Day 2 Castle Kennedy to Waterside

I reluctantly left the very comfortable and pleasant Portpatrick Hotel after a good breakfast (from which I purloined some sausage, bacon, tomato and toast to make my butties for the day) and Noelene drove me to Castle Kennedy where I’d finished the previous day’s walk.  Today’s destination was Waterside – a group of cottages in the middle of nowhere!

I walked a short distance from where the exit to the Castle Kennedy grounds comes out onto a minor road and then followed a farm track, seeing a group of four quite large deer in a field which, when they saw (or smelt?!) me, ran off, sprang over a fence and disappeared. Their assessment of me was swift and, I felt, a little hurtful. After passing a group of houses called Chelnry the good path petered out into an indistinct track which, with this being one of the premier UK National Trails, rather surprised me.

I entered woodland where the way was very bad and quite overgrown and I became increasingly convinced that this is not a ‘well walked’ trail.  Yesterday I saw just one other (serious) walker and today, and on most days to come, I was to see none.  The route continued across fields, back onto a road and then into woodland with lots of impressive wind turbines.  I was to see many of them today.

I walked along the outskirts of Glenwhan Moor and Craig Fell for some time, across another (or the same?) small road and over open moorland (Kilhern Moss).  The route was very indistinct but thankfully there were regular marker posts.  I entered another planted forest across Craig Airie Fell where the going became very difficult due to dozens of huge trees, blown over in recent storms, completely blocking the way.  It took ages to climb over, under and go around them and made the going very tough.

Thankfully past that, I walked by the Laggangairn Standing Stones (just two of them), supposedly very ancient and crossed a small river on a very impressive suspension footbridge.  I gave the Caves of Kilhern (200m off the trail) a miss but stopped at the Beehive Bothy for my lunch from the Portpatrick breakfast table.

The track through commercial forestry seemed never ending – sometimes at least on decent paths but too often on barely discernible ones.  I eventually reached Waterside and Anne’s Cottage, our stay for the next two nights.  It had been a long and quite tough day.

Fortunately Noelene had got everything organised at ‘our gaff’, a lovely place, though lacking a shower. So I had my first bath in several years and found it very boring, which is perhaps why showers caught on. But Noelene had got a splendid pot of stew on the go and, with a couple of very nice local (well, Scottish) beers, it went down a treat after today’s long walk.

---

Click HERE to download the .gpx file of today’s walk

Some Photos From Day 2