9.12 miles 4h 58m ascent 109m
Dunure Harbour-The River Ayr
Yonder are the heights of Arran towering from the glistening bay; nearer are the Heads of Ayr, and the old Castle of Greenan standing out on the verge of the wave.
A Adamson. Rambles through the land of Burns 1879.
This was to be our final section of Ayr’s Coastal Path since the aim was to plug the gap between our Galloway Coastal Walk and the River Ayr Way which we had done in 2023 and 2020 respectively. Autumn was upon us, the weather wetter, the winds more chill, so we decided to get on with the walk before things got worse. And it would be a day to remember. The day I used my bus-pass for the first time. We drove to Ayr, parked up then took the 361 to Dunure. Because of this we didn’t take the dogs with us.
I did wonder if we would know where to get off the bus. A recurring worry since I have bought myself long walks from alighting prematurely on a couple of occasions (Toussous-le-Noble and Auchterarder). But no problems this time. The bus route terminated above Dunure harbour.
We walked down to the harbour and read the “Superstitions and Folklore” information board to the sound of clacking sails. I didn’t know that fishermen avoided using Swan Vesta matches or white handled knives on their boats and never uttered the word “salmon”. If they needed to refer to a salmon, the word “queerfellow” was used. I shouldn’t mock, doctors avoided saying “it’s quiet”. A study has de-bunked this, but it was published after I retired.
I gave the background to the harbour’s heart-tree and the sea-horse sculptures in the last post. They certainly make the harbour a little more interesting.
From the harbour we walked onto the beach. Dunure castle came into view when we glanced back, Arran and The Mull of Kintyre were just emerging from the morning mist with the rocky outcrop of Craiglowmount ahead. The beach was soft gravelly sand that sank beneath our feet with a crunch. It was a bit nippy and I was pleased to be wearing a woolly hat.
We were to come off the beach at the rocks and the map suggested it was on the far side of a fence or wall. We saw neither but were offered a choice, clambering over the outcrop or a using what looked like a walked path, some flattened grass, beside the burn. We went for the latter but soon found ourselves clambering up rocks while finding our way around a barbed wire adorned barrier and metal pole. I was glad we didn’t have the dogs with us. Once beyond it we were on a path of sorts, at least some worn grass. I realised we must have come the wrong way and had just climbed over the fence/wall. But looking back along the path it seemed to have emerged from a dense stand of brambles.
The photo above is me approaching Craiglowmount. If you look closely you will see a white dot beneath a gap in the rocks. That was the way we should have gone. It would have taken us around the barbed wire scramble and the stand of brambles. well, at least we had overcome a challenge.
We had a short walk across the grassy hilltop, pausing to look out to sea and notice a dog-shaped rock. This was easier walking but it wasn’t to last. We soon came to a wide boggy ditch that didn’t even seem to have animal tracks crossing it. Backtracking to a trail leading to the beach noticed a white circle on a rock. The penny dropped. These were way markers. We saw them for much of the day, though as with all way markers they seemed placed to act as affirmative nods rather than help when there was a choice to be made. It’s philosophical question as to which would be better. Perhaps there’s more fun to be had with uncertainty and the odd navigational error.
So we were back on the beach but this time it was rocks and boulders, and just to keep us alert, some of the rocks were quite slippery. And the wind was in our face, whipping away our breath, so it was surprisingly tiring, and we were making slow progress. I kept thinking it would have been quite challenging at high tide.
It did recall that I had suggested we do this coastal walk south to north so we didn’t have the sun in our eyes but we seemed to have walked into the wind all the way. Is there a Naismith type correction for walking into the wind?
The Falls at Ladywell Burn were a welcome sight since they were a mental way marker, a couple of hundred metres short of where we could escape the beach-walking. We seemed to run out of beach after the Falls and a bit of clambering was called for but a white dot on the rocks told us we were heading the right way.
We had been walking for just over an hour and had covered only 1.6 miles but it had been a tiring hour and we were ready for a brief rest. We reached the rock outcrop where we would leave the beach and were lucky enough to find a tree trunk for a rest. I had two doses of morale booster (Jelly Babies) and a slug of water.
Once rested we walked up from the beach with a bit of a spring in our steps. It was uphill but it great to be out of the wind and walking on firm grass. We passed through several kissing gates, and fields full of sheep. Our first glimpse of the disused railway was a cutting crossed by a rickety bridge.
drawing closer to the bridge I grew increasingly uneasy about the rickety-ness but luckily we didn’t need to cross it. The Maidens and Dunure Light Railway had run along a raised bank here so we had good views across Bower Hill to Ayr. Telegraph poles still follow the route.
A bridge is missing about half way along but there was a way down and back up the other side. We left the railway where the Heads of Ayr railway station had once stood. The year Billy Butlin opened his Heads of Ayr holiday camp this station had seen 25,000 passengers. There are static caravans here now but we didn’t see a soul, just several rabbits.
An Ayrshire Coastal Path sign on the brickwork caught my eye. It was titled “Delay Point” and suggested walkers should only continue on into Bracken Bay if the tide was falling. Fortunately we had 4G so I checked and low tide was just over an hour away. I think we might have stopped for lunch about then but it seemed safer to press on and delay lunch until we were past the Heads of Ayr and off the beach.
The way down to the beach had us walking westwards, away from Ayr, which was a bit irritating and we found ourselves walking past a couple of benches that would have been great places for lunch.
Bracken Bay is perhaps what coastal walks are made for. Secluded enough to give a sensation of wildness, a massive amphitheatre with the cliffs of the Heads of Ayr and Carlandcheek as its enclosure. I’m sorry that we didn’t stop there for our lunch but its better to be safe than sorry. The bay’s gravel soon gave way to sand giving us pleasant walking. We were relatively sheltered from the wind but didn’t realise how much.
The Heads of Ayr are the coastal cliffs of Bower Hill towering 70m above a narrow strip of sand and rock. I kept looking for ways one might escape an incoming tide but saw none. The option would be to shelter behind one of the boulders above the high water and wait for the ebb.
Once past the cliffs we came to the wide sands of Craig Tara, with the ruins of Greenan Castle in the distance. The wind took our breath away but we leaned into it and pressed on. Unfortunately we couldn’t stay close to the coast, our way was blocked by an expanse of watery green slipperiness. So we struck out across the sands. There were people walking on the beach by the holiday park so it seemed reasonable. I have now added this to my list of ‘shortcuts’ where hassle outweighed benefit.
The picture above is looking back towards the Heads of Ayr from the sands of Craig Tara. You can probably see the pipeline we crossed and the pools of water. Unfortunately pools like these became deeper as we walked further and swathes of watery seaweed lay between us and the coast. So we had to backtrack eventually finding our way back to the beach near what I presume to be the sewage works. There was no discernible pong but we were upwind.
After that escapade we decided to cheat for a while and walked on the firm level grass in front of the static caravans. This is presumably where Butlins had been. I wish I had taken a photo of the woman wearing a red coat now.
Once back on the sands we were treated to stronger winds driving the sand into our faces. I recalled Percy Donald’s comments about one of his walks in Southern Scotland including all weathers except sandstorms or heatwaves.
For some reason I had it in my mind that we would leave the beach at the deil’s Dyke, an outcrop before Greenan Castle. I blame the OS map. So when we reached the outcrop half a kilometre before the castle I took us up the path there. This led to a three pronged fork in the path. The left climbed the outcrop (where I took the photo above), the middle went back to the beach but down a steep rock scramble, and the right headed inland. So we turned back to the sands and made for the cliffs below the castle.
There has been a fort on this promontory at Greenan since at least 1124. The murder of Sir Thomas Kennedy in the woods outside Greenan Castle inspired ‘An Ayrshire Tragedy’, by Sir Walter Scott. That happened in 1602 so the present structure is likely at least that old. It had fallen into disrepair by 1789.
This view shews the castle of Greenand, as it appears on the road from Ayr to Maybole. The Grenand is a high house upon the top of a rock hanging over upon the sea, with some lower new work, lately added to it, but never finished; it is too open to the cold and moisture arising from the sea to be a desirable habitation, and has been designed to be the owners security against a surprize, rather than a constant residence. It is within the parish of Maybole”
Antiquities of Scotland
After passing the castle we noticed a narrow track in the sand-dunes. Though sandy in places this was much easier going, a welcome relief for our feet. There was yellow toadflax by the path, one of those flowers the books say are common, but I think this is the first I have seen.
As we approached the River Doon the dune’s path turned inland offering us a car park or a very overgrown faint route that might have been a path once. While mulling over our maps deciding which to take, a man walking his dog asked if we were walking the coastal path and suggested we walk through the car park. He said we could take the faint path if we wanted but it was very overgrown. We took the car park route.
The footbridge over the River Doon, which we guessed from its style is one of the millennium cycleway bridges, was only a couple of minutes further on. It only occurred to me later that we had crossed a Brig o’ Doon. An Ayrshire Coastal Path information board here mentioned that there are great views of “The Craig” and the “Sleeping Warrior” along the trail. I could guess the former means Ailsa Craig but had to look that up the sleeping warrior. It refers to the profile of Arran seen from Ayrshire.
The rest of the walk was along Ayr’s Esplanade. Easy walking without any discernible gradient but with the wind in our face it felt like walking uphill. There were at least plenty of benches to rest. We chose a wooden one that turned out to be plastic faux-wood.
The esplanade includes the Lang Scots Mile (224 yards longer than the standard English mile) and passes the Low Green, the Pavilion (1911), the Steven Memorial Fountain (1892), and the Ayr County Buildings (built 1812-1822). We watched a C-17 descending into Prestwick.
I was sure there had been a small ship in the dry dock by the harbour when we finished the River Ayr Way but it’s gone now.
Either the Ayr Sculpture or the River Ayr marked the end of our coastal walk.
The Ayr Sculpture is one of two marking the beginning and end of the River Ayr Way and as such also signified the end of our continuation from the Galloway and Loch Ryan Coastal Routes. This installation was made from coal resin from Glenbuck (the beginning of the River Ayr Way) while the sculpture at Glenbuck was made from the sand of Ayr beach.
“This seating aspect seems appropriate to me as providing a place to rest where contemplation of a journey about to be undertaken, or just completed, can be found.”
Donald Urquhat
To be honest I found the sculpture a little bleak. I know I look a bit hacked off in the picture above but it was just tiredness
PS The public toilets near the Pavilion are card-only entry.
