Ayrshire Coastal Path Day 3 Seamill to Kilwinning

I had been expecting rain, and was not disappointed. Even so, the coast felt exhilarating. The beaches, some sandy, some pebbly, all sea-weedy, were alive with curlews, oyster-catchers, eider ducks, swans. Even a lone little egret.

As the wind in my face strengthened and the rain switched to horizontal mode, I decided to head away from the shore for the last few miles, preferring a more sheltered urban route through Stevenston.

There are not many coastal towns in the UK that do not have a deprived underbelly. The common back-story is of an historical industry such as mining or fishing, replaced by the seaside holiday trade of the last century, which in turn was replaced by the popularity of holidays abroad. Symptoms are shuttered shops, closed down pubs, cheap fast food outlets. I was getting that impression in Stevenston when I paused in a bus shelter to put my walking poles away. A young woman bobbed in immediately to tell me she was “trying to get home” and needed fifty pence. Okay, I wasn’t going to miss fifty pence. I opened my purse and offered her a pound.

“Och, I might need two,” she said, making a good drama of totting up what fares she required, applying a rate of inflation that even the current government hadn’t managed. I gave her two pounds. What the heck.

Minutes after she left, a joyrider screeched up the road and burned rubber with a handbrake turn in the side road I was about to cross. Phew, that was close, I thought. Would he have noticed if I’d happened to be already in the middle of the road? After crossing, with nerves still jangling, I was passed by the same young woman from the bus shelter, strolling towards me munching on a burger. I simply raised a hand and smiled at her. “Good one!” she replied, mouth full, and smiled back.

I found a pleasant looking pub that was open and stopped for a double whisky (cheaper than a pint of beer in Scotland). Walked another two miles. Caught a bus into Kilwinning. That’s what buses are for, right?