Cunninghame ramblers mid week walk to Cairn table near Muirkirk. April 2014

Meeting at Kaimes car park

Good climb up Cairn Table(593M)

At the summit

New methods were

employed today to by pass burns.

This section was an excellent path

Glenbuck loch

Source of the river Ayr.

Leading from the front (AS NORMAL)

Todays group

The leader .

On Tuesday I travelled to Muirkirk with the deer stalker to meet with Cunninghame Ramblers for their mid week walk to Cairn Table ,over to Glenbuck and return by the old railway line a total distance of 11 miles. It was a cold cloudy morning when we assembled at Kaimes car park to start the ascent to Cairn Table. The first part of the walk could only be described as pure boggy mucky moorland after all the recent rains that have fallen on this area,it improved a little once we gained some height before reaching the summit in a squally sleety shower. Unperturbed we had a coffee break in the lee of the cairn and soon the shower past before we were off on an open moorland with lots of holes and tussocks to reach an old road to take us down to Glenbuck. There were a couple of awkward streams to get over on this stretch but as usual our leader had reccied this earlier and had worked out a difficult obstacle route to save you getting your feet wet,the alternative way was to say the least unusual at best. A quick lunch was taken at the side of the track as our leader is on a diet so he had no lunch and spent the time pacing back and forward muttering away to himself about wasting time on eating and drinking!!Arriving at Glenbuck we found out  that the River Ayr path was closed due to lambing so the only alternative route was to walk the A70 back to Muirkirk. After a group discussion we agreed that the road walk was suicidal so we would walk the old railway line alongside the river and if we got any objections from the farmer we would nominate  our accompanying committee member  to deal with the problem. Fortunately we did not encounter any problems and all returned safely to the cars after a great day out, with thanks to the leader and all who took part it certainly was a wee bit different today and as usual a healthy steady pace was relentlessly kept up due to our leader being none other than the Kilmarnock Rocket.