Here's Stewart House, our quirky abode for the week. The fire alarm woke anyone who might have thought of sleeping in, and the power surge that caused that also turned the heating off. And Richard's bed broke! All sorted by a maintenance man from Dumfries.
A 35 mile drive took us to the hamlet of Carsphairn. Then a path past the Green Well of Scotland saw us admiring the feats of Sand Martins in a sandy bank above the Water of Deugh.
For a while the weather was fine, though the Highland cattle seemed dubious.
Light rain started, and lasted for the rest of the day. After a couple of hours we reached the summit of
Cairnsmore of Carsphaim, where my five companions, Sue, Phil, Jenny, Richard and Sue duly posed on the summit before donning waterproofs and tucking in to their lunches.
After that, plenty of 'down', eventually being released from the mist and our unexpected need for warm winter gear.
The birds were active on the descent - oyster catchers, wheatears, sand martins, and a variety of small tweeting treasures.
Sue, Phil and Jenny took a longer route back, leaving Sue, Richard and me to admire the sand martins again.
Here's our route - 12km with 600 metres ascent, taking 4.5 hours.
Dinner involved a wrestling match with cooker and ingredients, eventually resulting in a just about acceptable beef and Guinness pie for the ten of us in Stewart House.
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