This is the walk to do from Girvan. Six miles, one way, ending at your own front door — and along the way you cross a beach made of ancient ocean floor and climb an abandoned coach road to what is arguably the finest view on the Ayrshire coast.
It is Stage 3 of the Ayrshire Coastal Path, walked northwards.
Getting to the start
Take the Stranraer-bound bus from Girvan to Lendalfoot — about fifteen minutes. The stop is called 'Telephone Exchange' and it is unmarked, half a mile south of the Varyag memorial; tell the driver where you are going. Buses run every two to three hours, so check times before setting out.
Alternatively, leave one car at the Varyag memorial and another at Ainslie Park.
Aim for a falling tide. The first two miles are along the shore and are considerably easier — and safer — with the water going out.
The route
1. The shore (about 3 km). From the memorial drop onto the beach and walk north over sand, shingle and rock. This stretch is rich in birds, and the named features are Black Neuk, Woodland Bay and Horse Rock. Boots with ankle support are genuinely worth having; poles help.
2. Up to the road. At the end of the beach, waymarkers direct you up to the A77. Walk the verge north a short way, then cross with great care — see the warning below — to a gate and a gravel track.
3. The old coach road. The track climbs steeply up the back of an old quarry onto Pinbain Hill. This is the original road along this coast, in use until the modern route was blasted through Kennedy's Pass below.
4. The top. The track levels out across farmland — kissing gates, cattle, and muddy puddles after rain. This is the reason for the walk: Ailsa Craig, Arran, the Mull of Kintyre and the coast north to Turnberry, all at once. Look for roe deer.
5. Down and home. The track descends to the road at the far end of the pass. A short verge section and a ladder stile bring you back to sea level for the last two miles along the shore and the promenade into Girvan, finishing at Ainslie Park, where there are toilets and David's Snack Bar.
You are walking on the sea floor
The rock underfoot on that first shore section is internationally important, and almost nobody walking it knows.
This is the Ballantrae Complex — an ophiolite, which is a slice of oceanic crust and the mantle beneath it that has been torn from the sea bed and thrust up onto the edge of a continent. It crops out over about 75 square kilometres between Girvan and Ballantrae, and it is Early Ordovician, around 480 million years old.
What that means in practice is that the beach is a jumble of rock types you will not see together anywhere else in southern Scotland: pillow lavas that cooled underwater into rounded sacks, green serpentinite from the mantle, gabbro, red and black cherts. Much of it is protected as Sites of Special Scientific Interest, and geologists come from around the world to look at it.
The serpentinite is soft, which is why this coast has its boulder-strewn foreshore backed by raised beaches and an old fossil cliff-line — most clearly seen right around Lendalfoot.
Take nothing but photographs. It is low tide that exposes the best of it.
The coach road
Before the A77 was blasted along the shore, everything travelling this coast went over the hill. The track you climb is that road, and it has been abandoned long enough to feel genuinely old.
Its surface is said to show early tarmacadam of the kind pioneered by John Loudon McAdam, the Ayr-born engineer whose surname is buried in the word 'tarmac'. He was surveyor of roads in this county, so the association is plausible, though we have not been able to confirm this particular stretch as his work.
Safety
Other things worth knowing:
- Cattle are likely on the farmland section. Keep dogs on leads and give calves a wide berth; if cattle approach, let the dog off rather than stand between them.
- Leave gates as you find them.
- Check the tide. The shore sections are much harder at high water and the rock is slippery when wet.
- Kennedy's Pass occasionally closes for rockfall, which affects the buses as well as the road.
Shorter and easier versions
- The coach road there-and-back — start at the Kennedy's Pass lay-by and walk up and back, about two miles. You get the whole view without the shore, the stile or the road crossings.
- Girvan to Ainslie Park and back — the flat promenade mile at the northern end, step-free and suitable for anyone.
- The full stage in reverse, walking south from Girvan, works too, but the bus timings are less convenient and the big view arrives at the wrong end.
For the stage further south, see Ballantrae to Lendalfoot; for the ridge above, Grey Hill.
