Wednesday 7 June 2023

The rest of Sunday

 After our picnic lunch we carried on to Portpatrick, the far end of the A77 and initially intended as the main port for traffic to Ireland....until they realised that the harbour had insufficient shelter from storms and they moved to Stranraer....and have since moved the port up the mainland coast to Cairnryan as Stranraer needed a lot of dredging maintenance to keep it open. Cairnryan has deep water berths.

We headed straight for the far end of the harbour through the town crammed with tourists and motorbikers, to the monthly market (1st Sunday every month) held by the lifeboat station.

We caught up with our friends the maker of Pirate's bench, manning his stand with wife and spaniel. Their day had nearly done...the market finishes at 3pm..and when Pirate tried to buy a Robin nest box....he gave it to him as an early birthday present!!


We had intended to have a bike ride next..but couldn't find a parking space out in the lanes heading up to the North Rhin of Galloway...and it started looking very hilly... so we just enjoyed the countryside instead.

Not realising how far the northern tip was, we went on. And on. Then decided to turn back to Stranraer...had we carried on to Kilcolm we would have found the cottage where son in law's mother's grandfather died....my daughter received a copy of his death certificate yesterday...He was an Agricultural Salesman originally from Ireland...so now she has his parents' names to research....

But we turned short of there and found this....

Built on an 2500 year old hill fort...a folly tower to remember a local member of parliament in the mid 1800s.






We could see Ireland
Cambelltown
Ailsa Craig and Arran 

Pity it was so misty!

A steady drive home, and thought maybe of a chip supper...but in Girvan our favourite chip shop and cafe had a queue out and round the corner!

So home for supper instead.



2 comments:

Debra She Who Seeks said...

What a gorgeous view from the top of that folly!

Zhoen said...

(o)