Another Road Trip – Ayr & Portpatrick
Coming up on our final days in Scotland but there are a few more places we want to see. Road trips are one of our favorite ways to see the countryside and meet new people. We always plan a destination but leave the intermediate stops to chance. For our drives, 6 hours is about the max we want to do, especially in the winter when the days are shorter and it gets dark early.
Today, we’re making an exception. The road trip we planned today will be about 335 miles along the southeastern coast to the small towns of Ayr and Portpatrick. There is no particular reason why we chose these two towns other than they are on a coast we haven’t visited. Just another chance to see some of the great scenery of Scotland.
We got an early start, left Crieff about 7am. Today is Friday so we will hit traffic going and coming back as we get closer to Glasgow. Hopefully it won’t be too bad and the weather will cooperate.
Our first stop, other than to get gas, was at Ayr. Ayr has a population of about 48,000 people and is known for their racecourse. Horse racing has been in this town since the 1600’s and it pretty much is the main thing to do here. Ayr is also a coastal town so there are swimming beaches but not at this time of year.
If someone took a picture of me and Mom-bear walking on the beach, this is what it would look like.
Downtown Ayr
Main street
They do have a nice Wallace monument in town, but then again, almost every town has a Wallace monument.
Doesn’t look a thing like Mel Gibson
William Wallace monument
Bit of rain as we set off for our final destination, Portpatrick. Just over 1.5hrs, the drive will be mostly along the coast. Portpatrick is even smaller than Ayr with a population around 1,000. Portpatrick was founded around 1600 as a fishing port, and in the 18-1900’s, served as a ferry port for passengers and freight between Ireland and Scotland. It is said that on a clear day from a high peak in Portpatrick one can see the coast of Ireland that is a mere 21 miles away.
On the way down to Portpatrick, we could see the unusual island of Ailsa Craig. The island is a giant volcanic “plug” made almost entirely of granite. It has a very distinctive round shape that can be seen from miles away. One of the nicknames for the island is Paddy’s Milestone as it makes the halfway point from Belfast to Glasgow.
Ailsa Craig
We reached our turning point so time to find a place to have lunch before heading back to Crieff.
Leek and mushroom risotto
Mussels in cream sauce and mushrooms on toast
Few pictures of the town and back on the road. Almost made it to Dunfries before we were diverted due to an accident. This was exciting, the road we were diverted on (for ~20 miles) is a single lane farm road. The only passing on this road was at a “passing place” or wide spot in the road. If you meet traffic anywhere else, someone has to back up. That includes semi’s, buses and farm tractors!
Downtown Portpatrick
This place wants a 1GBP to take a picture of the gorilla. Bullshit!
The diversion added about 45 minutes to our trip so we didn’t make it back to Crieff until after dark, but we made it. Down day for tomorrow then we head off for our final road trip in Scotland, the Isle of Skye.