Bright and Sunny Day in Ayrshire

How awesome was it to awake to this?

By the way....don't you just love our room view?

We are on the top floor, which does mean climbing 2 flights of stairs, both with a curve at the end, but it is certainly well worth it.  Plus....I feel like I'm getting some much needed exercise to work off the treats I've been enjoying!

Breakfast was in this lovely dining room.

Our B&B hostess is delightful and we have really enjoyed our stay here.

After our delicious breakfast, we decided to walk around a bit to check out the area, since it was dreary and raining when we arrived yesterday.

We headed for that lighthouse

saw a wee cute dog along the way

as well as some fish seeking fowl

a boat getting ready to enter the Irish Sea,

and an stone of some sort.

The weather was quite pleasant. What a difference a day could make!

We are staying in Ayr, and only a few minutes up the road stands the Robert Burns Museum.  As Marty has become a sudden fan of the man, and this area is filled with references to his life, of course that was first on our list.

We parked in the lot next to the cottage where he was born, and headed along the Poet's Path towards the museum.  

The path has interesting markers along the way, each depicting a scene from a famous poem of Robert Burns:  Tam o' Shanter.

If you aren't familiar with this poem, (and I certainly was not), the storyline deals with a man named Tam, who, against the wishes of his wife, goes to the local pub and gets very drunk.  

He rushes on his horse towards home

and passes the local church, which appears to be haunted with witches and ghosts. 

I'm not sure if you can quite make out the ghosts and goblins.  There were several scenes for the poem along the path as well as a Fox, representing "On Glenriddel’s Fox Breaking His Chain", written in 1795 by Burns

and a giant mouse taken from Burns' poem "To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough", written in 1785, based on his own experience of the event.

I'm thinking that if you came across a mouse of that size in the field, you'd be running the other direction!  Not writing a poem about it! 

The museum interior was loaded with all kinds of fascinating information that included originals of many of the poems that Burns had written in his short lifetime.

I found it to be very cleverly presented.  

One thing of interest is the difference in the language as Burns wrote his poems in Scottish.

Under each of the poems that are quoted, there are definitions of the words that are not common to today's English language so that the reader could grasp what Burns was saying.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time going through the contents of the museum, but one thing of note was his father's original bible, where the date of his birth is documented among the pages,

as well as the bible that Robert Burns used to write in the births of his own children:

And a genealogy chart

"The chart suggests that there was some philandering going on, but that is something that was never mentioned when we were in Dumfries." 

Obviously, Tom o Shanter must be a favorite poem of Burns because there was more than one reference on the grounds:

there were these two statues, bantering in a room:

And, the Brig a Doon, which is also mentioned in the poem.

And, there's the testimony to Marty's love of Burns:  holding a collection of his poems while wearing his new Scottish hat.  Doesn't he look like he fits right in?

And the old kirk that was actually a ruin during Burns life but is part of the story itself.

As the day was glorious, we took some time to walk around the grounds.

Which took us to the birthplace of Robert Burns, known as Johnnie Souter's house.  It was here that Robert lived his first 6 years prior to his father purchasing a farm and moving the family.  Note the thatched roof that still adorns the house.

Here is the kitchen, which also held the bed in the corner.

and hanging above the bed were 4 white gowns embroidered with the names of the children who had been born in the house.

Personally, I found this far more eerie than the Tom o' Shanty story!

Since it was such a lovely day, we headed south along the shore, towards Culzean Castle.

We had visited there years ago, but the castle itself was closed at the time, so we decided to make the short trip today.

The interior, as you can well imagine, was quite grand.  This castle had been a holding of the Kennedy clan, and in the late 1700's, it was remodeled by Robert Adam who was a famous architect in his day, making many changes that have stayed in existence to the present day.

There were tall columns between the floors and a double staircase

Above which is an oval roof,

decorative friezes

 and stunning ceilings

and some very unique items among the various rooms that we could visit.

The first room we entered had weaponry hanging on every wall!

 There was a dinner gong

and an organ

an interesting display of china with various queen faces

a rocking cradle in the shape of a boat

the servants' bells

and the Eisenhower room.  Eisenhower had used Culzean during World War II as a base for operations.

The Scottish government was so thankful for his help in winning the war, that they gifted him his own set of apartments on the top floor of this castle, to be used at his leisure.

Probably the most interesting item in the castle (well...at least to me) was this once real alligator that had been shot by J.M. Barrie (of Peter Pan fame), and gifted to the Castle.  It was used as a walking stick holder.

There was a little boy putting his hands all over the alligator and the guide had to ask him to stop.  

Then, the guide, looking quite serious, but obviously joking, told the boy that the reason the barrier was around the alligator was because once, a little boy had been touching it, and the gator snapped the boys' foot right off. Then, the parents blamed the National Trust for the fact that their son would never be able to play Rugby due to losing his foot to the alligator. 

I don't know about you, but the guide's quick thinking really gave me quite a chuckle.  I'm not so sure that the little boy felt the same though.

We took advantage of the beautiful weather and walked around the grounds a bit:

and stopped for a cuppa before heading to the walled garden for a quick peek.

There weren't a lot of flowers, but certainly some very unique and stunning varieties.

On the way back to Ayr, we drove down to Dunure for a quick look.  Driving down the road, the castle ruins are quite obvious.

There is also a very small harbor.

and some lovely views.

By now it was time to call it a day, so we headed back to Ayr, and out to dinner.

And.....I ordered dessert!

And yes......it was delicious!

What a Fun Day in Scotland!

Well today certainly was a gem!
We checked out of our hotel and headed to Gatehouse of Fleet, a quiet pristine village located on the River Fleet.

This village as it is known today was a planned community that was developed in 1760 by a wealthy land owner named James Murray. The intent was for this to be an estate village for Murray's new home just south of the village. He built a tannery, brewery, and four cotton mills.  One of the mills still stands today, and it holds a very informative museum that details the history of the mill as well as the village.

There is a very large diorama that shows just how the streets were laid out back in the last 1700's.

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and walking along the streets, it is obvious that this village still stands the same today, except for the operational mills.   At the time, Murray had hoped to compete with Glasgow regarding trading of cotton, but due to its remote location, that never succeeded.  But the mills were not put to sleep, after cotton was not seen as a viable source of money, the mills were set up to make bobbins.

And, sometime after that, the town allowed brick making to help with employment.

You must admit, the mill certainly makes a picturesque scene along the river Fleet, and really is the perfect venue in which to set up a small museum.

The information boards were well presented, explaining a variety of different subjects related to the village and surrounding areas.

One of the boards detailed just how one builds an adequate stone wall that I have mentioned flow all over the countryside here.  We have driven through other areas where the walls have been crumbling and falling apart, but in Dumfries and Galloway, the effort has been made to keep these walls looking beautiful, and when one is seen to become crumbling, a team of professionals will go in and repair to its original structure.  This explained the perfect nature of these walls as we were driving around.

In the middle of the village, there stands this old bank, which appears to be a residence of some sort.  

Walking through the arch, we came across a very lovely garden.  

And on the corner, just at the end of the village, was a war memorial that featured a celtic cross.

Across from this memorial, I spotted a sign that showed an arrow pointing down a road indicating a scenic lookout in that direction, that would include a picnic table.  We decided that would be very cool to check out, so we walked back to the car, made the left in search of this lookout.  Keep in mind that this was a brown arrow sign, typical of a Scottish heritage site,  pointing in the direction we were driving.

But within short time, we came to a fork in the road with absolutely no indication as to which road to take.  Luckily, Marty had looked at an information board that had mentioned a relatively new look out point, so he picked the road to the right.  We drove for nearly 3 miles, spotted another sign, that really didn't point to anything, and continued on until we were driving over a cattle grate, and lo and behold....we found the lookout!

The views over the countryside were amazing, despite the cloudy rain cover.

We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere with no one around.

Well...pretty much no one...

How awesome was that?

We decided to continue our journey and we stopped at Cardoness Castle located just outside the village.

We knew it was closed for touring for the season, but we stopped by to capture a photo before continuing on.

We were driving a coastal route, and this particular area of Dumfries and Galloway holds a number of castle ruins.  Next on the tour was Carsluith.

We were driving along when we noticed a sign pointing to the named castle, just across from a parking lot, and something that looked like a castle.  Generally, these signs give you at least several feet warning before you need to make the turn, but this one offered no warning.  Marty whipped into the lot, and there stood a castle, but there was no indication that this was a Historic Scotland site, and people were outside eating lunch on tables of a little cafe right at the foot of the castle.  And, to make matters worse, all of the signs indicated that parking was private and strictly for customers of the cafe.  

My Here We Go App was directing us down the road another couple of miles, so we decided to follow that advice, and once again, we found ourselves on a dirt road, driving along the coast, crossing a rickey bridge (while I held my breath), and ending up at crossroads that gave us the option of driving up someone's driveway or continuing on a grassy slope that looked like it would fall into the sea.  

Neither option appealed to us, so, once again, we turned around and made the drive, ever so carefully, back in the direction from which we had come.

When we got back to the main road, we followed the route once again, only I noticed that in THIS direction, the castle signs gave much more warning.  So, we made the turn once again, and this time, Marty decided to drive around the back of the building, pass all of the NO Parking signs, and there was a small parking lot, but no signs or indication that this was an HES site for visiting.

However, once inside, it was obvious that we were at the right place because there was an information board naming the castle in question and stating the many details.

This is yet another tower house, similar to the ones I have featured previously, which was built in 1560.  We were able to once again climb the steps nearly to the top.

Where we enjoyed the lovely view over Wigtown Bay.

It was a bit cold and blustery, and there was no sign of sun, as you have probably noted.  But the views were still awesome to see.

Once again, this was a relatively quick visit (despite the detour)  and we headed out to Creetown for a wee peek. I had read that there was an interesting clock tower and war memorial in the village, so we headed here shortly after leaving the castle.

It was easy to find the parking lot.  It was right next to the clock tower.

And caddy corner to the clock, standing right next to a bridge with stone walls was the war memorial.

With no sidewalks to guide us, there really wasn't a safe way to check it out closer, so we jumped back in the car and headed towards Newton Stuart.

Our thought was to head to the information center in that village, but we soon found out that the Visit Scotland Information Center no longer existed.   But I did get a quick photo of this war memorial featuring a cross, standing in front of a very interesting building in the center of town.

From here we began our trek across country, heading outside the Galloway forests towards the west coast.  The drive was just amazing.  I don't have photos to share but the trees were turning the loveliest shade of yellow and orange. And when there wasn't forest or trees to drive through, there were rolling hills, scattered with sheep, cows and horses, separated by miles and miles of stone walls.  Honestly....the stuff artists put on canvas.  Simply stunning.

We finally made it to the west coast when it began to drizzle.  Our next destination was Turnberry Lighthouse, and thanks to some kind sole on a Scotland Facebook page, we had absolutely no difficulty finding the parking lot from where to start our walk.  (When I had used google satellite, this fancy entrance was not there to aid me.) 

We parked the car and donned our rain gear, as the drizzle had quickly turned to much more!  And this is when I made use of the special plastic protector that my daughter had given me for my birthday strictly for this reason.  Well...I'm certain that she didn't expect me to just toss my purse into that bag, but I didn't feel like taking the time to remove the items that I needed from my purse, so I just popped the whole thing in.

It worked great!  Marty and I got thoroughly soaked....but my purse stayed dry!  Awesome!  Thanks Amy!

Here you can see the lighthouse in the distance.  If it looks blurry that is because it was raining when I took the photo.

Finally, we made it to the lighthouse!  We had watched, from a distance, a man playing a bagpipe walking to the lighthouse in the rain. Look closely and you'll spot him.

Here we are.....successful in our venture!

The views are awesome, and probably would have looked better without the rain.

But hey....this is what we got!

In the meantime, I decided to use the ladies' facilities and I was amazed at the interior of the bathroom, so I took a photo.  Pretty opulent, don't you think?

Better yet, there was a window that looked out to the front, and I knew that bagpiper would be walking by, so I waited......and waited......and waited.  Finally, he walked in front of the window and I took the photo!  Perfect!

Little did I know that Marty was waiting outside....in the pouring rain....wondering what could possibly have happened to me.

Oops!  My enthusiasm got the better of me.

We were soaking wet but happy as clams and began the walk back to our car. We hadn't gone far when a hotel van pulled up and the door opened. Two lovely young ladies were sitting inside and offered us a ride.  I told her that I really didn't want to get the inside of her van all wet, but they insisted, and so we popped inside.  I don't think the driver was thrilled, but they blew that off and we had a delightful conversation, part of which featured the plastic covering on my purse.  They really did laugh and find it to be quite an amusing story.  

It turned out that they are event planners and would be hosting a very elegant affair at the lighthouse later this evening.   The weather had been perfect all day and had only turned just about the time we showed up.  But it did calm down an hour or two later, so, hopefully they had a successful venture.

In the meantime, let me just mention that it certainly was extremely generous of them to offer us a ride, particularly when they learned that we were not even staying at the hotel.   We thanked them profusely and they bid us fond farewell as we exited the van looking like soaked rats.

You do have to admit.....we do have some interesting adventures!

We headed to our B&B, wondering at what beauty was hiding in the mist as we drove along.  Finally the clouds lifted, and I must say, we are certainly staying in an awesome location.  I do hope that tomorrow I'll have some great photos to share.

In the meantime,  another day of adventure awaits!