We depart the marina at Ardrossan and salute the ferry to Arran which is just departing. Arran has a brilliant coastal path which we did about half of on holiday a good few years ago, an incomplete achievement which we decided did not warrant an addition to this website. One day we shall return... but for now it's onwards and northwards along the Ayrshire coastline. We maintain our constant view of Arran as we traverse more sandy beaches on the very enjoyable walk towards Portencross. This takes us a while though because we detour into West Kilbride to find some toilets, and end up having a pint of coke and a scone in a hotel restaurant. The young staff are looking at us curiously but they are quite friendly. I worry about the state we might have made of the posh carpet if our boots had been muddy. More sandy soldiering against a fairly strong wind but there's no rain like the day before, and we have a decent amount of on-off sunshine. We see hardly any people until we approach the small settlement of Portencross where there are a few dog walkers. We see a deer and are delighted to get a good view of it until we realise it is injured and limping. I wonder if a dog has attacked it. So here we are around lunchtime at the impressive ruins of Portencross castle. A fantastic place to sit staring at the raging sea, the northern part of Arran and our new companions the Islands of Little Cumbrae and Great Cumbrae which are highly visible as they are much closer to the mainland. We stay here a while saying very little and feeling the power of the sea and of islands. This section of the walk has been very enjoyable and as if to crown our accomplishment of 6.5 miles, a rainbow appears. The next stage of the walk is however not something I would ordinarily choose to do for a day out as it involves walking through Hunterston Nuclear power station! Apparently safe (I have my doubts). We first pass the decommissioned Hunterston A and then the still operating Hunterston B. I hold in a sense of quiet horror and walk as fast as I can until the view improves. Quite a lot of the land has at least been reclaimed by nature and there are a lot of sea birds. Hunterston sands is indeed a nature reserve, and we notice a teenager has arrived with a telescopic camera and is capturing nature's beauty in the most unlikely of places. Unusually I am actually glad of a bit of road walking as the route leaves the power station behind and takes us alongside the A78. We have developed a trick for where road walking and therefore corresponding traffic noise is unavoidable: bring some earphones and listen to some music. I find the metallic noise of Siouxsie and the Banshees' first album curiously soothing. Away from horrible modernity we reach the quite pretty village of Fairlie. We considered staying here but decided Largs would be better for spacing out the distances. We spy a great wee pub The Village Inn and can't resist going in for another pint of coke and a packet of crisps. Long distance walks are one of the rare occasions that fizzy drinks are a good idea. However we can't hang about too long so it is just a quick pit stop and we get going again towards the site of the Battle of Largs (1263) where there is an impressive monument known locally as 'the pencil'. We learn from our guidebook that the Scottish victory against the Vikings was somewhat overstated but it does symbolically mark the end of Norse dominance of the West Coast of Scotland and the uniting of Scottish clans under King Alexander III. It has started to rain as we approach Largs and we decide to march straight to the Fish & Chip shop on the promenade which Jennie quickly locates on TripAdvisor. It's really raining now but as it's still relatively mild and most people are taking away we sit in our waterproofs under the outside canopy and tuck in. Our accommodation tonight is a really cute cottage which was built for railway workers. I thought there might be a risk of trains thundering past in the night but that doesn't materialise and we have a good night's sleep. Only one more day and we will have completed the Ayrshire Coastal Path!
Matthew
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