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Scotland's far south
Aug. 9th, 2023 06:12 pmWe spent most of today book shopping in Wigtown, and have now reached the final stop on our travels, the Selkirk Arms In Kirkudbright. But first...
Our first outing from the Old Place of Monrieth was to the Mull of Galloway. Once we thought of it, it seemed the obvious place to go: here we were in the south of the country, so why not go all the way? Look at a map; we were near the Solway Coast, and if you follow that coast along, until it clears the Firth, the last spit dangling down at the end is the Mull of Galloway, and it has a lighthouse on it - better still, a Stevenson lighthouse. This is slightly to the south of Durham, and considerably to the west.
There's a café, with a magnificent view, where we ate Ecclefechan tart (imagine preparing the fruit for a Christmas pudding but then baking it in a pastry case. Ecclefechan is also famous as the birthplace of Thomas Carlyle: these two things seem to me well balanced). There's a short walk to the lighthouse, and the heather is coming into bloom. There's a small exhibition with the sort of things they exhibit at lighthouses: a Fresnel lens, and a video about local shipwrecks, and an explanation of how to interpret semaphore, and - impressive if a bit baffling - an entire room housing the mechanism to power the foghorn (and several huge tanks outs=ide to hold the compressed air): it may be primarily a visual signal, but it's the audio warning that takes all the engineering.
On our way home, we followed signs to the Kirkmadrine stones, expecting to find sone standing stones we could admire briefly (we were runnung late, and it was my turn to cook). They brought us, in the middle of nowhere - of farmland, in fact - to a pair of gateposts and a track through woodland, which sloped up to a little nineteenth century church. The west end was a single glass display case, housing a collection of sixth century Christian carved gravestones: wonderful, and entirely unexpected.
We have now visited Scotland's most southerly point. The most northerly point is off Unst, in Shetland, and we have gone to the nature reserve at the north of the island and looked at it. Most westerly is Rockall, or if you want somewhere inhabited(ish), Saint Kilda: I won't be visiting either of those. But it is possible to visit the furthest east: Sheland's Out Skerries.
Our first outing from the Old Place of Monrieth was to the Mull of Galloway. Once we thought of it, it seemed the obvious place to go: here we were in the south of the country, so why not go all the way? Look at a map; we were near the Solway Coast, and if you follow that coast along, until it clears the Firth, the last spit dangling down at the end is the Mull of Galloway, and it has a lighthouse on it - better still, a Stevenson lighthouse. This is slightly to the south of Durham, and considerably to the west.
There's a café, with a magnificent view, where we ate Ecclefechan tart (imagine preparing the fruit for a Christmas pudding but then baking it in a pastry case. Ecclefechan is also famous as the birthplace of Thomas Carlyle: these two things seem to me well balanced). There's a short walk to the lighthouse, and the heather is coming into bloom. There's a small exhibition with the sort of things they exhibit at lighthouses: a Fresnel lens, and a video about local shipwrecks, and an explanation of how to interpret semaphore, and - impressive if a bit baffling - an entire room housing the mechanism to power the foghorn (and several huge tanks outs=ide to hold the compressed air): it may be primarily a visual signal, but it's the audio warning that takes all the engineering.
On our way home, we followed signs to the Kirkmadrine stones, expecting to find sone standing stones we could admire briefly (we were runnung late, and it was my turn to cook). They brought us, in the middle of nowhere - of farmland, in fact - to a pair of gateposts and a track through woodland, which sloped up to a little nineteenth century church. The west end was a single glass display case, housing a collection of sixth century Christian carved gravestones: wonderful, and entirely unexpected.
We have now visited Scotland's most southerly point. The most northerly point is off Unst, in Shetland, and we have gone to the nature reserve at the north of the island and looked at it. Most westerly is Rockall, or if you want somewhere inhabited(ish), Saint Kilda: I won't be visiting either of those. But it is possible to visit the furthest east: Sheland's Out Skerries.
