Hay's Way explores the Ayrshire Coast from Girvan to Irvine

The Scotsman

Scotsman rural affairs correspondent Katharine Hay continues her walking tour of Scotland. This time Katharine is on the scenic Ayrshire coastline

Transcript

00:00I'm going to just talk a bit about the Ayrshire Coastal Path which I walked on about a month

00:23ago.

00:24So having explored Dumfries and Galloway I walked up towards Girvan on the Ayrshire

00:30Coast and from here I walked along the Ayrshire Coastal Path all the way to Irvine before

00:36heading back inland.

00:39There was a real range of things to see on this path, on this route.

00:44Things that ranged from historical monuments to interesting businesses to quite depleted

00:49towns in terms of business and also Trump's hotel in Turnberry.

00:57So in Girvan that was where I noticed a particular decline in the high street there as with many

01:01towns across Scotland which I've noticed on this walk.

01:04Hayes Bay has made it to Girvan which is on the west coast of Scotland in Ayrshire.

01:10I'm just passing through because I'm trying to make my way up to Ayr.

01:14I've just been working in the public library that they have here and I've just had a walk

01:18through the high street and there's a lot of closed shops, a lot of properties which

01:25have tillet signs in the window and a few that are also boarded up.

01:30So it does look like business is struggling a little bit here.

01:34And I spoke to a hotel owner who said that the decline in fishing, there's a harbour

01:41here and the decline in fishing there has led to economic decline for the town but also

01:48a tour guide was telling me that a lot of tourists used to come through Prestwick Airport

01:54from the States flying in to go and visit Scotland's golf courses but now that's being

02:01less used it means that there's less of a flow of tourists coming through this area.

02:05So it does, I'm only just here passing through but it does give the impression that it's

02:10sort of shedding a skin from a previous more busy and bustly time.

02:17The buildings are really beautiful and it's a very, you can tell it was a popular holiday

02:24spot because it's right here on the coast but a few residents have said that the area

02:31here is really struggling economically.

02:34His way has made it to Townbury which is where Trump has one of his golf courses in Scotland.

02:43The building behind me, he bought it and sort of redeveloped it into what it is now.

02:50It's a bit of a monster of a building.

02:53I went up there last night just to fill up my water and get a drink and yeah, the inside

02:59is just kind of covered in chandeliers and silver teapots.

03:03It was quite a change from being just down the coast in Girvan.

03:12He's got a golf course here and it's very busy, there's a lot of people out and about

03:17playing.

03:20I just camped nearby and was woken up by some golf caddies so I had to kind of move on a

03:26little bit.

03:27But yeah, there's not much around here so I'm reluctant to go and have any more to do

03:33with the hotel so I'm going to just press on and try and find something else.

03:37I also was lucky to stumble across Worley and Gregory Marshall who are the owners of

03:42Blackthorn Salt.

03:45You can only visit their site by appointment only and if you're media but they were very

03:51kind to accept my request very last minute and I visited their business.

03:58What they do is they're the only business in the world that are doing this at the moment.

04:02They have a blackthorn tower which is a tower made of blackthorn held together with beams

04:08made of larch and Douglas fir.

04:10It reaches about two double-decker buses sort of stacked on top of each other, it reaches

04:15that height.

04:16And what they do is they'll trickle tens of thousands of litres of salt water from the

04:21sea down through this blackthorn structure and with the wind and the sun that helps evaporate

04:28the water into a sort of brine which they'll then heat slightly and turn into salt.

04:34It was interesting their headquarters is a vintage railway carriage, a Victorian railway

04:40carriage which they rescued and inside there's a wood-burning stove and after seeing the

04:48wind pick up the day that I was there the couple very kindly offered to let me camp

04:54out in this railway carriage and there were beautiful views of Arran across the water.

05:01It was a wild night so I was very grateful to have the shelter and it was actually the

05:05first time they'd ever let anyone stay in there overnight and it was certainly my first

05:10time staying in a vintage Victorian railway carriage to sleep in.

05:17But putting my sleeping bag up against the fire it was a really nice break from camping

05:21outside for a few days before that.

05:24So before you get to Ayr you can actually visit Culzean Castle, otherwise known as Culzean

05:30Castle, which is where the Kennedy family lived and there's a few other castles dotted

05:35about on the Ayrshire coastal path that you can go and visit.

05:38I would recommend going, it's got a lot of beautiful views all along the coast, it's

05:44quite wild compared to the east coast, there's a lot of vegetation that comes down right

05:50up to the coastline.

05:52So what I found interesting was not far from Ayr I was taken on a tour by a man called

05:58Matt Cross who works for an initiative that helps restore nature to former opencast coal

06:04mining sites and he took me on a drive around some of the former opencast coal mining sites

06:12in East Ayrshire.

06:13It was really interesting because a lot of wader birds, particularly sandpiper and ringed

06:18plover are doing really well here.

06:21The way the land has restored, the way the nature has restored on the land it's created

06:26perfect conditions for these wader birds and there's a story about it on the Scotsman which

06:30you can find under Hay's Way.

06:33If you're interested to follow the rest of the journey you can subscribe to the Scotsman

06:39and all the content that I'm writing and filming and taking pictures of will be under the section

06:46Hay's Way and you can also follow me on my Instagram page which is

06:51at rural underscore cat with a K.

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