Beneraird

14 July 2013

Participants - Just myself
Where - Beneraird, 439m/1,439', Sub-2k Marilyn, Map 76, NX 135785

It is not often that a heat-wave keeps you off hill walking in Scotland but for the past week it had been almost too hot to move. However, the heat and humidity had eased, at least for the time being, so I set out to do the last of the sub-2k's that I still had to do in this part of the world. I drove up the narrow road that left the A77 south of Ballantrae and went as far as the farm at Kilwhannel but there was nowhere to leave the car so I turned and went back to the road junction where I was able to get it on to the verge in the bell-end of the minor road. Although it left over a mile and a bit of tarmac walking each way, it was better than parking in Ballantrae itself. I had thought about taking Ben on this walk but was glad that I hadn't; just after passing the farm I had to walk through a herd of cows with calves and after that there were lots of sheep on the pastures. The track was a good one and after such a long dry spell not squelchy in the slightest. As I climbed, the view to the north was of Knockdolian.....

Higher up, there was a good view back to Ailsa Craig and Knockdolian.....

The track got a bit rougher after passing under some power lines and shortly after, my intended hill came into view.....

The track wound its way gradually up the hill to a col and the trig came into view.....

There were a group of people at it; they had come up from the south, a much shorter way but which would have meant a much longer drive for me. The track went to within a hundred yards or so of the trig and a path had been carved out between the two. I hadn't realised just how much moorland there was in this part of the country- a sort of "no man's land" between the Galloway forest park and the Ayrshire coast.....

I could see the Irish ferries arriving and leaving the port at Cairnryan but apart from that there was no real focus to the view. This is looking east to the Galloway hills.....

I went back the same way to complete an 8 mile walk that took 4 hours. It was a pleasant enough hill but I think that of the 4 sub-2k's in this part of the world, Knockdolian is by far the best and the one that I would do again.

 On the way back up the road, I stopped to have a look at Crossraguel Abbey near Maybole. Although it has been knocked about a bit, there is enough left standing to show what the pattern of life must have been like in these buildings during the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries. It's worth a visit.....