Glenbuck 6 July

Alan, Allan, Davie Mc, Gus, Ian, Jimmy, Johnny, Kenny T, Malcolm, Paul, Peter, Rex

We went down the road to find Glenbuck

Did we find it? Did we cocoa?
The village has gone, only a farmhouse remains
Great big holes, and plenty of stanes
The fitba’ park was overgrown
A very long time since the grass was mown
And Shankly’s memorial is there to see
Pity about the needless apostrophee!       (Poetic licence)

 But to our tale

 Davie, “There’s a big hole at Glenbuck”.

The rest, “We’ll need to look into it then”.

Where's wee Davie the day?

We were getting eaten alive by midges as we left the car parking area next to Glenbuck Loch on the first leg of our walk i.e. go round the loch in a clockwise direction. Passing a couple of fishermen, we noted that Johnny had already given them an Ooters card and one of them was accessing the blog on his smartphone. We made good progress in decent conditions until, when we were about halfway up the far side, we were buzzed by a very low-flying Hercules transport aircraft – so low that we waited for a number of seconds to see if it was about to crash. Drama over, we soon made our way to the access road to Glenbuck and made our way up to where the village had been and surveyed the wilderness.

The remains of Spyreslack farm

Gie's a bit o' yer piece, mister!

As coffee was being taken the rain came on and was to stay on for the remainder of the day. Davie then led us up to a viewpoint where we could indeed look into a very large hole in the ground and from there he led us down into said hole for closer inspection of the workings. The nature of the stone on one side of the mine was discussed and eventually tentative agreement made that it was sandstone. Eventually Johnny decided he had gone down far enough, “One hole too many”, and he, Allan and Kenny made their way back to the surface and back to the cars to get dried off and have lunch whilst the remainder continued to the floor of the mine.  They arrived forty minutes later as Davie had taken them to see another big hole, this time full of water! The guys went up to the observation hut over the loch for lunch and, when they exited, were surprised and delighted to be serenaded by the two anglers who gave a good rendition of the Ooters chorus.

The view from the vantage point

And in the other direction

Entering the mine

Going down

Into the stratasphere?

Ever feel that you're being watched?

At the floor of the mine

A, J and K had taken three hours for their walk, with the others that bit longer. FRT was taken at the Empire in Muirkirk where we were cordially greeted and ‘entertained’ by a couple of worthies.

A good day out despite the weather, and one which, no doubt, will be repeated.

 

P.S. This was the day the Ooters traded hill-walking for hole-walking.