Dunure.

The last set of photos from The Sunny Day last week (notable becuase there have been very few recently!)

It has become a tradition for us to end a visit to Culzean with a stop off at Dunure. It is a tiny little place but with lots to merit a visit - a harbour, a beach, a castle, a playpark and, best of all (I think), a labyrinth. There is also a pub which does nice meals (though we didn't stop there this time) and a cafe for ice cream and cakes etc.

 The view to Arran and the Holy Isle as you approach Dunure along the coast road.

A view of the harbour. Not its best angle but it's the only one I took.

 Wind vane.

Across the beach to the castle. My memory had tricked me - I remembered the sand being soft and white (it'actually grey and rather gritty).

 A view of the castle from the other side. This is the view you get from the labyrinth.

Here you can see A & N making their way round.

The centre of the labyrinth.

The labyrinth from above. Apparently it's a seven circuit Cretan design. It's a fairly recent creation, not an ancient monument at all! We all walked round the paths to the centre and then round the paths back out again. It felt wrong to jump over the stones somehow. You can trace the route with your finger on the photo, it's a surprisingly long distance. Sometimes you feel you've reached your destination when you've actually still got quite far to go. A bit like life perhaps. What's the difference between a labyrinth and a maze? A maze has lots of branching paths which you need to choose between, it's like a puzzle. A labyrinth only has a single path to the centre.
  
 Another view to the west, bars of sunshine highlighting  the sea,

We also quickly visited the castle. There is limited access in that parts are closed off for safety reasons, but you can get in the open areas at any time. There's a mention on one of the information boards about the roasting of the Crossraguel commendant referred to in a previous post. He survived by the way!

Lastly, a thistle spotted on the way back to the car.

It was a magical day out with beautiful loations and beautiful weather. It felt like a holiday and has provided lots of happy visual memories to look back on.

Culzean.

Here are the photos from the middle section of our sunny day trip. Culzean Castle and Country Park is run by the National Trust for Scotland which we finally realised we're still members of - we thought we'd joined for only a year but they were still taking a subscription via direct debit, we decided we may as well make use of it (we probably wouldn't have visited otherwise as it is a tad expensive if you're not a member)...

The swan pond cormorant drying his wings. We drove down to the swan pond area first as this is where the amazing new adventure play park is, the kids loved it, I didn't bother photographing it, sorry!.

 Roses.

Fish in the swan pond.

We then headed to the walled garden. I loved this bit, the kids were less keen. We zoomed through, I still managed to get quite a few flower shots...

 I include this view again as it's a favourite.

Then we proceeded to wander round other sections of the garden, climbing the cannons and admiring the views...

 This is taken from the ladies toilet cubicle in the courtyard tearoom!

Now down to one of the beaches, past the gasworks...

Then we retrace our steps to the car (which I'd moved earlier to the walled garden car park as it's a bit of a trek back to the swan pond).

Lovely views to Arran from this part of the coast.

Next up: Dunure. See you then...

Crossraguel.

OK, the pics from my last post were from the walled garden at Culzean. If a sunny day is forcast then we're off and away - there have been relatively few sunny days these holidays so we try to make the most of what we get. This particular day (Wednesday last week), we headed down to Ayrshire. First we visited Crossraguel Abbey, then Culzean then Dunure. As I took so many photos (no surprises there!) I'll split the visit into several posts, this one concerns Crossraguel Abbey "one of the best preserved , most varied and most interesting of the many abbey reuins that are dotted across Scotland".

Earliest records of the abbey date from 1215. One macabre story relating to the abbey occurred in 1569. By this time the Reformation (in 1560) meant that the abbey was no longer an active religious community and a comendant had been assigned by the Crown to oversee the land and property owned by the abbey. In 1569 this commendant was forced to sign over the abbey, its lands and revenues to Gilbert Kennedy, the 4th Earl of Cassilis, his agreement to do so was obtained only because the Earl kidnapped him and had him roasted over a fire at Dunure Castle.

I'd passed the abbey before but had never visited. I hadn't realised there was so much to see, it's definitely worth a visit if you're in the area (and like ruins!). There's a tower you can climb for some lovely views and there are so many passageways and hidden nooks to explore which the children enjoyed too. The steward was very friendly and chatty. We somehow got on the subject of medieval/renasissance music, it turns out his son has recored a couple of films of him playing the gittern which he has uploaded to YouTube. I don't want to link directly, just search for Crossraguel performance on YouTube and you'll find the videos. Worth a listen, very atmospheric - the acoutics of parts of the abbey are amazing (especially if you find your way to the room where you can have a shot at carving stone, we were singing away in there!) I'd rather like a gittern now, they look and sound very attractive - I wonder if I could tune it like my uke!

Anyway, here are the photos...