And did David Bowie walk these wild hills?
January 25, 2022, 8:17 am , by Editor
Richard Lutz asks….as he re-adjusts his winter hat
Not so much a brisk winter walk over the remote Galloway Hills as full tilt into the maw of a southwest wind. And to decorate a brief stop hugging a long line of stone wall, a flurry of multi coloured woolen hats to keep the cold away. Blue, black, yellow, violet, red. They come in all colours as we travel cross-country over windwhipped Carlock Hill towards Penderry Hill south of the small Ayrshire port of Ballantrae.
I shouldn’t be surprised at all this wooliness. After whisky, Logan Roy and more whisky, woolen hats must be Scotland’s main export. Kids are born with them capping their heads, lovers get married in them (among other things), the dying say farewell to the world with a woolie. A winter woolen hat, whatever colour, is……well, Scotland.
After the howl of wind from southwest of Somewhere Else, Penderry Hill welcomed us with a beam of sun. We stopped as the western horizon hazily appeared. Cloud and drifting mist dissipated.
There, peering out to the sea, we could see the ferry ploughing from Loch Ryan to Northern Ireland. We headed down to the empty coastal path which twisted to Currarie Port, a quiet bay populated by seal pups who popped up from the winter waves to check out the view.
The mist lifted, returned, then lifted again. We were met with a panorama: The Mull of Galloway, a hint of County Antrim, the Mull of Kintyre, the Isle of Arran, its sidekick Holy Isle with its Buddhist hangout, and the volcanic plug called Ailsa Craig which is a 1200 foot high granite island and more or less owned by tens of thousands of sea diving gannets. Here you can just about see it on the horizon:
Currarie Port was a smugglers landing back in the day, and the headland north includes a sea bound hill called Donald Bowie. Not Donald Bowie Hill. Nor Mount Donald Bowie. Just simply Donald Bowie. That’s it above.
I wonder how many visitors struggling into wind and rain misread their soggy map and wondered how this headland could be called after The Man Who Fell to Earth. ‘Maybe David came from these parts.’ someone once thought aloud. Hardly. I really couldn’t see Ziggy Stardust handling mountain sheep or ornery Belted Galloway Cattle in a sleet storm. Wearing a woolen hat jammed over his ears. Hardly.
After Donald Bowie, the path makes a beeline north.
The green headlands make a fine spot for fulmars cruising the cliffs, stiff winged, laying their eggs in the ledges and crevices which we wander past. It’s hard walking because the ground is rough. So gazing at the endless sea can mean a twisted ankle..an injury you don’t want so far from a road. The southwest wind, dialled down to a stiff breeze, is at our backs, pushing us, and we sail northwards.
*assorted pictures from Geograph
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Rachel Ibbotson
Hats off to you all- from those of us in our “golden years”.
Sue
Most envious as we wrestle with another drab, grey, cold day in Moseley.
Rick Bamford
Wild is the wind, from absolute beginners to those in our golden years, we love the changes in sound and vision as we heros walk the Scottish Hills.
Kirk Michael
yes, he probably did….well maybe – as per the link attached
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14210092.david-bowie-almost-became-monk-scotland/
Will Travel
what a place! I must go and see it some time.
JK
Let me bounce the ball back with this week’s Letter from Scotland.
https://theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2022/01/letter-from-scotland-345/
Jackie Leveque
wish I were out walking with you there
Jude Forrest
At least you can have Bowie blasting in your ears..it would chime
BR/Moseley
I’ve been there !!
Bob P/ Hereford
As ‘The Big Yin’ famously summarised the atmosphere of Scottish pubs – “Three woolly hats singing ‘The Wild Rover’ “.
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