Day 3 – New Luce to Bargrennan (19.5 miles)

Waking to clear blue skies was very welcome today as we had a long day on the trail ahead of us. Accommodation, settlements & even main roads are quite sparse along this part of the walk. So it’s necessary to cover large distances with all the food & water you’ll need along the way. Adding rain to this already stiff challenge I think you’d start to enter ‘ordeal’ territory.
So after breakfast we slathered on the sun cream and ventured out onto the road, retracing our steps for the first mile to where we’d left the trail yesterday. A quick detour was taken shortly after we met the new path to take in the wonders of a small waterfall on the ‘Cross Water of Luce’, not really worth it as we struggled over the stone stile in the wall, risked life & limb on the oldest wooden bridge in the world & on closer inspection our photos, taken into the direct sunlight, are all rubbish.
The way north from here took us ever closer to a new ‘live’ construction site of some of the massive wind turbines being put up on Quarter Fell. The morning from here would be filled with these wonders of our techno-industrial world some whirring away, some static in the zephyr breeze.
Do these things need to use power to get going in light winds? (Seems counter-productive)
Walking along the fire break in the forestry pine plantation we got wet feet, as you always seem to do walking in forestry lands. We entered a clearing where the first ‘bothy’ on the trail can be found ‘Beehive Bothy’ (free accommodation to those brave/drunk enough to tolerate the probable rats). Here I came across a pleasant rhyme left by a recent climber to these parts:
“The lure of the road before me, The open sky above, The weight of the pack Upon my back – These are the things I love.” – Jock Nimlin (Climber)
Next were the standing stones of ‘Laggangarn’, 4,000 year old plinths thought to have once been part of a circle of 13 stones, the ‘Wells of the Rees’, Craig Airie Fell trig (320m) & Loch Derry.
After all that the never ending road to ‘Knowe’, tarmac underfoot gives you brisk progress but sore feet & boredom neither very good on a two week trek.
From Knowe there was just 5 miles to go, we stopped for a bite to eat as I could tell Adele was feeling tired. Our final destination was just an up and over Ochiltree Hill with brilliant white painted trig (184m) and a final energy sapping trudge across rough pasture to the A714 and Bargrennan. Arriving sometime after 6ish
Sleep well all, we will x
Stats: Total mileage: 44.3 Pint count: 6