Lunderston Bay Walk to Inverkip Marina

                                                    ALL PHOTOS CLICK FULL SCREEN

 A flat walk on a lovely day of a few hours duration. Lunderston Bay lies between Gourock and Inverkip. It's a popular day trippers place so although it's a large car park, on a good sunny day better to get there before  10:30am- 11:00am to bag a spot. Once parked, or coming by train to Inverkip Station, you walk the coastline path between Inverkip Marina and Lunderston Bay. A path also leads inland through the Ardgowan Estate for the circular return leg.

 

It's a walk of great variety with views of the mountains and the Firth of Clyde plus any passing ships or pleasure craft. Container ship bound for Greenock docks here, above.

 

The path is also a good one and after last weeks encounter with missing hill trails and barbed wire fences ripping into me everywhere outdoors an easier straightforward day was much appreciated.

It's also very scenic with sandy beaches, mature deciduous woodland and grassy meadows once inland.

Boats passing each other.

 

Cosmos border. An increasingly popular flower these days.

 Red Admiral butterfly feeding.

 

Natural sea sculptures on pebbles gathered in under a minute on Inverkip beach.

 I love a good beach walk as long as it's not too busy and this one was not, just me, my friend Alan, and a few dog walkers. We have done most of the hills in the Inverclyde area now so this was a change from uphill walks.

 Beach view from Lunderston Bay.

 Large ship heading for Greenock.

 

The old stone pier at Inverkip. Ruins of a building/house here as well near the shoreline so maybe predating the marina construction.
 

Inverkip Beach.

Inverkip Marina. Felt like Italy or France with the sun and heat. I'll miss that warmth now were are into much cooler temperatures. Scotland should be well placed however in a warming world... rarely above 26c in summer... and hopefully milder winters given the current increased domestic heating bills.

More Inverkip Marina. This part of the walk can look semi tropical with this blue lagoon effect and the lines of boats

Kip Marina bar and restaurant. Was only in this once, many years ago.

 

After a last few views out to sea the path travels inland through the Ardgowan estate. The few times I've experienced midges this year they have been very bad so maybe this explains midge nets for the estate horses. They do drive humans and animals to distraction.

 

Horse midge net in action.

 

They have introduced alpacas since the last time I was here. Summer cut coats for the last three hot months.

They have five or six in a paddock. Nice to see.

Cute and funny.

 

Sweet chestnuts. Introduced by the Romans to make flour (polenta I think) but it's usually too cold in the UK for them to ripen fully. Maybe not this year though.

 

 

Acorns in Late September.

 

A colourful, pleasant and very varied day out.

 

More Cosmos borders along Greenock's esplanade. 2 to 4 hours depending on speed and lunch stops.

  PS. much, much harder to leave comments on wordpress accounts now. Still rejected after leaving my email, phone no and two different verification codes sent to me. They want me to change to wordpress now. **** that!