44. Mutehill via Kirkcudbright to Nun Mill Bay

I’m back up around Kirkcudbright this weekend to fill in the big gap I left last time between Dundrennan and Nun Mill Bay, and to progress a little further. I’ve taken Friday off work so I can get three walks in this weekend, staying at the Star Hotel in Twynholm again… it makes sense staying over as the drive up here is well over three hours.

The cause of that big gap is the Kirkcudbright firing range. I’ve convinced myself that the MOD use the latest AI technology to read my mind and schedule exercises on the weekends that I intend to walk through the range. They then publish the dates for the forthcoming month at the end of the previous month – just late enough to ensure I can’t change my plans. It’s an astounding piece of military technology – let’s just hope it can read Mr Putin’s mind as well. And Mr Trump’s… although that might be pushing expectations a little, it’ll have to find something to read first.

Anyway, according to the MOD’s plans, this weekend they don’t have live firing, but they do have active training. I’ve been trying to work out what that means and whether I’ll be allowed to walk through. Maybe I won’t get shot, but I might get run over by a tank?… it could be an issue.

I drive past one of the entrances to the range on the A711, and I’m pleased to see the red flags are down. Anyway, that walk is for tomorrow, today I’m filling in the section from Mutehill – just south of Kirkcudbright – to Nun Mill Bay, where I walked from last June.

I drive to the end of the walk, and use my electric bike to ride back through Kirkcudbright to the start at Mutehill. I could have taken the bus, but I’d need to catch two buses and it wasn’t worth the hassle, and this way I’ve got no worries about missing the bus after the long drive up here. Getting near to Mutehill the bike starts cutting out intermittently, and I panic that I might have to pedal a bit. Luckily it gets me to Mutehill without me having to expend any unnecessary energy… phew! I think I might need a new bike. I like buying things.

I lock the bike up to a telegraph pole, overlooking Kirkcudbright Bay, then cross the Buckland Burn and head north towards Kirkcudbright on the A711. Luckily there is a pavement all the way into town.

The photos look a bit dull. Probably because the weather is a bit dull. The weather forecast for this weekend is improving all the time. Last week it was showing three days of rain, now it’s showing three days of dull. Hopefully I’ll get three days of sunshine. Maybe next week I’ll remember getting sunburnt.

The land slopes up on my right with pasture interspersed by patches of flowering gorse, and a wood at the top.

That wood is called Black Moray Wood, and is the site of the Black Morrow Cave. There’s a local legend about that place…

A gipsy chief, greatly feared by the locals and known as Black Murray, lived in this wood. A young Mr MacLellan (whose substantial home we’ll come across later), in order to recover his father’s lands, filled a well beside Murray’s cave in the wood with spirits. Murray drank from it then fell asleep. MacLellan seized the opportunity, jumped from his hiding place and chopped off Murray’s head. He then brought it on the point of his sword to King James II and so secured the reward promised for the death of Black Murray and the defeat of the gypsies.

There’s no detail about what spirits he might have filled the well with, but there’s the Dark Arts Distillery in Kickudbright, so I guess he asked them for help with that. At least Mr Black Murray enjoyed his last hours.

I hear a cawing off to my right, and zoom in on this pheasant.

I get pheasants in my back garden in Milnrow. There used to be cows in the field behind, but since they left, we now get deer and pheasants. It’s a nice change. They even eat off the bird feeder…

Coastal walking in the spring is nice. The gorse is out, and daffodils line the road. In places there are so many daffodils they make my eyes squint.

The pavement crosses to the other side of the road, nearer to the water. Well, actually I cross to the other side, where the pavement continues. Thankfully the pavements stay where they are.

There are trails of footprints in the mud. I wonder who those belong to…

…a curlew. Or is it a godwit? I think it’s a curlew with the curled beak.

Another squawk very close by makes me jump. There’s a pheasant wading through the garlic right next to me. He might be a quick mouthful for a fox, but at least he’ll be safe from vampires.

The pheasant squawks again, calling me to turn left down a track to St Mary’s Isle… thank-you pheasant. St Mary’s Isle – a peninsula thrusting down into Kirkcudbright Bay – isn’t an island and was never visited by St Mary. As far as I know. It was once the location of a 12th century Augustinian Priory dedicated to St Mary, but they demolished that and built a pig farm.

St Mary’s Isle was the seat of the Earl of Selkirk, who built a mansion on the site of the priory – before the pig farm I’m guessing – and established gardens once considered to be “one of the loveliest spots in Scotland”. The mansion house was demolished and replaced with another in 1897, which then burnt down in 1940, and then they built the pig farm, and so it was definitely no longer “one of the loveliest spots in Scotland”.

So, let’s see what Pig Farm Peninsula – aka St Mary’s Isle – has to offer…

Well, for a start, it has squawking rooks and a derelict transformer…

….I’m liking it so far.

The track forks and I head left down the eastern side of the peninsula. The water off this side is called “Manxman’s Lake” which possibly refers to an event in 1507 when Thomas Stanley, the 2nd Earl of Derby led a large fleet from the Isle of Man which attacked and devastated Kirkcudbright. Then a Galloway fleet was duly raised under Cutlar MacCulloch and the Isle of Man was terrorised in turn. This led to the Manx custom of eating the main course before the soup…

Cutlar McCulloch, a Galloway sea rover who in the beginning of the sixteenth century was wont to look out for the smoke from the chimneys of Kirk Bride, the most northerly parish in Man, and when he saw it, he and his crew would promptly run across to the Manx coast, and if the breeze served them, were wont to arrive in time to have a share of the Manxman’s dinner.
It is said that the Kirk Bride people were consequently in the habit of eating their meat before taking their broth, so that Cutlar and his men should only arrive in time for the less substantial portion of the meal.

…or they could have had salad and avoided the smoke – and therefore the Gallowaymen – altogether but kids can be so fussy can’t they?

Sometimes when I’m feeling lazy I pop down to the local takeaway for my tea. It’s less than half a mile away – sometimes I even walk because I just can’t raise myself to look for my car keys. But sailing 30 miles across the Irish sea because you can’t be bothered to cook takes sloth to a whole new level. Good on you Cutlar 👍.

I hear a chugging out at sea. It’s one of the fishing boats from Kirkcudbright out to catch scallops. “Catch” scallops sounds wrong – they can’t run away – “dredge up scallops”, that’s better. In the distance is Little Ross island with its lighthouse, where the keeper was gruesomely murdered in 1960.

Across Manxman’s Lake I can see my starting point today at Mutehill, in front of the modern house with spectacular views over the bay.

I reach the southernmost point of St Mary’s Isle. Just off the tip is a real island, at least at high tide, called Inch, the name derived from “inis” meaning “island” in Gaelic. It’s only tiny. I’ve visited another “Inch” in Donegal, which calls itself “Inch Island” meaning “Island Island” of course. These Celtic/Gaelic translations often result in double names, like the River Avon, or “River River” hmm.

I consider getting across to it to explore. The tide is not completely in yet and it looks like I could jump over the muddy channels. Maybe there’s buried treasure there?… I learned that’s quite common from a few books I read as a child. I change my mind. I’m more likely to find a discarded crisp packet than any treasure, and regardless of the excitement of finding out what flavour, it’s not worth the risk of muddy feet.

The path up the western side of the peninsula is a lot nicer than the track down the eastern side. It’s a narrower path that wends its way through the trees and the rhododendrons and bamboos that escaped the old Earl of Selkirk’s garden. There are frequent access paths to rocky beaches.

From this point looking due west I can see my car parked at Nun Mill Bay, if I zoom in enough. It looks a bit lonely over there. Another 5 miles of walking to go… or a three-quarter mile swim. Ooh, decisions….

At one beach is the remains of a boathouse, slipway and jetty. Of course I have to go to the end of the jetty, or what’s left of it.

The path eventually joins a paved road, which after about a mile passes through a gate and rejoins the A711, or “St Mary Street” as it is called from here on.

I’ve decided to walk along St Mary Street into Kirkcudbright rather than following the closest path to the water. This is a deviation from my original guidance of always taking the closest path to the sea. Towns are more interesting in their middles than their embankments. This route takes me past the Stewartry Museum…

(which I have to admit doesn’t sound very interesting to me), Odin’s throne…

…now he must have been a big lad, Kirkcudbright Parish Church Hall…

…and across the street…

…Kirkcudbright Parish Church.

Kirkcudbright seems a nice town, and apparently is the best place to retire in the UK, “with the area known for its spectacular coastline and low property prices” as the blurb goes. No mention of weather there.

Towards the northern end of the town is the old railway station, now a cookery school. It was the terminus of the Kirkcudbright Railway which ran a branch line up to Castle Douglas. The station building hasn’t changed much since 1965 when it closed.

I head north-west along Bridge Street towards the (unsurprising) bridge, but take a brief detour to take in the RNLI station, which duly goes into my collection of lifeboat stations. The original lifeboat house was constructed in 1862. In 1892 it was moved to Cutter’s Pool south beyond Mutehill, which while being shorter for the lifeboat to travel out to sea was further for the lifeboatmen to travel to on land, but must have been quicker in total.

I head back to the bridge, but decide when I get there to stroll around the harbour.

There’s plenty of evidence of the scallops that are landed here.

Next to the harbour is the tiny Greyfriars Scottish Episcopal Church, and MacLellan’s Castle.

Construction of MacLellan’s Castle began around 1577. Despite never being finished in its entirety, it was home to MacLellan’s descendants (one of which saw off Black Murray as we discovered earlier) until 1752 when it was sold to Sir Robert Maxwell, presumably before he fell off a boat along with his employees’ pensions. By this time the castle was in a state of ruin, just like Maxwell himself. It’s closed at the moment, but there’s not a lot to see anyway.

A poignant statue to commemorate all the seamen from here lost at sea sits opposite the castle.

Kirkcudbright is a nice town. Even the public conveniences are very quaint…

No, I didn’t 😉

I decide I’d better get on with my walk as I’ve another 3 or 4 miles to go. I cross the bridge, which many people seem to have taken a dislike to, but I rather like.

It was built in 1926, replacing an earlier bridge from 1868.  It’s made of reinforced concrete, with each span supported by bow-string arches overhead. There are plenty more details here for bridge lovers (I’m secretly one of those), although the author isn’t as enamoured by it as I am. Someone must be though, as in 1990 it was category B listed. Safety assessments of the bridge have been going on for some time – here’s an official document relating to one last year… oh I find this stuff fascinating, sorry!

The older bridge was similar in appearance but had 6 spans instead of 5, and had a series of wrought iron bow trusses, interspersed with the ornate lamp columns which were kept to use on the present bridge.

Right, that’s enough. Leaving the subject of bridges – and indeed the bridge itself – behind, I get a good view of the tiny fishing fleet (in numbers rather than size of the boats)…

…and a nice view of a big tree in front of, and scaffolding around, MacLellan’s castle.

The eastern side of the river is far more rural. This area is called the Merse, Scots for “low-lying fertile ground by a river or shore” which I suppose it is.

Celandines greet me on the western bank. They’re also called “pilewort”, but celandine sounds so much nicer, I’ll stick with that.

I follow the A755 out of town for a couple of hundred yards before turning left down the B727. This will take me to Nun Mill Bay. There’s no pavement, but it’s not too busy.

Just round the corner I come to the strangely named hamlet of “The Stell”.

Apparently, in Scottish English stell refers to a shelter for cows or sheep built on moorland or hillsides. I don’t see any sheep or cows, but there’s plenty of posh houses.

From here is a good view of Kirkcudbright, stretching out along the far bank of the river.

This side, little streams run down between the houses, under the road and across the fields. I’ve always fancied having a stream running past my garden, irrigation for the plants on that day every few years when it doesn’t rain, and the soothing trickling sound… although that could cause you to need a wee a bit often when you’re out in the garden…

The road meanders on, past an old graveyard with its church long gone, pleasant grassy verges tended to by the houseowners.

I fancy a little rest, to sit and gaze over the water for a while. As luck would have it I spot a bench in the distance…

Doh! I guess I’ll keep going then. I’m approaching a couple of houses. In the garden of one are numerous boats of different types – sailing dinghies, RIBs, yachts. Then there’s this one…

Ducks are waddling on the mud flats now the tide has receded a bit. What do they eat in a tidal estuary? Do they like salt? Fish and chips?

The end of the walk is near, and I’m looking forward to it. I haven’t been walking in such a long time that this relatively short trip of 8½ miles has tired me out. The end is in that bay somewhere…

A little gap in the hedge leads me into the field above Dhoon Beach where my car is parked. Right, I need to remember to go and collect my bike now, I keep forgetting it!

At some point during this walk I crossed the -4° longitude boundary into -3°, which isn’t really very exciting at all. Looking back, I’ve already crossed it several times between Grange Over Sands and Cark and between Formby and Blackpool, hmm, even less exciting.

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This walk was completed on Friday 21st March 2025 and was about 8.5 miles long.

When I got back to my hotel after this walk, I flopped down onto the bed and promptly pulled a muscle in my back. I’ve had this before and last time it took weeks to recover. The following morning it was too painful to walk, so I decided to have a rest day and hope for the best for Sunday. I drove into Kirkcudbright, only to find the bridge is closed because it’s falling down. Good job it was OK yesterday when I drove across.

Unfortunately, not walking on Saturday means doing Dundrennan to Mutehill (finally to fill my gap) on the Sunday, when there isn’t a bus – I guess I’ll hitchhike or get a taxi, as there’s no way my eBike is going up the hill east out of Mutehill without the battery running out, and there’s even less chance of me pedaling up it.

It turned out that on Sunday morning my back was even worse, so I gave up and drove home. That’s so annoying – I still have a gap, albeit a slightly narrower one.

Anyway here’s the real-time recorded map of my actual route, which you can pan and zoom around: