Friday 29th July 2022
Today’s walk was once more to be mainly tarmac but quite hilly.
We set off from the holiday flat in which we are staying at about 8.00 and walked down to the front and turned south. The road is quite a minor road and initially follows the shore past Davaar Island.
The tide was well out and so there is a wide, sandy platform between Davaar and the mainland. There was a truck driving over the causeway; perhaps a farmer has livestock grazing on the island. There was also a couple apparently walking around Davaar on the rocky shore exposed by the low tide. A few seals hauled out on the sands were singing or bellowing according to your point of view.
We passed the Oil Fuel Depot which services Royal Navy and Nato vessels.
We were passed by a car which then stopped on the verge and a man got out to walk his dog. He struck up a conversation with us but his dialect was so broad that when he simply asked where we were headed for, we had great difficulty understanding him. Most of the people we have come across seem to have been incomers from England or have had Glaswegian accents. I suspect Paul McCartney started a trend back in the ’70s when he came to the Mull of Kintyre.
The single track road was extremely quiet and I doubt if even half a dozen cars passed us on the ten miles we were on the road. I was alarmed to see a road works sign and another saying “Road Patching: Longs Delays”. We eventually came to the offending road-patching lorry operated by a single road-mender. He moved backwards and forwards until he was by a passing place so we could walk past safely.
There were some steep ascents and descents and as we approached Feochaig, in the words of McCartney’s song “Oh, mist rolling in from the sea”, it indeed did just that and all our views vanished as a cool cloak concealed the world.
We continued looking for a suitable sit-upon for our coffee but there was nothing to speak of until we passed behind “The Bastard” (a hill 188m) and there was a grassy bank at the side of the road which sufficed.
When planning the route, I had blithely decided we would simply follow the Kintyre Way to Southend. It was only last night, when I glanced at the Kintyre Way website, that I discovered that the only proper coastal section from Polliwilline Bay to Kilmashenacken is tidal and not passable at high tide. Consulting the tide tables I discovered that we would have been there right on high water. So I reluctantly took the sensible course of following the high water route. We missed about 1 ½ miles of coast. We did however decide to take a farm track, not part of the Kintyre Way, because it took us back to the coast at Dunaverty sooner than walking the road into Southend. We had a few cows to negotiate but they were harmless.
Dunaverty golf course was extremely busy but quite attractive with wild flowers in the rough between the tees.
We used the golf club footbridge to cross Conieglen Water and found our way to Dunaverty Bay where horse riders were enjoying the beach.
We walked along the beach and then ate our lunch at one of the picnic tables at the far end. We ended our walk by the bus stop about 400 yards further along the road. The bus was not due until 18.00 and it was only just gone 14.00 so we juggled with our phones until we got a signal to call up a taxi from Campbeltown which is barely 10 miles away via the direct route. Our taxi driver told us that there is a golf championship at Dunaverty tomorrow which probably explains why the course was so busy with people practising. Half an hour later we were back at the flat in Campbeltown.
I had one more thing to do in preparation for tomorrow. I put my bike in the back of the car and drove to Machrihanish. I parked the car and cycled back. Tomorrow we will be getting the bus to Southend but with a challenging walk ahead of us it seemed like a good idea to have the car ready and waiting for us at the end in case we are too late for the only bus.
Just Coasting 