Turf Zone – LeadhillsRail
Until this week I’d never been to Ayr, a town located on the southwest coast of Scotland and to be honest, I never even considered it as a holiday destination, that is until turf came along and took over by life, or at least a good part of it. Not that I’m complaining in any way. Yes, Ayr, that was where ChoccyMuffin and myself have been these past few days, pedalling around Ayr on our trusty Brompton bicycles and taking zones, over 130 of them in all.
Turf Zone – SandySeafield
This trip, we decided to forgo the dubious pleasure of a Premier Inn hotel and sought something rather more upmarket than a pokey wee room with an even pokier wee bathroom attached. And after some considerable Internet searching came across the Fairfield House Hotel in Ayr. Reviews looked promising, prices were fair and photographs of the place looked attractive. It was also located a few minutes’ walk from the sea and the promenade. We stayed there three nights and I would readily recommend it if you want somewhere to stay while turfing Ayr and the local area. Only issue we had was that the shower kept switching randomly between warm, bloody hot and freezing cold while making a noise exactly like an Indri lemur from Madagascar.
On the first day of our trip, our travels took us through the ex-mining villages of Leadhills and Wanlockhead, where we stopped to take the two zones located in Leadhills, and at the museum cafe in Wanlockhead. Choccy enjoyed a peppermint tea with an empire biscuit on the side, and for myself, the usual coffee and fruit scone. Fully refreshed we then drove onto our next destination, an attraction called Crawick Multiverse, a land art project by the landscape architect and designer Charles Jencks, situated near Sanquhar.
It was originally an opencast coal mine but now “links the themes of space, astronomy and cosmology with a network of paths navigating features and landforms that represent the sun, universes, galaxies, black holes, comets and much more.” In other words, a heap of mystic gobbledegook, though still worth a visit but could do with a few zones to attract turfers in the first place.
Turf Zone – AyrSouthPier
On day two, we cycled up the coast, following NCN 7 through Prestwick and up to Troon, grabbing a dozen or so zones there. Along the way we passed Prestwick airport and stopped to watch a massive USAF Boeing C-17A Globemaster thunder over our heads. Don’t recall much about turfing in Troon, strangely, though I do recall our stop at Bloom Coffee Kitchen where they provided our usual fare of empire biscuit and fruit scone, also allowing us to park the folded Brompton’s in the doorway so we could keep an eye on them.
Turf Zone – AyrBeach
Days three and four saw us turfing most of Ayr, our take reaching around 130 zones each, with Choccy getting most of the zones and poor me getting the assists. Busy place Ayr, especially the main drags, lots of bustling traffic and lots of places where crossing the road was a challenge. However, once you start riding the Brompton as if you were driving a car, claiming your place on the road and not dithering about, good progress can be made. Seems to be a lot of places where there’s no provision for pedestrians crossing the road. There are two places we can recommend for refreshments, one is the Coo Shed, located a half-mile or so from Alloway at a dairy farm, on the south side of Ayr. The other is the cafe at the Ayr Campus of the University of the West of Scotland which we stumbled across by chance.
As well as turfing I managed to include some brick spotting on our trip, finding and photographing a LITTLEMILL and an ANNANDALE, the former from Littlemill Colliery and Brickworks, Rankinston, East Ayrshire and the latter from Annandale Brickworks, Crosshouse, Kilmarnock, Ayrshire. Nice to add a couple of new brickmarks to the digital collection. Did spot another brickmark in someones garden, the name of which I’ve forgotten, but didn’t get a photograph. Wish I’d stopped.
Something else I always look out for on our turfing trips away from home are Monument zones, or zones with the Monument attribute, and also TvT zones, zones held by other turfers I’ve not taken a zone from before. The area provided three Monument zones, BurnsStatue, BurnsMonument and WellingtonSq, all located in Ayr. TvT zones were thin on the ground with only two in Troon, MerrymaKer and leakyroof, this I suspect down to the fact that most of the area was held by turfer Fashven, who I see as I write, has returned and taken them all back from us. These additions bring by Monument zone total to 79, leaving only another 21 required for the Monumental medal, and my TVT total to 568.
We’ve done a few turfing trips away now, all with the folding Brompton bikes and they have proved very successful. Not only are they easy to fold and carry inside the car but they are excellent for turfing. Being compact in size they are easy to manage when you come across the likes of stairs and places where you end up pushing the bike. The small size also helps in tight spaces such as narrow lanes and so on. In traffic they are quick off the block and very nimble to manoeuvre. And having a click on/off bag on the front means no need to carry a rucksack. Back again soon.
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