River Annan Walk to Newbie and the Solway Coast

Annan Harbour with the only boats on show a couple of ageing wrecks just like Peter and Tom

Crossing the River Annan on the pedestrian bridge below the main Annan Bridge

The River Annan from near Cochran Boilers Factory 

The view from the pedestrian bridge towards the main bridge and the town.

The offices of Cochran Boilers. I started dealing with them in 1984 when they had about 750 employees and that will be reduced to less than 200 now. They were a great customer and in my time with Atlasair, Transglobal, Wilson Logistics, and EMS Cargo (Carlisle) Ltd we must have shipped thousands of consignments of Boiler Spares to every corner of the world. The most challenging was Ships Boiler Spares in Transit when a vessel with a Cochran Boiler was arriving at a port in some obscure part of the world and we had a window 48-72 hours to get the spare parts for it's boiler there before it moved on to its next port of call. They were an absolute pleasure to deal with and I have such happy memories with dealing them and especially their Shipping Manager Mario Motroni who was a real gentleman. 

A short seat beside the sea but we did not linger as it was a cold wind. Tom is back wearing his tea cosy hat, which we thought we had seen the last of.

Up and Down the River Annan

Despite a lot of overnight rain it was dry and almost sunny when we started our River Annan walk from Annan to Brydekirk and back. 

The first obstacle was this Gorse near the Annan bridge but Tom manages to negotiate it without much hassle. He looks a bit like a Hoolet in a Whin bush.

This caul is a mile upstream and occasionally you can see some Salmon leaping here but not today 

Lovely shades of green on the trees on the bank of the river. 

Brydekirk Bridge beside one of the ugliest painted pubs in Scotland 

Tom went to a lot of trouble to take this photograph but did not try his usual pose of kneeling down and then being unable to get up. We ended our walk with lunch in The Whitshiels Cafe back in Langholm.