Skip to main content

Across the Clyde






The Mennock pass is an amazing place to stay. It’s a windy road through interlocking spurs with plenty of places to pull in for the night. It’s clearly a popular spot although not at this time of year.

Unfortunately the ‘other’ type of visitors have been here already. These are the ones who don’t know how to respect the countryside and presumably have other things to do when there isn’t a pandemic. Tbe evidence of them is all around with more fire marks and pits than we could count. I started to pick up some rubbish. A discarded can of Ironbru was fished from the stream but there was too much.


We managed to clamber up the hillside behind the Landy and caught-up with the setting sun. It was lovely to sit and watch the skies and look back down to our pull-in. There were two other vehicles down there but no sign of the owners. In fact they were there all night. In the morning somehow without being noticed someone got into one and drove off. I have no idea where they’d been all night or where the driver of the other car was.

It was a perfect night. The loud burn next to us was great for sleep and just a few vehicles passed.

Our route on Tuesday morning took us across via Kilmarnock to the coast and up to Gourock via Largs. The view of Arran was spectacular!



The ferry from Gourock to Dunoon is a turn-up and go, twenty minute ride which avoids an eighty four mile road trip. We waited just a few minutes and then loaded and were off with lunch taken on the other side.



Comments

Nick G4FAL said…
Just threw in a picture from your travels around the Med?
Tim said…
Ha no. That’s Dunoon!
Rachel said…
Not often there's no wind up there! Must be making a big change from how it was in Wales..:)
Tim said…
Yes Rach. It’s so different. My hat stays on. 😁

Popular posts from this blog

The empty map of Macedonia and into Greece

Continuing south towards the Serbia / Macedonia border, the satnav warned of a lack of detail, "do you wish to continue with this route?" However we are not intrepid explorers and Macedonia comes with a few " be careful" warnings, so we decided to stay on the motorway :-) We didn't explore Serbia; it will wait for another trip. So it was on to the border. Here, passport and V5 were required again and also proof of insurance. We didn't have any of course. When we rang the UK insurance company call centres prior to the trip, most had no idea where these countries are. They don't understand non-EU. "Macedonia - can you spell that"? The nice man at the passport office was already expecting me to say that I would buy my insurance at the "Green card office" and he handed back one passport and the V5 and put mine in his pocket until I had the necessary paper for the Landy. Unfortunately in spite of the Land Rover being classed as PL...

"I'm the dog"

El Berro and  Camping Sierra Espuña  are nicely positioned for walking in these 'low' Sierras and of course the obligatory GR XYZ  long distance path crosses the village. The campsite people gave us a couple of short walk suggestions, written on A4 and translated by some English guy, Michael Ball. We waited until the end of the afternoon, so that the temperature was somewhat manageable and then picked one of the ~1 hour walks that start at the campsite. The walk is so simple that there's no description, just a small diagram that's well annotated with the type of path (wide main track / footpath), other markers (gate, incorrect route, fence). You can't go wrong, can you? Well the first part was easy. Follow the path out of the village, up a valley, through woodland, up and up. Then reach the ridge and the marked ring of stones. Don't turn right, carry on straight across. Then wander through a few trees and down to a dry riverbed, at which point you walk the (ve...

Quiet Spain

Flamenco had been advertised for 17:30, at the campsite restaurant. The campsite isn't busy yet as it isn't July or August, which seems to be the only time any quantity of Spaniards go on their holidays. The restaurant is commensurably quiet too but we thought we'd go and listen. I'd assumed that Flamenco is just guitar with some clapping but here we had a couple of guys, one who could play the guitar, properly and one who could sing, properly. The guitarist often played two different melodies simultaneously and without checking Google, I think that is Flamenco. I was expecting the other guy just to clap, Flamenco style but clapping was a mere sideline, as he could sing. It was no ordinary lament but a serious, sad almost haunting sound and I only wish that I understood the words. It was a very informal session. I should say that this clip isn't particularly representative of the Flamenco style that I think they were playing! A bigger draw however, was th...