One of our Wednesday morning walks was along the coast road from Auchencairn to Balcary Bay. It gave us a good view of Hestan Island and the posts that used to support fishing nets. The coastline at the far right is the edge of the Lake District in Cumbria on the far side of the Solway Firth.

Betty enjoying a walk along the coast on a sunny day with the tower of the Corseyard “Coo Palace” in the background.

There is a good network of paths through Balloch Woods near Creetown featuring some interesting sculpture and other items such as the Roundhouse at the Garrochar Wildlife Ponds. It is used as an interpretation centre and meeting point for groups visiting the area.

Yet another sunset picture. This one is looking across Wigtown Bay from the coast road near the Coo Palace.

We had a weekend trip over to Newcastle and spent a day up in Northumberland visiting William Armstrong’s Victorian estate at Cragside. There are some very interesting walks around the extensive gardens and grounds visiting innovative features such as the hydro electric power house and a very early iron bridge. We were very impressed with the carvings that had been made on tree stumps and this one on the trunk of a tree that had been felled.

We have now acquired a two-seater sit-on-top kayak which we hope will be useful for taking people out on trips along the coast. This is its maiden voyage – a quick trip around the bay to check it out. We discovered that the front seat can get a bit wet through the self-baling holes but we have now installed a little platform to raise the seat above the high water mark to minimise the chance of wet bottoms.