Ayrshire+ Photographs

I was visiting someone on the top floor of the new flats built on the site of the former ice factory beside the harbour (made ice for the fishing boats to keep their catch fresh). I took this photograph from his window looking East up the River Ayr and was tempted to title it ‘The three bridges’.

If you look carefully, although the light goods railway bridge is no longer there, the piers on which it was built can still be seen in front of the New Bridge. The original Ayr Passenger Station was on the North bank of the river just at the point where the piers still are. A light spur line was added which crossed the river and serviced the quays on the South bank.

The first actual bridge you can see is the New Bridge which only dates from 1878, whilst the Auld Brig dating from 1470 can be seen behind it.

UK Border Agency/UK Customs cutter Seeker berthed for a short period at Ayr Harbour.

This time from just outside our front door. We didn’t plant these crocuses and in fact I kept digging them up, but they keep growing and spreading

I never could get a decent picture of the drifts of snowdrops, so here is a close up of a very few of them.

Back to home territory and Culzean Country Park for a brisk, sunny but coolish walk.

Three views:

Arran of course from just beside the Home farm.

Then the Castle from the same place.

From further down the cliff path a view of Paddy’s Milestone.

The last of my away day pictures for the time being!

Taken from the ferry on the way back to Oban, the sun was highlighting the Mamores and Ben Nevis.

Today’s selection of photographs come from Aros Park at Tobermory and in Tobermory itself.

The first looks over the Sound of Mull to Ardnamurchan with Ben Hiant which, at 528m is the largest hill on that peninsula.

A long view of Tobermory itself.

The building down left was originally the cask store for Tobermory Distillery, but is now flats.

Just in case you got the impression that the weather for the week was perfect, here is a picture I took on the Thursday sitting in the car at Craignure. Less than 5 miles away towards the Iona end, it was falling as snow.

The following photographs were taken from Caliach Point.

The first is looking towards the mountains of Skye.

Then looking west towards Coll.

Then further south towards Tiree.

and lastly looking east back over the way we had come.

Later that day we were relaxing in front of the wood fire in Ard Shellach, the house we’ve stayed in for the previous two vsits to Mull. There is surprisingly little ash left to clean out in the morning.

Loch Ba, Loch of the Cattle, is the prettiest fresh water loch on Mull and is approximately 3 miles long.

This is at the northern end of the loch as we headed down the track.

This was taken at Knockantivore, about 2/3rds of the way down, looking back north.

I didn’t photograph this little one at the north end of the loch as we went down as it had evidently just been born and didn’t look very pleased with the world at the time (the mother was decidely nervous as well!). However when we returned it was obviously much happier.

Loch Ba flows out by a short river into Loch Na Keal, a large sea loch which comes close to cutting Mull into two islands.