A WALK along a beach where BBC's Two Thousand Acres of Sky was filmed with views across to the Irish coast.
Distance/Time:
2.5 miles. Allow up to 2½ hours.
Where to park:
Drive to the end of Port Logan on the B7065. The car park is behind the Port Logan Hall.
Refreshments:
Butterchurn tea room above the bay has lands
cape paintings of the area for sale. The Port Logan Inn has good seafood on the menu.
Other things to do while in the area:
There is a farm park at the Butterchurn tea room. Logan Botanic Garden (an offshoot of the Edinburgh Botanic Garden) is just outside the village. Further afield lies the Mull of Galloway, the most southerly point in Scotland.
The walk:
The best place for viewing the light and sky unique to Scotland is hard to nail down to one location - the Outer Hebrides, Far North, beaches of East Lothian and West Coast sea lochs are a few that might be on any shortlist. The isolation and bleak land-scape of Port Logan, however, puts it in contention. From the car park, drop down to the sandy beach and follow it round in front of the row of cottages. (If the tide is well in, you can follow the bay round along the road.) Look across the bay as the sky opens up - it becomes apparent why this was chosen as a location by the BBC to film Two Thousand Acres of Sky for three series. On the far side of the bay, the terrain is rougher, stretching out to the headland at the Mull of Logan. What looks like a monument can be seen above the headland but it is actually the gable end of a house. Looking back to the start of the walk, you can see a tower at the edge of the pier - this used to have a bell in it to guide the ships into the bay. Out to sea, the coast of Ireland is clearly visible on a good day. Past the Port Logan Inn, carry on round the bay for about half a mile to a car park, reached from the beach via wooden steps. From here, follow a track round to the left past a cottage. (You can carry on along the beach as it gets rockier and clamber up to the track past the cottage.) The track eventually reaches a white stone building. This is the Port Logan fish pond, an 18th century fish larder used for keeping live fish in a natural rock formation. It is open to the public and you can learn more about the fish that were kept there. Retrace your steps to the car park.
The full article contains 466 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
