Читать книгу The Southern Upland Way. Scotland's Coast to Coast trail онлайн
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No more splendid starting place for the SUW can be imagined than pretty little Portpatrick on the rocky west coast of the Rhins peninsula. Portpatrick is a lovely small coastal town with its brightly painted blue, white and cream buildings huddled around an attractive horseshoe shaped bay and neat harbour. It makes a very pleasant place to spend the evening before venturing out on your long walk. There is plenty of accommodation on offer in the town, from harbourside hotels to B&Bs, but note that booking is well advised, particularly during the main summer season, as Portpatrick is a popular place for a holiday or short break.
You could be forgiven for thinking that you were in the Scottish Highlands or Islands from the surrounding landscape. Indeed the BBC in the early 2000s conned its viewers into believing that this area was one of the Hebridean Islands in a popular TV series, Two Thousand Acres of Sky (photographs of the cast of this series can be viewed by clients of one of the harbourside café/restaurants). Portpatrick and its harbour also wouldn’t be out of place on the Cornish coast. If you are arriving here on the midday bus from Stranraer then there are several cafes and restaurants awaiting you, for lunch or tea and coffee before setting out on the Way. Although today the town is mainly of interest to tourists and television directors, in former times it was a major port to Ireland. Indeed the very name of the town, after the Irish patron saint, indicates its importance for communications and trade with Ireland. In its heyday in 1812, 20,000 horses and cattle were imported here from the Irish port of Donaghadee, a mere 21 miles away across the North Channel. Troops were sent to Ireland from Britain via Portpatrick, the town having a large and permanent barracks, and many Covenanters sailed from here to safety in Ireland. It was also the Gretna Green for Ireland, offering a quick and easy marriage with few questions asked. Even Peter the Great is said to have spent a night here on his visit to Britain in 1698. But by the 1840s, with the invention of the large and faster steamship that soon superseded sail, Portpatrick fell rapidly into decline as Stranraer was developed.