style="font-size:15px;"> Galloway is Scotland’s southwest corner, bounded by the River Nith. It’s a quiet, green country, whose bendy and bumpy country roads are good for cycling holidays. But for walkers, the heart of it is the hills around the Merrick, the summit of southern Scotland. And it feels like it – with its windy top, the longest view in the UK (you really can see Snowdon when the weather’s just right), the ridgeline called Nieve of the Spit (Walk 5), and the super spur called Little Spear. But if 843m Merrick was tough, you’re in for a shock when you get into the granite lands below – bog and bare granite underfoot, an eagle overhead, and ground that’s 50 per cent water.
And what water! Loch Enoch – it’s the Loch Avon of the Southern Uplands. It’s ‘Eskwater’, supposing Lakeland’s majestic Upper Eskdale had the lake it so richly deserves. In March the whooper swans stop off at Loch Enoch – when you’re on your way north to Iceland in one mighty flap, nowhere else quite cuts it.
Acting the goat on the granite and bog? You’re not alone – several dozen actual goats leap about on Craignaw and the Dungeon Hill (Walk 6). A bit defeated at the end of the day? You’re in good company – Robert the Bruce gave the English a bad bashing in the woods above Loch Trool.
But before the rigours of the granite, the Ayrshire coast offers a gentle day out on some very odd rocks (Walk 1), and a boat trip halfway to Arran (Walk 2).
WALK 1
Girvan and Grey Hill
| Start/Finish | Girvan, south end (NX 183 964) |
| Distance | 21km (13 miles) |
| Ascent | 750m (2500ft) |
| Approx time | 6½hrs |
| Terrain | Grassy hills, track, foreshore (rugged in places) |
| Max altitude | Grey Hill, 297m |
| Maps | Landranger 76 (Girvan); Explorer 317 (Ballantrae) |
| Public transport | Girvan station. Bus 54 (Girvan–Stranraer) stops at Lendalfoot to allow a linear walk. |
| Parking | Free car park with toilets and snack shack |
Walkers spend the morning high up, for the sea views; the afternoon along the coast path, for poking in the rock pools. Grey Hill is a perfect little ridgeline – grassy to walk, with outcrops of odd lumpy rock for decoration. Lurid gorse clashes with a vibrant blue sky. At the trig point, peculiar pink stones form a grassy nook to gaze out at the island of Ailsa Craig.
Ailsa Craig is the plug of a volcano that popped up at the opening of the Atlantic a mere 50 million years ago. As ancient rocks go, that’s the day before yesterday. The pink rocks on Grey Hill are nearly ten times as ancient, and a whole lot odder. It’s a defective granite called Trondhjemite, which properly belongs below the ocean bed.
The coastal path weaves between former sea stacks of a raised beach, then heads north on a grass track – and on Lendalfoot foreshore are some really odd rocks. The final 3km are harder going, along beaches of sand and pebbles.
Head inland along the A77 to a roundabout with a red sandstone centrepiece claiming Girvan as Home of Ailsa Craig. Old Red Sandstone here and at the car park indicates that Girvan itself stands just north of the Southern Upland fault. Go straight across into a housing estate. As the street bends left, keep ahead through a gate signed ‘Girvan Barr hill path’. This track leads up past Piedmont house, over a railway, and through a bluebell wood.
At the wood top is a small quarry. Here turn right, up open grassy slopes. Cross an ancient field system onto the hill fort summit of Dow Hill.
The rock outcrops are a puddingstone (the Benan Conglomerate), containing large rounded cobbles. The basic grey is a greywacke-type sandstone, as found all across the Southern Uplands. The pink lumps within it are an alien rock, Trondhjemite, described below.
Head down southwest over an awkward fence (down right 100 metres to a field corner may help). Pass down to the right of a gorse grove to a gate and arch under the railway. A tractor track leads down to the A714. Cross and turn left along the pavement to a cemetery.
Turn right, forking left on a farm track. An earth track leads through Brochnell farm. (One or two walkers have reported trouble passing through Brochnell, with waymarkers removed. An alternative is to fork right rather than left after the cemetery, and make a way through a caravan site and the auto salvage yard above it onto the base of the hill.)
The track bears right to cross Bynehill Burn. Turn to the right up rough grassland to a gate. At the smooth track above, turn left for 30 metres to a waymarked kissing gate onto Byne Hill.
A small path leads up Byne Hill, over outcrops of the same Benan Conglomerate. At the ridge top, the small path continues southwest to the summit of Byne Hill.
The outcrops here are of pure Trondhjemite. It’s a pink and crystalline granite, but without granite’s back speckles. When exposed in outcrops it weathers to a dull grey – you’ll see clean chunks of it along the foreshore at the walk’s end.
Up the north ridge of Grey Hill, with Byne Hill seen behind
The small path continues down southwest to a stile. Head down through a wall gate to cross a col. A stone monument, decomposed so that whatever it commemorates has fallen off, is over on the right. Ahead is a slightly rocky hummock (Mains Hill), made of massive greywacke. Cross its grassy top and continue on down through low gorse to cross a stream. Go through fallen stone sheepfolds to a gate, with a faint grass track beyond. This runs up to the right of the stream, then leads up all the way to the trig point on Grey Hill.
Continue southwest along the small ridge path. The level summit section ends with a bit more Trondhjemite. Cross a fence on the way down to a col, with a gate in a wall, and go up the slight rise of Pinbain Hill. Keep ahead down the southwest spur of Pinbain Hill through a gate in a fence to a gate and kissing gate, where a gravel track contours in from the right. There is now a choice – to turn sharp right immediately, or to continue down the Ayrshire Coast Path ahead to a beach for a lunch stop before returning to this point. Turning back here saves 2km (¾hr).
Ahead are raised beaches along the shoreline to Lendalfoot, with former sea stacks projecting from the (now grassy) meadows behind the main road. The old beach, now above sea level, shows how the west of Scotland has been rising steadily since the weight of the Ice Age melted off.
To continue on the Coast Path take the grass track ahead through the gate. It bends right, down through what appears to be a quarry (actually a former sea cove with sea stacks). Cross the A77 and turn left along the pavement for 700 metres to a lay-by, above a cluster of beach rocks projecting seawards – Bonney’s Dyke.
SERPENTINE
Serpentine from Bonney’s Dyke
Just
