Quieter times

Sunday evening was spent in the relative luxury of a holiday lodge overlooking Loch Goil, thanks to the hospitality of former colleagues from John Lewis who have been following my progress, and realised that I'd be very close to them over this last weekend.  Given the overnight rain, I was all the more grateful for their offer.

The majority of Monday's walk was down the western shore of Loch Goil, passing Carrick Castle, towards Ardentinny and Loch Long.  It's an area with significant WW2 and Cold War history and there is still a significant military presence in the area, including the home of the UK's nuclear weapons.

The main thing on my mind during the morning, however, was how I would get completely along the lochside, as there was a gap of about 500m without a marked path.  Fearing private property en route, I'd wondered if I might need to take to the beach to join the gap, but I was passing through the gap around high water, so that was as a potential issue.  I needn't have worried:

There followed a lovely trail through some forest (no logging operations this time!) which came out at the small bay at Ardentinny, somewhere that I'd previously visited by boat.  My first glimpse of the Firth of Clyde felt significant: although I still have several days of walking in Scotland before me, the lochs and mountains are now largely behind.  I spent a bit of time during my lunch break just remembering some of the early days of pilgrimage.

Loch Goil joins Long Loch, then a few miles south, Holy Loch.  Again, a place with military connections but, in common with much of the area adjacent to the Clyde, a place for recreation and leisure.  In the early 19th century, 'trips down the watter' gained in popularity as the population of industrial Glasgow sought somewhere to escape the fumes and dirt of the city.  Holy Loch and Dunoon both share plenty of evidence of this, including their piers an other traditional Victorian seaside architecture.  Today's ferry plies her trade across the same route to Gouruck, where I arrived on Tuesday morning after a night in the tent at a small site at the head of Holy Loch.

After a somewhat grey start to the day, things slowly brightened up as I headed south along the Clyde and Ayrshire Coastal Paths.  The last few miles took me above the shoreline itself, a place to savour views across the Clyde over Great Cumbrae, towards Bute, with the Kintyre Peninsula in the background as I headed towards Largs to meet up with friends who are hosting me overnight nearby.

To finish, those of you familiar with a particular Scottish folk song might find this amusing.  I'll let you guess which route I took!