Red Squirrels

Hi all,
If you've been travelling with me around Dumfries and Galloway I hope I've opened your eyes to the beauty of the area. The fact that it's known as "Scotland's best kept secret" says a lot about it, but still fails to do it justice.

In this post I will tell you about the last day of our holiday on the Isle of Whithorn. In previous posts about Dumfries and Galloway, you will perhaps recall that we've visited a number of gardens including: Threave, Ardwell House, Galloway house, Logan Botanical, Dunskey, Glasserton and Glenwhan. They were all different and all had a charm of their own.

You may have gathered by now that my wife and I like gardens, so it will come as no surprise if I tell you that on our last day we visited one of the best known and biggest gardens in Southern Scotland. Castle Kennedy Gardens sits magnificently just off the A75 before Stranraer. This is a very large garden, but don't go with the expectations of seeing vast herbaceous borders because you could be disappointed. There are some herbaceous borders, but these are mostly confined to the walled garden that surround the old castle ruin. For me this was the best area of the garden. The rest of the landscape is taken up by pools small lakes and magnificent areas of grass. When one walks down from the walled garden to the pond at the bottom of the grassed slope, one gets a real appreciation of how magnificent this garden is.

Although this was the biggest garden we visited, it wasn't the best in terms of catering. There was a cafe, but not what we were expecting to find in such fantastic surroundings. It was a while ago when we visited so perhaps it's been upgraded by now.

Despite the cafe, Castle Kennedy will always have a special place in my heart. While I was waiting in the car park for my wife to use the facilities a red squirrel trotted out of the bushes and stared at me for a nano second, but before I could get my camera up to my eye it scampered off back into the bushes.

To some people this might no be so remarkable, but I was over fifty years old and it was the first red squirrel I'd ever seen. My wife was so envious when I told her about it because she'd never seen one either. I think I was surprised about the red squirrel because all my life I'd been under the impression that the greys had all but wiped them out. Now I understand that there are quite a few places in Britain where the red squirrel still thrives. Besides those in Scotland, there are colonies on Brownsea Island in Dorset, some more in the lake district, some on Anglesey and yet more near Liverpool of all places.

After our long stroll around Castle Kennedy, we got some fish and chips in Stanraer and ate them over looking the harbour, where we could watch the ferries leaving for Ireland. After that we had a very pleasant drive around the North Rhinn. We followed the Banks of Loch Ryan where we saw the hulk of a beached warship that was sadly rusting away. Then we went over the top and followed the almost deserted roads to Black Head Lighthouse where we were able to park the car and have a spectacular view over a rugged bit of coast.

Sadly, another holiday came to an end much too quickly, but that's life. Next time we visit Scotland we will be in my favourite area and I'm looking forward to telling you about it and showing off some beautiful photos.

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