees at this loop, but were somehow missed by the group.

The Deer Trail now looped back north towards the car park. Along here were some fascinating fungi on the forest floor which got the cameras clicking. Like miniature red egg cups they were later identified as Scarlet Elf Cup (Sarcoscypha austriaca). More tiny white fungi with an oyster gill were later identified as Variable Oysterling (Crepidotus variabilis ). The former delicious, the latter deadly !

Once back at the forest car park the group now retraced their route back to Dunroaming Farm from where they took a farm track back to Shell Road 6 and back to the walk start point.

To finish an enjoyable and dry day's walking, coffee,tea,scones and other delicacies were enjoyed at the Wigtown House Hotel in the Bayview Nursery.

The next walk, on Saturday the 12th of January is a 8.5 mile circular B walk from Ballantrae to Knockdolian Hill. Meet for car sharing at the Riverside, Newton Stewart at 09.00 am. The Breastworks Car Park, Stranraer at 09.30 am, or the walk start at Ballantrae Shore Car Park (NX082825) at 10.00 am. New members are always welcome.  If going to the walk start or for more information, contact walk leader on 01671 403351.

Wigtownshire Ramblers Kilsture to Wigtown November 2011

Saturday the 5th 0f November.
We're a group of 24 for today's walk.
It's a glorious morning.This will be the first dry walk for ages.

It's a linear walk and some cars have been left in Wigtown.The start point is the Kilsture forest car park on the Garlieston road.
We'll pass the Osprey's nest on today's walk,but because it's supposed to be a secret location I'll give no more away.

After crossing the main road we take the South Balfern farm road.

Some fine looking horses regard us with interest.

At South Balfern the road turns north.
We next pass through the very popular Drumroamin Farm camping and caravan park.There's not many caravans about today,but when I passed through here in the spring/summer it was packed solid.

Now we pass through a couple of green fields to get to the stone track at Skellarie.
Although sheep graze out here on the Cree and Bladnoch estuaries,there's nothing else apart from the stone track which we'll follow north.(there's a feature on the OS map called Skellarie rock, but I don't recall seeing it).

Here's some interesting information on the area we're walking today.
This is from 'History of the Lands and their Owners in Galloway' by Peter Handyside MacKerlie published in 1906,now out of copyright.
As regards the derivation of the names, Baldoon is from baile-duin, the town of the castle or fort. East of North Balfem there is the site of a camp. In Pontes Map, we also find a place called Castelarwick, near to the point opposite to Wigton, with a burn between it and Baldoon Castle. Balfern has been derived from baile-fearna, the town of the alder tree, or fearn, alder trees. The Gaelic fearna, for the alder tree, has certainly been a useful one to topographers to fill up a want which evidently has been felt. North and South Balfern may be rendered the town of the alder tree or trees. Under Carsphairn in our account of the parish, we have entered on the subject concerning the word fern ; but the position of Balfem does not admit of the same solution. Pont spells it Balfairn, and possibly it may be a corruption of the Gaelic baile-fearain, the prefix for a village, etc., and the suffix used to express land in contradistinction to water. At the period the name was given, the low lands of Baldoon wore probably partly under water, as part of the Bay of Wigton. They are close to Balfern. On the shore near Bal-doon, there was a farm called Skyith by Pont. It is now absorbed, but the name, as mentioned elsewhere, is from the Norse skag, ska, or skagi, a low cape or ness, which applies to the position as it was known. Another farm was named Skel-larlie (spelled Skellary by Pont), but which name has also disappeared. There is a rock, however, called Skellarie off the shore of Wigton Bay, where the land is. The name seems to be from the Norse word skeljar, meaning shells.
On the south side of the mouth of the Bladenoch, on that part of the Baldoon property reclaimed from the sea, are the cockle shell beds which Symson (1684) mentions as furnishing incredible quantities thrown up by the sea, and which then, as now, were used over the whole shire for lime, after being burned.

We continue north passing the remains of what was the 'Tracked Target Range' of the former Wigtown R.A.F camp.

We continue up alongside Baldoon Sands.We see quite a number of geese in the air.A Mumuration,Chattering or Flock of Starlings (take your pick of collective nouns) are performing great aerial feats.

After passing the Crook of Baldoon,we stop for lunch.

Stones are arranged to make comfortable seats.

After lunch we retrace our steps to the Crook of Baldoon.This picture makes me think of our government.

'Sheep leading the blind' .

Even more geese flow over as the sheep leave us to make our own way.

At the Crook of Baldoon we turn inland.

The above map is courtesy of Secret Scotland .

We make our way to the Control Tower.

The main runway points towards Cairnsmore of Fleet.

It's a fun look round the control tower.
Lofty didn't volunteer to show a parachute landing.

Along on the main runway myself and Scoop take some interesting pictures.

Our next target,the ruins of Baldoon Castle seem close as the crow flies........

........but we aren't crows.

Eventually we reach Baldoon.
It's haunted by the ghost of Janet Dalrymple.


Here's an extract from Gazetteer of Scottish and Irish Ghosts by Peter Underwood, Souvenir Press, 1973.


The ruins themselves, quiet and deserted and with an air of tragedy about them, are haunted by the ghost of Janet Dalrymple who walks here in the small hours, her white garments splashed with blood. In the middle of the seventeenth century Janet, the eldest daughter of Sir James Dalrymple, was forced by her parents to marry David Dunbar, heir of Sir David Dunbar of Baldoon, although she loved the practically penniless Archibald, third Lord Rutherford. Dutifully, and worn down by her parents' persistent objections to Archibald, Janet at last married David Dunbar in the kirk of Old Luce, two miles from Carsecleugh Castle, the old home of the Dalrymples. Her two brothers took her to the church and both declared later that her hands were cold as ice on that hot summer day.


There are three main versions of the events that gave rise to the haunting. In the first version the bride stabs her bridegroom in the bridal chamber and dies insane; in the second version the bridegroom stabs the bride and is found insane; and in the third version the disappointed Archibald conceals himself in the bridal chamber and escapes through the window into the garden after stabbing the bridegroom. Whatever the facts, Sir Walter Scott immortalised the story in The Bride of Lammermoor and describes how the door of the bridal chamber was broken down after hideous shrieks were heard from within and how the bridegroom was found lying across the threshold, dreadfully wounded and streaming with blood, while the bride crouched in a chimney corner, her white night-gown splashed with blood, grinning and muttering and quite insane. She never recovered and died shortly afterwards, on September 12th, 1669.


Dunbar is said to have recovered from his wounds but refused to discuss the events of his bridal night. In due course he married a daughter of the seventh Earl of Eglinton and eventually died from a fall from his horse in 1682. Archibald, Janet's true lover, never married and died in 1685. A macabre touch is added to the story by local tradition that it was the Devil who nearly killed Dunbar and who tormented poor Janet until she was demented. Whatever the events of the night, they seem to have left their mark here forever and there are some who claim to have seen the sad and awesome ghost of Janet wandering pathetically among the quiet ruins, most often on the anniversary of her death.

It's too early in the day to catch sight of Janet, but I believe this is a popular venue for ghosthunters.

Leaving Baldoon we pass cows housed for the winter and looking comfortable.

Now we make our way to Bladnoch.The river is very reflective over to the distillery.

After passing through the village we make our way back to the rivers edge to access the railway track.

There's junk along much of the path.Perhaps it isn't junk to the owners !

As we pass Maidland Pond,Wigtown comes into sight.

Emerging onto Harbour road we can see a number of swans on the RSPB ponds.

Now we regain the old railway path taking us past the site of the Martyr's Stake ,a monument to the two women member of the Covenanters who were drowned deliberately here.

A heron ignores our passing.

A short climb up the church brae gets us to the cars and the walk finish.

After reclaiming the vehicles from Kilsture, coffee,tea,scones and other delicacies were enjoyed at the Wigtown House Hotel. 

A very nice walk indeed.