Westward Ho …
Seeing I am nearly at the end of my holiday I thought I would make a small start on travelling west before I begin the big one. So I headed out towards Stranraer which is the closest town to where the ferries leave for Ireland. Of course I have to come back and set off for Glasgow tomorrow morning but that journey is only 70 “crow” miles and should only take 3-4 hours so I probably won’t leave until mid-morning.
Today is not as wet as the last couple of days but it is certainly just as cold. Temperatures have remained hovering around 0 deg. C for a while now. So I rug up, grab something for lunch from the co-op and head off.
After only a short while I spot a small but unusually shaped waterfall out of the corner of my eye. It “appears” magically from around one side of the trunk of a tree and only falls about two metres but spreads out about the same amount. It is almost like a triangle. Unfortunately it is buried right back in a narrow gully in the dark and doesn’t make for good photography, but there are some quite brightly coloured leaves in the stream underneath so I decide to try out my workshop techniques.
Even this leaf while managing to remain precariously perched on a rock is completely submerged! I have no idea why it is sticking there but it makes an unusual sight.
Soon it starts to rain again so I decide to continue on but I can’t get too excited about Stranraer which is just another town so I continue out towards Corsewall Point where apparently there is a lighthouse. But as I crest the headland there appears a small cone shaped island off the coast. It is not large but rises mysteriously out of the mist about what appears to be a kilometre or so off the coast. It is not marked on my map so I have no idea what it is called, even google earth does not show it.
The lighthouse itself is almost exactly like Neist Point but has been refurbished as a guest house and hotel and is in excellent condition. It even has the same, now defunct, fog horn.
From here I decide to take the long way back around the coast through Portpatrick which appears to be a small fishing village whose main points of interest at the moment are the harbour , where both the sun
and the tide are out
and the public toilet which costs 20p to use. Don’t worry if you haven’t got change … there is a lady employed to sit in a little booth all day and provide change for the turnstile!! I’m not sure about the economics of that arrangement.
By now he afternoon is wearing on and the clouds are thickening and threatening rain, the only benefit of which is the great skies
which are backdrops to the large expanses of green fields and stone walls
which seem to be around every corner in this part of the world.
No doubt within about 48hours I will be lamenting over the lovely cool weather …
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