Carsethorn and John Paul Jones

Todays Wednesday walk took us to the Solway Coast and the village of Carsethorn near Kirkbean. Tom selected the walk from a book containing 50 walks in the South West of Scotland and he picked it because it was an easy 6 mile walk with little or no hills and as he has been ill for the last week it would be an easy way to get back into our weekly walks. He was wrong in thinking it was easy as the first part of the walk along the beach was far from easy with very soft sand and mud in places and also slippery rocks to scramble over. It was also blowing a strong wind off the sea and although the temperature was showing 12C in the car it was much colder next to the sea. Only the 3 of us today as Niall is back in Australia and Peter is in the USA visiting his daughter and her family for a few weeks.

The tide was out and it looked very easy walking but soon became quite difficult.

Much work is going on near Carsethorn to protect the sea defences and this digger is preparing an embankment soon to be covered in granite rocks.

This is what the end result will be like as it is the house and garden being protected

The rocks poking up through the sand on the beach were formed 340 million years ago, known as the carboniferous period, when the climate was warm and wet. Layers of different sediments are now sandstones, limestones and mudstones. Although the layers have been folded, fractured and eroded they still give us clues as to how they were formed. Some rocks have ripple patterns which are evidence of the sediment being deposited on the sea floor. 

This is the Devil Stone. A traditional story tells us that the devil bit a bit of granite from Criffel and spat it out on the beach. Current theories identify it as an erratic, a lump of granite carried from the hill by a glacier and dumped when it melted during the ice age.

Mud glorious Mud. Much of the beach was covered in this mud and at one point we hit quicksand or to be more honest quickmud and very nearly sunk over our boot tops but luckily managed to scramble clear. 

This imposing rock formation is called the Thirl Stane Arch

An indication of its size

Our return journey took us inland and past the house where John Paul Jones was born. He was the founder of the United States Navy and this is now an impressive visitor centre, although closed at the end of September until next spring.

In many of the fields near the shore there were huge flocks of Geese feeding on the fields of corn stubble.

The end of the 6.5 mile walk and the lovely Steamboat Inn where we enjoyed a nice Bar Lunch and a drink.