May 2, 2025
Southernmost
With only one road the whole way south to the Mull Of Galloway and a strong tailwind like yesterday, I know what awaits me on the way back north.
Shortly after breaking camp I joined the main coastal road following Luce Bay and pass a few grassy rest areas between the road and the beach wherein are motorhomes and cars by tents. Most of the vehicles on the road are holidaymakers and reaching a small village Dunmore, many of the houses are holiday homes. From the village, the road climbs steeply inland and a little after cresting the hill is reduced to a single-track with passing spaces undulating over a narrow peninsular and a mounded headland with the outline of a lighthouse soon comes into view ahead.
I am not sure the meaning of Mull, but it was a steep climb to the road's end where there is a big modern cafe with a "Closed On Mondays" notice on the door; beyond which there's a car park and wall enclosing a rough grassy area with a path mown from a gate leading to the lighthouse. There are only a few cars and a few other people as I leave the Kona at a cycle rack, pass through the gate and take a second mown path that takes a circular route along the cliff edge with a steep drop to the sea below. An interpretation board points out that this is the southernmost rock in Scotland and another with an old black and white photo of a ship covers a disaster from December 1965 when a cargo ship of grain from Rouen to Belfast ran aground on the rocks. One of the crew perished while twenty-five remaining were rescued by the lifeguards via ropes up the rock face.
Inside an enclosure with the lighthouse there's an exhibition by local photographers of large landscape photos showing the lighthouse and area around at dusk and dawn. Many with wildflowers as foreground interest and a few clear sky night photos with the lighthouse with a full moon or a starry galaxy.
The lighthouse was build, I read on a board, in 1830 by Robert Stevenson who's grandson Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Treasure Island, Jekyll and Hyde and Kidnapped.
Since 1988 the lighthouse has been totally automated; before which, the text goes on, a lighthouse keeper lived a lonely existence in the cottage provided together with a walled garden wherein they kept a vegetable garden to grow all their own food and additionally chickens for eggs and other livestock were kept as the keeper was encouraged to be self sufficient.
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It is a tough road north. The headwind made progress slow. I detour to Portpatrick on the west coast of the narrow Galloway peninsular. I needed a cafe wherein to charge my phone. I descend to a waterfront village with at lease three pubs with lots of people sat at outside seating enjoying the sun and glasses of cold beer. I am a little disappointed to not see a cafe and choose to enter a pub on the corner. The landlord a man of fifty with a southern English accent, I ask for a coffee and politely ask can I charge my phone. He points to a power outlet below a seat by the window where I sit and charge for half an hour while writing in my notebook. There is a kind of early 1960's theme with a large framed photo of Sean Connery formally dressed in shirt and tie side by side with a young woman in low cut dress. And another from the Monte Carlo Grand Prix: old racing cars passing a packed grandstand of cheering spectators.
It is seven mile across the hill of the peninsular to Stranraer. I am hungry. I'm dreaming of fish and chips. I turn along the pedestrianised high street with lots of coffee shops. Pity I didn't wait until I got here. I see a big sign "Star Fish & Chips. The Best Fish and Chips in Scotland" Inside is like a step back in time to the 70s. I sit upon well worn red vinyl seating and a waitress comes and puts a plate of fish and chips on the table while Boney M Rivers of Babylon ooze from a speaker. The following track is Mississipi.
I stock up on a few days food at a Tescos Superstore and set off past the now closed ferry terminal. Until the early 2000s the ferries docked here but the water is too shallow in innermost Loch Ryan by Stranraer for larger modern ferries. And I pass an equally forlorn railway station, bringing me nostalgically back to the many boat-train journeys made to London in the 1980s and as late as the 2000s travelling by bike from Norway.
I follow the road around Loch Ryan with choppy waves crashing on the shore: the road I come down yesterday, to a turn off on the right where I crossover and take. A single-track road that a short way in reconnects me with the Faultline Trail, which comes up from the south through a forest park. Ahead is a wall of hills and the road which soon becomes a rough track rears up steeply. A long climb to a bleak plateau as the sun starts waning and there's a chill from the wind. I descend steeply pass a reservoir to where a track splits off on the left. The blue line on the Komoot map goes left so I follow. I pass a farmhouse and ahead is a pine plantation. Trees that close in on each other in regulated straight lines, not an ideal camping option but I manage to find a level open spot in amongst the pines and settle into supper of rice and I'm asleep not long after laying down.
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