As we ate our sandwiches on the granite rubble spit we noticed that there were many blocks of granite that had been bored to produce the plugs of granite from which curling stones are cut. Kays of Mauchline visit every 10 years or so to remove about 2000 tons of granite that were blasted land quarried last century. Green, blue hone and red hone granite is all collected by a digger with a grabber arm and loaded onto large wheeled dumper trucks for transport to a landing craft at the spit. The last granite was collected in 2013.
After a very pleasant luncheon below the lighthouse Ian and I set off through the industrial archaeology of the lighthouse area. The railway line runs from the jetty to the lighthouse and the gas works. The points still work.
We climbed up to the 15th century castle...
...then up steep bracken covered slopes...
...to the castle well. At this time of year it is very easy to miss the path as it is obscured by chest high bracken but I have been up so many times that we made few wrong turnings and...
We emerged onto the summit (338m) ridge where we enjoyed a stunning view
...to Arran some 24km away to the north. It was from Arran's Kildonan shore (below Goatfell the highest mountain) that Tony and I had crossed to Ailsa Craig just 18 days previously. Even with a telephoto lens, it looked a long way off.
Far below FPV Minna cruised by while nearer at hand...
...we discovered dog rock just below the summit.
On the way down we saw several of these beautiful magpie moths (Abraxas grossulariata) they are particularly fond of elder trees and a few stunted specimens are found on Ailsa Craig where in the local vernacular they are known as bour trees. Soon we would discover more wildlife in near incredible numbers...
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