The Kirkpatrick Cycle Route, passes through Newton Stewart on it’s journey across the South of Scotland. It is a 250 mile route between Stranraer and Eyemouth. Usually journeyed west to east.

The Stables Guesthouse, with it’s cycle friendly accommodation, is an ideal place to stay at the end of day 1. With help from South of Scotland Enterprise, we have upgraded our facilities to add metal, lockable bike sheds and an upgrade to our workshop.

Further info at: Kirkpatrick C2C route revealed – News | VisitScotland.org

There have been a couple of BBC articles in the last few months that have been really interesting, focussed on the South West of Scotland.

In order of publication, the first details the expansion of the UNESCO BIOSPHERE area, and the second, that the area has been highlighted in a world-wide list, by National Geographic, of areas to visit.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-66096332

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-67296609

The international professional cycling event The Gralloch was held at Gatehouse of Fleet this past weekend. It was a massive success with about 1000 riders from 30 different countries, and their teams, descending on the region. Here are some piccies of the big day.

The Newton Stewart Walking Festival has opened it’s booking site for the organised walks. Limited places so be quick !

https://www.walkfestnewtonstewart.com/

When do B&B owners go on holiday? We went mid October. It’s an unusual occurrence to be away for my birthday. With Fay previously being a teacher in England, my birthday, on the 12th of October was never coincidental with school holidays. Fay’s birthday in August, however, we were always away.

This year we took the opportunity go go away for my birthday. So, we decided to go over the sea to Arran. But, we decided to just take the bikes, so we parked at the ferry terminal and went across with bikes and ruck sacs.

We were very fortunate with the weather, and completed a few walks, including up Goat Fell, and a few cycle rides including a ride all round the island .

I could post all sorts of pictures of our holiday, but a particularly special evening was spent badger watching, so here is a picture of our successful evening.

The Rhinns of Kells are a range of hills in the Galloway Hills, part of the Southern Uplands of Scotland. The most easterly of three parallel ridges, they are neighboured to the west by the Range of the Awful Hand (including Merrick) and the Dungeon Hills.

We have been living in Newton Stewart for almost 3 years and this is the first time we’ve stretched over to the east to the Rhinns. Here’s our summit photo and route 🙂 It’s a long old walk, with a bit of navigation to get through the forest roads before hitting the flanks of the hills. The summit photo was on Corserine, a Corbbet at 814m and then we walked the ridge to Meikle Millyea, a Donald at 746m.

As we’ve not had a long mountain walk for a few months, we were surprised at being able to walk the following day !!

One of our recent lovely guests sent us a couple of pictures of some local places that many of our visitors choose to visit. The first is the magnificent lighthouse at the most southerly point in Scotland, the Mull of Galloway. The second is the picturesque harbour town of Port Patrick. Many thanks for the pictures Jacquie Newlands.

We had some lovely guests over the last few days who visited the Red Kite feeding farm near Laurieston, just the other side of Gatehouse of Fleet. Here is a magnificent photograph by Ann Renfrew. We often see the Red Kites whilst out on the bikes, but they’re never this close and we never have decent cameras with us, so this is a great picture to be able to add to our posts. What a magnificent creature!!

A bit of high level painting plus indoor final touches.