Cunninghame Ramblers. Brockloch to Meaul nr Carsphairn. August 2011

This walker was on her first day of full retirement.

Rather large house in the middle of nowhere!

Bit of road walking at the beginning.

Break at the old offices of a disused lead mine.

Looking down on Loch Doon.

Guess who was first to the summit?

Older bloggers will remember "Cowan's Highland toffee"

Walkers on the summit of Meaul (695M)

Mr and Mrs walk leader

Today the Elite walking group joined Cunninghame Ramblers on their mid week "A" walk to Meaul hill which forms part of the Rhins of Kells , a lot of us have seen these hills when walking around the Loch Doon area.Starting off from Brockloch Cottages about 2 miles North of Carsphairn 16 walkers headed up a hard road until we came to  old church ruins which was the local parish of that time. The leader was able to inform us they had 140 worshipers who regularly attended services there . This was the population of a deserted village known as Wardlaw which was up at the disused lead mine where our next stop was to be. At the old  offices we could see the remains of a chimney stack alongside the workings of the mine.Now we headed for the hills first one was Coran of Portmark before we walked over Bower Hill (623M) down a good path and then onto the summit of Meaul (695M). It was a sunny day with a few clouds which gave us wonderful visibility to all the surrounding hills particularly in the South.A very distant Lowther Golf Ball aeriel was also spotted. After the lunch stop we retraced our steps back down the path we had come up which afforded us completely different views down towards Loch Doon and the hills of South Ayrshire.Back at the cars the walkers thanked the leaders for taking us on such an interesting day out on the hills.