The Glebe Blog: Water of Tig

Tuesday the 15th of January

I got up to a very hard frost this morning.

I'm heading up to South Ayrshire for a recce with three others.

The roads were very slippery, but once I was north of Barrhill it felt like I'd gone into another country.........definitely a few degrees hotter.

I'd walked Glen Tig with Slew and the Ayr and District Ramblers before. I thought it was four years ago, but I see it's less than three years ago..............what a memory,

May 2010 walk with Ayr and District Ramblers

Scoop, The Teacher and Spike are my companions today

The first thing to catch our attention was this deer that couldn't make it's mind up which way to go.
We're following the 'Water of Tig' through Craig Wood.

It was quite wet and muddy underfoot, but we soon made our way to the grain mill ruins.

This looks like it's been a wonderful piece of engineering. If anyone who knows more about this ruined mill reads this post, please let me know and I'll update the information.

All that I can find about a mill in Glentig is on this Wikipedia Page about Dunduff Castle near Dunure where it mentions " the 10 Merk lands of Glentig, and it's grain mill"

There has been an old road along here at one time. I don't think the Ayr Ramblers have been back.

There were stretches of half decent paths, but then we'd run out of path, or trees and brambles would slow us down. At times we'd have to climb up steep slippery slopes to get past obstacles.

Some of the scenery however was gorgeous. Craig Wood is an SSSI (a site of special scientific interest)

The sun shining on the Water of Tig would often make a sparkling spectacle.

I could have taken a lot more colourful fungi, but at the next batch I was climbing out of a thorny hole so needed two hands free. This could be possibly be a walk for the hard core walkers of our group, but I think we'd need a long dry summer to consider it.

There was what appeared to be a reasonable track on the other side of the river and if this bridge had been complete the going might have been easier. We were having fun though.

River froth often looks quite revolting, this looked like freshly made candy floss.

Eventually we came out into a bit of open country.

At this point the walk with the Ayr group had left the river and climbed up the green fields to begin the return over farming country. My idea was to continue to reach Pedens Mount and begin the return from there.

Another pair of deer wondered if we were a threat.

After studying us closely they decided we were and headed off up the hill.

We continued through the fields but then came to another wooded area alongside the river.

I'd wrongly thought that this was a short section of wood, but it turned out to be longer and just as hazardous as Craig Wood had been.

Eventually we emerge on the hillside above the Meraddie burn.

Time for a lunch break and a rethink.

The snow covered Galloway Hills looked beautiful.

During lunch the plan changed.

Since we were way behind time-wise, we agreed we'd go no further along Glen Tig, but follow the Merradie burn up to it's source at Loch Meraddie.

Following the Merradie burn we had some fun with shadows.

We heard the hum of quad bikes.

Two quad bikes and two working dogs were rounding up around a hundred sheep.

It was brilliant to watch, but into the sun.

Once the dogs had manoeuvred the sheep through an open gate, the farmer came over to see us with a warning about continuing up to Loch Merradie. 'If we got into the next field but one we'd probably never be seen again' It was just a quagmire he informed us.

We were welcome to walk through his farmyard at Bellimore on Tig.

So now it would be track and road back to the cars. The Galloway hills looked magnificent.

She may be vertically challenged, but Scoop still has a fair stride.

Scoop was ready to photograph this flock of starlings swooping as we shouted and banged to make them fly away. We failed miserably, they mostly ignored us.

More inquisitive onlookers.

This is one of the collies we'd seen rounding up the sheep.

Talking to the shepherd as we passed through Bellimore on Tig, he told me they win their fair share of sheepdog trials.

Now it's all downhill and we get wonderful views.

A flock of gulls take off. Somewhere along here we did our good deed for the day. A sheep had it's head through a square mesh fence and was frantically trying to dislodge itself. We needed to twist it's head round to free it. It was a happy sheep as it ran back to the flock and was quickly surrounded by other sheep. Caring sheep !