Route E SWC300
Southern Half (ish)
Today Matt joined us, having driven all the way from Croydon yesterday This route covered most of the South West Coast 300 not done on Day 4, to fit it all in
would've meant doing VERY long days, or splitting it into 3 & doing the
same bits of fast straight road multiple times, so we missed out on the Girvan to
Stranraer section & the bit on the peninsular south of Stranraer, which is
a pity as I wanted to do that, but it made the mileage too high.
To begin with we headed south on
the B725, to join the A75 at Carrutherstown, round Dumfries on the bypass, to
Crocketford, then the A712 where it got more interesting. Over the Urr Water & it wriggled past
mountains & lochs to arrive at Newton Stewart. After that there was a major road to get us where we needed to be, to be honest this whole section was an irritating disappointment, it's a wide A road with a 60 limit, but the HGVs are limited to 40 for some reason, I did wonder if it was to make them easier to overtake, but there was so much traffic it just meant that everyone was stuck at 40 for mile after mile. However, things improved after the fuel stop at Castle Kenedy.
The route avoided Stranraer town centre & headed south on the
A77. We travelled through Dinvin & Port Patrick, then took small roads to Sandhead, where the SatNavs did their usual trick of sending some people one way, some another, so myself & my girlfriend therefore arrived outside the Tigh Na Mara hotel & parked up as there were no restrictions, everyone else stopped in a car park 200yds away. I wandered in & asked if we could have coffees "umm yes?" the young lady replied somewhat uncertainly, by this time other people had moved cars nearer the hotel & the locals were out in force taking photos. I went back in with Brian, "can we have coffee please?" I asked, "and CAKE" added Brian, again the staff rallied brilliantly "we've got no cake" she said "but we can do puddings".

I liked Sandhead, it had the feel of one of the towns on the north coast, it also had a fantastic beach & the people were all very friendly. Having said that, the sun was out, anywhere with a beach always looks lovely when the sun's out.
As we left town, we were filmed all the way by 1/2 a dozen locals, then we hugged the coast on the B7084 past the
West Freugh weapons testing range & re-joined the A75 near Glenluce, where a few of us cut the route shorter, but most took the A747 south to the coast at Auchenmaig & we passed "The Cock Inn" which always brings a smile to the face of my inner 12 year
old.
We went all along the
coast to Port William where there was another potential coffee stop, sadly closed on this day. It's run by the local lifeboat volunteers NOT part of the RNLI, the locals decided they wanted an in-shore recue boat, so they saved up & got one, trained some people & good luck to them I say. It would've been nice to call in, but
in common with a lot of other things in this part of the county, it's not open
Monday or Tuesday, so three of us parked up on the quayside for photos, the others got lost & went on their way.At Monreith we left the shoreline & just after
Glasserton took the B7004 to the Isle Of Whitehorn which isn't an island
at all, but looked very nice, unfortunately time was getting on, so we didn't stop. The B7063 took us back north to re-join the B7004.
Heading north on
A roads we crossed the river Bladnoch, but went back to the B7005 to avoid Wigtown,
a spell on the A75 took us along the coast past Spittal. Just after Ardwall we passed over the Big Water Of
Fleet & turned onto the A755 & shortly after that onto the
B727 with views of St. Mary's Isle which also isn't an island.
At Kircudbright (Kirkoobree), we went on a southerly loop on the A711, eventually coming through Palnackie & Dalbeatie & to the last coffee stop at the Loch Arthur Farm Shop. At Lochanhead we took a single track to Lochfoot, north to the A75 round Dumfries, up to Lockerbie to re-fuel & back to the hotel, where I gave the hotelier a passenger ride in the Stylus.