Stranraer to Portpatrick on the SUW October 2011

Details of the Southern Upland Way (SUW)

Knockquhassen Resevoir

The teacher at the cairn on Broad Moor.

And me!

Killantringan Lighthouse.

You need the chain here to help you down.

Could have done with chain here on the rocks.

Family graves from Dunskey House.

The scenery today was wonderful.

The village of Portpatrick.

Today Thursday October 27 I left Ayr on the 6.40AM bus to Stranraer via Girvan where the teacher joined me for the rest of the journey. Once we arrived in Stranraer we walked out of the town to join up with SUW to take us the 10 miles to Portpatrick. Neither of us had done the walk in this direction as most groups do it starting off at our finishing point. Well things are always different when you do them in reverse we arrived at Knockquhassen Resevoir and started along the waters edge and onto a very muddy boggy track we decided  this was not right and began to retrace our steps and sure enough we had missed the gate for the SUW. Once back on track so to speak we went along some very dirty muddy paths which were very difficult to keep your feet and we both finished up getting  fairly wet to say the least.Things improved once we were on Broad Moor and the views of the Northern Irish coastline opened up on this truly wonderful sunny autumn morning.Lunch was taken at Portmaggie on the shore overlooking Killantringan Lighthouse which had been freshly painted and fairly stood out in bright sunlight.Suitably refreshed we headed off along the cliff path stopping several times  just to admire the fantastic scenery on this part of South West Scotland. Arriving at Portpatrick we rewarded ourselves with a wee seat on the promenade to let the world go by as we waited on the bus for the return journey. A marvelous day out helped greatly by the weather and I must say a big thankyou to the teacher who once hailed from these parts for telling me so much about the local history of the area.