The best laid schemes.....gang aft a-gley

I'd never visited Ayrshire before so, with a couple of nights staying just outside Ayr, our arrival back in Scotland gave us both a chance to see a little bit of this part of the country and visit Robert Burns birthplace.

For our first full day we decided to use our National Trust membership to visit one of the National Trust for Scotland's properties: Culzean Castle. 

Culzean Castle after a heavy rain shower

Located about 30 minutes drive south of Ayr Culzean Castle is a large estate and stately home that was in the ownership of the Kennedy family (one of Scotland's oldest clans who were titled the Earls of Cassilis) until passing into the ownership of the National Trust for Scotland. The house was built between 1777 and 1792 and designed by the neo classical architect Robert Adam. It is perched spectacularly on the cliffs and set in grounds that include walled gardens, beaches, a deer park, a lake and acres of woods. 

Driving along the coast road the rain was hammering down and we didn't think we'd be able to spend much time outdoors if it continued. As we had arrived early, just as the grounds opened, we decided to start our visit by having a coffee in the cafe near the entrance rather than get drenched. This turned out to be a wise decision. The rain eased off and by the time our coffees were finished it was dry enough to walk towards the castle. The clouds were breaking up and patches of blue sky appearing in the west. To start our visit we decided to look inside the castle before it got too busy, first taking in the sea views from the courtyard. The entrance hall was completely unexpected. There were wall to wall displays of flintlock pistols and other weaponry. Apparently this is the largest private collection of flintlock pistols in the world. Most were bought as a job lot from the Tower of London.

Pistols at dawn?

From this rather bizarre start we proceeded through more typical neo classical rooms with ornate plaster ceilings and lavish decor. The main feature was a central oval staircase, colonnaded and surrounded by large oil paintings.

The oval staircase

Rooms at Culzean Castle

The top floor produced another surprise. When the Kennedy family donated Culzean they stipulated that a top floor apartment be kept for General Eisenhower for use as a holiday home. He visited several times including one time whilst President of the United States. The apartment is now let by the National Trust as a holiday home with six bedrooms, a private dining room and drawing room. A night's stay starts at £2,500 per night. 

Eisenhower's desk

The day visitor can't see in the apartment but can see Eisenhower's desk which is now preserved and screened off by glass. From the opulence we went downstairs to the kitchen - a surprisingly light and airy space with far reaching views out of the windows to the sea.

View from the kitchen window

By now all the early morning cloud and rain had cleared and we emerged from the castle into bright sunlight and blue skies to explore the grounds. 

Culzean under blue skies

We made our way across a viaduct through an archway towards the deer park. Culzean has an unusual addition to its deer park: llamas! As we got closer we could see deer in the distance but closer was a herd of llamas - grazing or resting on the lush greenery. The deer park wasn't open but walking around the edge we got closer to the deer and spotted a white stag.

A leaping llama...

White stag at Culzean

Walking on through the woodland we came across a lovely little orangery and then by contrast a super sized 18th century walled garden. It was very large - 2.5 hectares,  with fruit trees, greenhouses, vegetable patches and flowering borders.

The orangery

The walled garden at Culzean

Half a mile or so further on through woodland we found a beautiful lake that was home to gulls, ducks and swans and a willow sculpture that looked like the Loch Ness monster. A little food outlet was selling hot drinks and sandwiches so we thought this would be a good spot to grab a bench and have an al fresco lunch.

After finishing our food we walked the short distance to have a quick look at a pagoda, built in 1816, before continuing on a path around the lake until we'd gone all the way around, spotting a shag and duck sharing a perch on the lake.

A lengthy walk back through the woods brought us back to the castle, (still bathed in bright sunshine) and after walking through the gardens below the walls and having a quick look at the old stable block we headed towards the exit getting a glimpse of the 19th century gas house that used to supply the castle and the Ayrshire coastline beyond.

Mrs B soaking up the rays...

The stables

The gas house

Not satisfied with one castle for the day, and as it was such a lovely afternoon we made a short detour on our return journey to see one of Clan Kennedy's other castles at Dunure. This is now a ruin and dates back to the 13th century. 

Approaching Dunure Castle

It was the site of a particularly gruesome episode in 1570 when the 4th Earl of Cassilis, Gilbert Kennedy tortured the Commendator of Crossraguel Abbey in a dispute over land and rents by roasting him! On a sunny afternoon it looked much more peaceful and as well as the castle there was a little beehive dovecot (or doocot) perched above the rocky coast.

More recently Dunure was used as a film location for another TV fantasy series - not Game of Thrones  this time but Outlander. After taking in the sea views and walking down to the harbour we returned to our hotel having packed in quite a lot in our only full day in Ayrshire.

The following day we were due to move on, with a hotel booked on the shore of  Loch Melfort, 20 miles south of Oban. This was going to be our penultimate night away and although I had a long 3 hour drive I calculated we had enough time and a morning free to see the birthplace of one of Scotland's iconic figures: Robert Burns. 

Alloway is a village south of Ayr and is the location of Robert Burns birthplace as well as a museum about his life. It didn't open until mid morning so rather than hang around in our hotel room we checked out and took a walk along Ayr's long promenade. Some signs for the 'Auld Lang Mile' pointed us towards the town so we walked on eventually reaching the harbour passing the imposing town hall built of red sandstone and a pavilion.

Just outside Ayr Harbour

Near to the harbour new apartments had been built and looked quite attractive. I thought to myself that the architect had pleasingly deviated a bit from the uniformity that normally characterises new apartment blocks and attempted to introduce variation to rooflines and elevations to make the development more interesting.  

After a 45 minute walk we made our way the short distance to Alloway and got our tickets for both the museum and Robert Burns birthplace which are separated by about half a mile. I didn't know an awful lot about Robert Burns other than an awareness of some of his most popular work as Scotland's national bard, but the museum, laid out thematically rather than chronologically, did an excellent job of telling the story of his life as well as showing some of the original manuscripts of his work. To our surprise we had the museum all to ourselves. He was the son of a tenant farmer and became a not very successful farmer and in later life an excise man. He died at the young age of 37 and his fame as a poet only really gained momentum after his death. I also learnt he had a number of affairs and is believed to have had 12 children with 5 different women. For some reason our current prime minister came to mind....

Outside the museum a few minutes walk away is the ruin of Old Alloway Kirk which has his father and mother's gravestones and around the corner a large memorial erected after his death, set in a garden that leads down to a bridge over the Doon river - or 'Brig O Doon' which features in one of his more famous poems Tam O Shanter.

The Burns Memorial

The Burns Memorial Garden looking down to Brig O Doon.

We walked through to and over the cobbles of Brig O Doon and then started to make our way past the garden of a hotel of the same name. As we drew level with the building an older gentleman started to talk to us and we explained it was our first visit. As a friendly conversation progressed he told us that his nephew had got married in the hotel the day before and before we knew it we'd been invited in to see the grand room that had housed the reception, introduced to his nephew (who we congratulated) and were able to walk through the hotel gardens to get a better view of Brig O Doon.

Brig O Doon

We told him about our travels and he told us a little bit about his life and in one of those uncanny coincidences that life sometimes produces, it turned out that he had been an architect and had designed the apartments overlooking the promenade that I'd been admiring earlier that morning. I'm sure we could have carried on swapping stories all day but as time was pressing we said farewell and walked the half mile along the 'Poets Walk' to see Robert Burns birthplace. The walk avoided the road and had been adorned with various sculptures inspired by Burns poetry  including a not so wee mouse, a stone haggis and twa dogs.

The birthplace itself was a simple single storey thatched building - probably typical of a farming family home in lowland Scotland in the 18th century, simply presented to give an idea of what it may have looked like at the time.

Robert Burns birthplace in Alloway

It didn't take too long to look around the cottage, so we headed back, had some lunch, and then set up google maps to take us on what we hoped would be a scenic drive north towards Oban on the coastal route. We aimed to check into our hotel around 4.30 pm so my plan was to take our time, stop on the way and enjoy a leisurely drive. Things didn't quite work out as planned.

At first all was well. We got through Glasgow without being held up by congestion, passed Loch Lomond without incident and in no time at all had arrived in Inveraray. Rain had arrived but it was dry when we got out of the car at Inveraray a town we've visited before. Its a pleasant little place on the shore of Loch Fyne and has two tourist attractions a castle and a jail. We were mainly interested in finding somewhere for tea and cake and a busy cafe on the main street provided a solution. After two large slices (lemon and blueberry for me, coffee and walnut for Mrs B.) and a drink we thought a few steps around the town might be beneficial. After looking at the boats by the small harbour and walking along the loch shoreline we walked up the driveway to the castle before returning to the car for the last leg of the drive.

Inveraray harbour

Inveraray Castle

It had been a pleasant little stop and (according to google maps) we only had 40 miles or so to go before arriving at the hotel so we set off for what we assumed would be, at most, an hours drive. Things didn't go according to plan. The weather had turned from low cloud to steady rain but no matter we thought - it wouldn't be long before we'd be in a lovely hotel, warm and dry with an evening meal to look forward to. We'd got to within 8.5 miles of our destination when I drew to a halt in a small line of traffic. A road traffic accident had closed the A816 and we were told the road might be closed overnight. Just before the road closure barrier there was a B road and we were advised to head that way and informed that the 'diversion' would take at least an hour.

The detour...

Without any other choice I  headed off along a narrow winding road, into an area that was clearly sparsely populated, driving slowly as it was impossible to see far ahead. At one point google maps suggested I take a left turn but I rejected this idea because a) there was a no entry/authorised vehicles only sign and b) it was a rough forest track. After 17 miles I came to a junction and after a quick look at the map saw that if I followed the road to the left for 10 miles I'd come out on the A816 just north of the hotel. Knowing it would be a slow drive I set off cautiously thinking it would take about another 25 minutes to drive 10 miles....but after a few miles I got stuck behind a silver/grey Mercedes. The driver was chatting (at length) through his window to another driver coming from the other direction. Eventually he carried on but proceeded to do this with every vehicle coming towards us - oblivious to anything else. To make matters worse he refused to give way or move off the tarmac for any vehicle coming from the opposite direction. On a single track road this meant other drivers often had to reverse some distance (and of course I couldn't pass him). Things soon got worse. His snail like progress and unwillingness to move aside had led to a tail back behind me of other cars. Things came to a head where his refusal to give way led to an older lady coming in the opposite direction having to reverse. She unfortunately misjudged the verge and ended up unable to move. Things came to a complete standstill. 

I stopped as did all the vehicles behind me. I got out as did the man in a van behind me. He was less than complimentary about the Mercedes driver - he's been observing the chaos he'd been causing. We both agreed he was a complete idiot. A small group of drivers gathered to see if we could help the lady who was understandably quite upset.

Going nowhere fast....

At first we tried to lift or bounce the car out of the verge but it was stuck fast and too heavy to dislodge. After all this the Mercedes driver suddenly remembered he's got a tow rope! The rope was attached to the stuck car and he was guided to pull forward slowly and fortunately this did the trick. The Mercedes driver then drove off whilst the rest of us did a complicated manoeuvre to allow us all to get past without causing the unfortunate lady to get stuck again. I knew we only had a couple of miles to go, so thought another 5 minutes would see me back on an A road but lo and behold just half a mile further on I could see the Mercedes driver had stopped again (on a bend) to have an interminably long chat with another driver headed in our direction. I pulled over and sat tight so they could pass when they came through. I warned them as they went by that there was likely to be a long queue of cars following me.

Eventually we arrived at the A816 and I'm pleased to say reached the hotel without further incident. It had only taken 1 hour and 15 minutes to drive 27 miles. The good news was that the hotel was excellent. Our room was lovely - with a private balcony looking on to the loch and highland cows in a paddock below. After freshening up we went down to the dining room for a later than expected evening meal. The food was good and a bottle of decent Argentinian Malbec went down a treat so the day ended well. 

All in all it had been an eventful day and hadn't gone quite as expected with diversions and detours but travelling throws up the occasional challenge and this adds to the experience. The next day we would start to head home, but with an overnight stay on the way to break the journey, so all being well there would be a last day or two of new discoveries to bring our 2021 travels to an end.