The Rhins

This morning 12th February 2008 the ground was white with frost.
With friends visiting from North Lincolnshire,today turned out to be a good day to visit Port Logan,the Mull of Galloway and Portpatrick.
A hazy sunshine denied us views of the Isle of Man,Ireland and the Mull of Kintyre but I still managed to get some good pictures.
We kept an eye open for any sealife,but no seals,dolphins or any other marine life was spotted.We were reliably informed there would be seals down in West Tarbet bay,but that would have taken up most of the day.I'll be paying a long visit myself one day.
We did see plenty of seabirds though,and if i'd had my camera at the ready i could have had a close up of a Peregrine Falcon.
Here are some of the pictures i took.








At Portpatrick we thought we'd stumbled upon a big customs bust.We saw a high tech state of the arts Customs vessel send out an inflatable(RHIB)to look at two classy boats entering the harbour,but after waiting a while it was obvious we were going to be disappointed.



The sun was well down by the time we got home.

Wigtownshire Ramblers-Port Logan Circular

Saturday the 9th of February,and todays walk is in the South Rhins area of Port Logan.
Once again i dont need to drive far as i'm kindly picked up by other ramblers at Newton Stewart.
The weather today is a little dull with hints of the sun breaking through.
The walk start is at Port Logan Harbour Car Park,and it looks as though a lot of walkers are turning up for this one.

After a recount or two it was established that there were twenty seven walkers today,a record for any one walk.

A very pleasant though sometimes muddy circular walk ensued over rolling countryside.

I'm still getting to know people,and remembering names,but again i met others for the first time.

A lot of comments were made about how advanced the plant growth was for this time of year-it appears winters are becoming a thing of the past-rhododendrons and daffodils almost blooming early February!.

Much of the land we covered was agricultural,there were a few interesting derelict ex WW2 buildings and other substantial ruins on the walk.This ia something i've noticed since arriving back in Scotland-in rural areas ruins are not razed to the ground to make way for new developements.

Part of our walk took us through part of the Logan House Estate where the Logan Botanical Gardens are situated.Here we stopped for lunch.
This requires a visit on it's own.I didn't get a picture of the house.This ones from the Gazetteer for Scotland Website.

I was reminded of some of the more tropical places on my travels while walking through here.

Apologies for the quality of these pictures-condensation on the lens-i must check more regularly.
This walk was about six miles long,but it seemed like no time that we were heading back down the road to Port Logan.My sense of direction went completely to pot on this walk.When Port Logan came back into view i was lost.Age!




Of the four walks i've done so far,this was certainly one of the easier ones.I cant explain why i went to sleep on the settee when i got home though.
Next weeks walk is an eight mile strenuous by the interesting name of 'Rig of the Jarkness and Craiglea'.Hope the weathers good.
P.S In case i have any new readers who dont know-if you click on the pictures you get an enlargement.

St Ninians Cave

Yesterday,Thursday the 7th of February 2008,I set off to walk down to St Ninians Cave at Glasserton in the Machars.I'd promised myself i'd come back after seeing it from a distance on the last Ramblers outing.
On the path heading down Physgill glen,the snowdrops were in full bloom.Scotland has an abundance of snowdrops and have a snowdrop festival every year.More info on that can be found at
http://white.visitscotland.com/snowdrop-festival/.
Here's just a few.

Further on was this lovely little bridge,although there looked to be nearly as much water running over it as under it.

Still on the way down i spotted this lovely waterfall.Our waterfalls here in Galloway may not be the most spectacular,but they're without doubt very scenic.

The walk from the car park is a mile long and i finally made it to the shoreline.
The tide was well in and the surf was in fine form as can be seen by these pictures.

A stony walk along the shore and i reach the cave.

This plaque just outside the cave reads as follows.
This cave is by tradition the retreat of St.Ninian,who brought Christianity to Scotland in the mid 5th century.He was said to travel the few miles from his church at Whithorn to be alone here with his thoughts and his prayer.If he did regularly leave his busy church for private contemplation he would be following the examples of many of the holy men in the early church.
It is impossible to know whether St.Ninian actually used the cave,but it was certainly visited by pilgrims to the shrine of St.Ninian at Whithorn for many centuries.
Excavations in 1884 and in 1950 showed that the cave was in use from the eighth century.The pilgrims left stone crosses,some carved straight onto the walls of the cave and others cut onto free-standing stones.The latter are on display in Whithorn Priory Museum.The seven crosses on the walls are done in the same way as the crosses on early Christian memorial stones,pecked into the surface of the rock.The earliest of these may predate the Northumbrian conquest of Galloway,sometime before 731.

I see evidence of recent pilgrims by these marked stones and fashioned crosses.

The cave is smaller than i imagined it would be,but even so there are a lot of carvings/names on the walls.Looking closely there are carvings and names dating back centuries.A lot of the names/carvings have become merged which makes it difficult to make out.Here's a few i photographed.





I'd taken quite a bit of film on this visit.I find it hard to believe but i somehow managed to delete every last bit of footage.YouTube will now have to wait a little bit longer for a St.Ninians feature.
Nevertheless i had a very enjoyable and interesting afternoon.

Water of Minnoch and the River Cree

The weather seems to be picking up and the days are getting longer.Spring just round the corner maybe.I think winter's still got a sting in her tail up here.
Nonetheless i took a pleasant walk up the Water of Minnoch and came up with this picture.Couldn't believe the way the leaves were blowing around.Ha Ha.

On the way back to Newton Stewart the Cree looked very picturesque.Another short walk produced these.Isn't Mother nature most beautiful.




This last picture is the joining of two pictures-I can see the join.Can you.?
Clicking on the picture to see it full size makes the join obvious.

Cargoes

I first knew of this poem back in primary school.That was just a few years ago!.I wish..........Have loved it ever since.

Cargoes

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amethysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

-- John Masefield

Wigtownshire Ramblers-Isle of Whithorn

Saturday the second of February and I wondered if todays walk would still be on after the heavy snow of last night.
I telephoned the walk leader to make sure there had been no cancellation,and after confirmation set off to join the group at the St Ninians Cave carpark.
I needn't have worried,they'd had no snow to speak of at the southern end of the Machars.
Todays walk was to be from the Isle of Whithorn to St Ninians Cave a walk of some
5 and a 1/2 miles,although one group member suggested the signs are wrong and it's actually 6 and a 1/2 miles.
With all the group gathered (14 walkers today) we piled into half the vehicles and drove over to the walk start point at the Isle of Whithorn.

The weather to begin with was quite nice and just a little breezy as we left the Isle of whithorn and headed on to the cliff paths.The walk would take us around the second most southerly point in Scotland,Burrowhead.

For anyone with a love of rugged coastlines this must rank high on any of the uk's clifftop walks.As i mentioned on my YouTube video 'Five Minutes At Burrowhead' here is where the closing scenes of the original 'Wickerman' were filmed.
A lot of photographs were taken.I hadn't initially noticed that my lenses were misting up with the sea spray,and so a few of mine were not very brilliant.

As we got closer to Burrowhead the wind began to pick up a little,and sometimes the path would get closer to the cliff edges.The views became quite spectacular,and the cliffs took on a look of the North Antrim Coast and the high basalt columns surrounding the Giants Causeway.

For our break we sheltered from the wind in a large old brick building in the vicinity of Burrowhead Holiday village.There was an impression from a knowledgeable group member that this may have once been a shower block.A remnant from when this used to be a military establishment.
After leaving Burrowhead the path turned more North Westerly which meant the wind was more sideways on.At first this seemed like a bonus,but the weather was becoming more overcast and the wind more 'Bracing'.

One group member was blown over by the wind.She was ok,and rather pleased that at least it proved that 'The diet's working'.

We didn't go down to St Ninians cave.The offer was made to me that we could,but with the worsening wind i think most group members were ready to start back inland to the carpark.This area of South West Scotland is its 'Cradle of Christianity'.St Ninian is credited with bringing Christianity to Scotland way back in 397,while the Romans were here.Pilgrims arrive here from all over the world to walk the 'Pilgrims Way' to Whithorn Priory.I will explore the cave leisurely some other time.
As with all my walks up to now,i thoroughly enjoyed myself.I'm slowly getting to know this admirable group of amiable people.I got to know a few more today.
After the walk I accepted an invitation to join some of the group for coffee at the 'Steam Packet' in the Isle of Whithorn.Why did all the men go home?

February Forest

The first day of February 2008.
I took a run up the Queensway into the Galloway Forest park today.There'd been a little snow,but none of it was settling on the lower ground.Here's a collage of a few of the pictures i took.