Day 134 Drummore to Port William

 

Date: Saturday 27^th July 2013   Distance: 37.2 Miles

 

Bob slept really well but, don’t laugh, I had an enormous bursar burst on my big toe and I was worried about getting an infection. Our hosts had originally come from Chorley, Lancs having lived here only 4 years. The lady was ill and they think Dumfries hospital care better than down south.

 

We left the house, after a slightly disappointing breakfast, in sea mist. In the village, as we were posting some things home a lady with a disabled son came over and said she’d heard someone was arriving on a tandem. She wanted one for her son and asked Bob’s advice. The son didn’t seem interested though!

 

It was up and out of Drummore past the “best pub for meals” and a caravan club site overlooking the beach. Below were lots of wide, sandy beaches with some rocks. 11 miles out we came to Ministry of Defence land. The sands at Luce Bay 2 miles beyond Sandhead are part of a bombing range and it seemed miles along the straight as a die road.

 

 We took the A75 past Bareagle Forest, planted to stabilise the shifting dunes, till we reached Glenluce. The sun had burnt off the last of the mist and we stopped at the ruins of Glenluce Abbey by the Water of Luce. A Scottish heritage site, we tried to pay but with no-one to get a ticket from and the gate unlocked we went in. The 12th and 15th century ruins made a lovely peaceful stop.

 

Leaving the ruins we went under a derelict viaduct that once carried the railway line from Carlilse to Stranraer over a now shallow river Luce. We ate at the Kelvin House Hotel in Glenluce village and drank Czechoslavakian real ale! We had the dining room to ourselves. We noticed at the bus stop opposite the hotel that bikes can go on the Dumfries- Stranraer  bus, though not sure about tandems!

 

The 73 cycleway took us under the main road though it wasn’t really busy today. It was a lovely lane then, with views of the sea, right through to Stairhaven. We’d started to see stone walls and plenty of butterflies. There was a long up and fast down with gravel on the road then up to the cross roads, a right turn eventually joining  the road where a top heavy hay bale lorry went zooming by. It was windy and that hay lorry looked very precarious just ahead of us. We didn’t fancy one landing on us from a great height so we kept out the way of it.

 

We stopped at 11th century ruins of a chapel dedicated to St Finian, excavated in 1950. The flint stones were sharp and the well still visible but not for drinking. Another 6 miles on and we came in to Port William passing by the hay lorry with tottering bales and the driver anxiously on his phone.  When we arrived at the Band B a couple of hours later we saw it go by again reloaded and downsized but in a much better state for travelling.

 

The guesthouse is on the very outskirts of the18th century fishing village and is run by people who came from the Lake District. There were no Scottish hosts this leg of the Coast. We have a comfortable king sized bedroom with the sun shining through the large window with an extensive view of the sea- binoculars on the window ledge. Butterflies kept flying in and Bob spent quite a lot of time catching then releasing them.

 

We ate at the Montreith Arms where it was noisy but friendly and the cooler dining room was quieter. Lovely pate and oatcakes with redcurrant jelly and trout was very good. Bob spent the evening taking several photographic shots of the sunset.