Every now and then on the shore side, the tree line thinned or the path veered beyond the line of the trees and the breeze could break through. While the breeze ruffled the already fallen leaves, it took our shuffling feet to release their music, sending it up through the trees to the grey, grey sky and out to the seas of the world. Wild flowers broke up the thick, green verge and flittering butterflies drank of their nectar.
Wall Butterfly
Sips a purple flower
How lightly
Beauty sits.
To the East of the gardens lies the sandy beach at Cruggleton Bay. Quiet and tranquil now, during the years of WWII, it was used as a training spot for the Mulberry Harbours, used during the Normandy landings. In the warmer summer months, local people like to swim here where the sands slope gently to deeper waters.
Just off the coast of the bay the sloop 'The Margaret & Mary' sank with the loss of her crew (12 October 1870). The sloop was sailing from Whitehaven to Garlieston with a cargo of coal.
The estate ran in to financial difficulties and the property was sold. The house was used during the Second World War as a convalescence hospital and, later by Glasgow Corporation as a residential boarding school (1947 - 1976. The house is now in private ownership, with the gardens operated by a charitable trust.
The weather remained hot, the skies a mixture of clear blue overhead and bustling white and grey clouds on the horizon over the sea. We watched in horror at one point as a particularly ominous black cloud rushed towards us, but which passed harmlessly overhead, to dump on some other poor strangers in the hinterland. The forest continued to offer intriguing glimpses of the sea, sparkling diamond rainbows where the light slit the tree canopy and played on the forest floor. Here myriad greens, from the dark of ferns to the lighter shade of bog grasses, gleamed and glittered. The colours of the foreshore, sea and sky were delightful morsels. Ideal nectar for tired limbs.
Thin-barked trees
Immersed in water
Drink in
Warm summer sun
If the views on the approaches to the castle are good, from the clifftop beyond the archway they are superb. Blessed with a day of lovely weather, we could see down to the Isle of Man and over to the coast of Ireland. The castle is a lovely location for a lunch stop and a brew up. Having kept the mileage for the day deliberately short, we made the best of it, brewing up with the Jetboil and lying back in the afternoon sun just watching the passage of time in and out of the portal.
The route continues round a number of small, attractive bays, their rocks covered in a bright and loud yellow algae. The views behind to the ring of Cruggleton Castle as you come away from the hillside are quite spectacular, like looking through a lens to the sky beyond. A blue haze lay over the top of the sea, lending an air of tranquility and antiquity to the scenery. As we walked the bay, however, another ominous, large, black cloud began to gather overhead.
Reluctantly, as the day cooled and the light dimmed and as the sun lowered on the horizon, we made our way down the last of the incline and into the sleepy town of Whithorn. The houses crowd round the small, picturesque harbour, purple-tinged clouds filled the early night sky, early signs of the sunset to come.