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| Memorial to a convenanter (see text for more imfo) |
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| Climbing up to Steygail.(573M) |
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| Serious descent from Steygail |
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| We came down this hill fellow walkers!! |
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| Is that the "Moon"? |
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| A visiting rambler frae Cunninghame on top of Lowther (725M) |
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| Can my head get any bigger I ask myself. |
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| The group on top of East Mount Lowther (631M) |
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| Ring Ouzle |
Today Sunday April 17th as promised on yesterdays blog we are about to venture out again onto the hills near Durisdeer for a serious walk led by our own ADRC vice chairperson whose reputation for this grade "A" walk is one only for the faint hearted. Enough of that stuff we arrived in a small lay-by on the road from Drumlanrig Castle entrance up towards Durisdeer which we filled nicely our walk leader then introduced us to our visitors from other groups namely Kilmarnock and Cunninghame. A very commendable 23 ramblers set off towards Dalveen Farm for our first stop at a memorial stone beside the farm to a covenantor by the name of Daniel McMichael whose grave is in Durisdeer churchyard which was the starting point for yesterday's walk.Our walk leader informed us his sword is on display at Greyfriars Museum in Edinburgh so next time I am at the races in Musselburgh I must go and have a look. Regular bloggers please remind me. A long climb then began up the slopes of Steygail (573M) where another of these knowledgeable walkers informed us that "Stey" meant windy and I retorted with that "Gail" was my youngest daughters name to which we did not receive a printable reply.At the summit we then went on a fantastic descent back down almost to the level that we started out at. I told you this was an "A" walk. After a wee coffeee break we started out on the climb to make up all the height we had lost and a good bit more that took us to the summit of Lowther Hill (725M) with it's golf ball aerial which takes the planes from our country on their first part of their journey over the Atlantic and to many other parts of our world.Lunch was taken just off the summit looking down a glen towards Criffel hill on the Solway Firth. At this point various hills could be seen and a guessing game developed between the walkers as to which one was which. Our walk leader told us that all would be revealed as we climbed to the top of East Mount Lowther(631) where there is a view finder which would kick all the clever dicks (sorry Dick) theories into touch. From there we descended to Thirstane Hill (583M) which overlooks the Enterkin Burn. Locals to the Ayr area will know there is a well known hotel of the same name but a closer inspection of the the map shows that in our walk area there is a place called Enterkinfoot so I would suggest that this is where the name came from and the hotel has borrowed it to fool the hoipolloi into thinking they are going somewhere special.From here we made our way down back towards Deveen Farm which we passed earlier on in the day and then it was back to the cars in our own wee lay-by which we filled making it impossible for any other cars to get in.All walkers made it back safely, one or two mentioned the word "blisters" and again in true blog tradition no names will ever be revealed hope they have all recovered before next weekend when we have a "B" walk with ADRC on the Saturday and a "B+" one on the Sunday with the Cunninghame Group. Thanks again to today's walk leader you lived up to your well deserved reputation for leading a seriously true graded "A" walk.Today's bird (of the feathered variety you silly old men) we think may have been a ringed ouzle but as I blog I am awaiting confirmation from our resident rambling member if that this is correct as we only heard his or her song and it is similar to a thrush . Watch this space for the answer. Also a definite sighting was one of a red kite and if I can import a photo to the blog I will do so but as it is now past 10.00PM I may fail if you get my drift. Good Night to all bloggers. Sleep tight.
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| We filled this lay-by. |
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