Dunoon

I don't often look at Dunoon as a whole, as for some reason I seldom think of walking the steep forestry tracks above the town - tracks that in my very earliest weeks here I used to watch being made, as a digger crept its way up the hillside, almost 45 years ago. Today, a change in plans and the irritations of the morning saw me determined to fit in a walk, and this is where it took me...

From up here, you can see the compactness of Dunoon before the growth of the town brought its norther edge to join up with Kirn and then with Hunter's Quay (both out of shot to the left of the photo). You can make out the tower of the High Kirk (extreme right) and the spire of St John's; there used to be a third presbyterian church but it's now been demolished - it was just across the road from St John's, the result of some schism or other. Somewhere, tucked away behind trees and buildings, is my house, and the trees on what used to be the gallows hill are visible next to the High Kirk.

The walk ended up being sufficiently strenuous to soothe the savage breast, and I was able to enjoy cooking dinner for a friend who has arrived to live in Dunoon and wanted to know all about it.

I told her there were good walks ...