Today would see me walking many miles on roads, none of them busy before eventually leaving them behind a while after Castle Kennedy and enjoying more comfortable grassy paths and woodland walking before the final bit of road into New Luce, which is slightly off the track but there’s not much accommodation around this area to choose from.
I woke up in my Hotel about 6am and looked out the window to see not a cloud in the sky, a gorgeous morning. By the time however that I got to the start at the harbour, the sun had gone and mist was heading my way. After the usual photos, I headed up the stairs and began my Southern Upland Way (SUW) walk, soon passing the big hotel on the hill and started a bit of coastal path walking. Just like the Wainwright’s Coast to Coast walk ( Read about my Wainwright Coast to Coast walk ) the walk starts with a section of coastal path before heading East.
The path had a few ups and downs and a bit of beach walking before I reached a lighthouse, but by now I could hardly see it in the mist. The guide book tells me that this is where I leave the coast but I’ll have to take their word for it because it was hidden. A bit of walking on grass followed and then a bit of road walking, the first of quite a bit of tarmac today. I passed a couple of farms as the road kept on going, the sun trying it’s best to burn through the mist.
It wasn’t until I got near to Knockquhassen Reservoir that the sun finally made it through and now I finally had some scenery. I was now thankfully off the road and enjoying a bit of grassy walking around the Loch. Sadly this didn’t last long before I was back on tracks and roads and looking down upon Stranraer and the sea. If you were staying the night in Stranraer, you would cut off here but I still had a long way to go today.
More road followed until I reached the busy A77 road and crossed it. More tracks and roads followed and I passed under the railway line and then a woodland path following it for a while. Here I was passed by a jogger and a cyclist, the first people I had seen today. The woodland path was nice underfoot and also gave me a break from the sun for a while.
I was now entering the village of Castle Kennedy where I planned to stop at the shop in the petrol station to buy some food. There wasn’t much to choose from, most of the snacky foods had long been sold. I grabbed a few things and headed off down the lovely road leading to the Castle Kennedy gardens, the views over the White Loch were very nice so I stopped on the grass here to have some lunch and give my feet a bit of a rest from all the road walking.
After my break, the path thankfully was much better and plenty of grassy walking. It started with a bit of track, then road before cutting off down a track past a house. Before long, I cut off onto a nice grassy path which would run along the outside of a small forest, ducking occasionally to avoid low branches before the path narrowed through some woods following the railway line for a while before moving away.
I then reached an open space of grassland and followed the SUW arrow pointing over the field. There was no visible path so I just headed in a straight line, avoiding the thistles and eventually reached a bridge over the Water of Luce. I was now on the road into New Luce and had to decide whether to head down it into the village or follow the SUW over Kilhearn Moss, adding an extra three miles almost then entering New Luce from the other direction. I chose the sensible shorter option.
I headed the mile or so down the road, finally entering the small village. It has a shop which only seems to be open some days and the pub is no longer open. My accommodation was basically a large shed in someone’s garden that had beds, electricity, water, microwave and was cheap, but it did me very nice indeed, plus there's not much choice around here.
It had stayed hot and sunny all day once it burned through the mist but tomorrow’s weather forecast isn’t looking as good with rain predicted in the afternoon but hopefully I’ll be nearly finished by then. There was a lot of road walking today, hopefully the whole SUW isn’t going to be like that, we shall see what the coming days bring.
