Kippers for breakfast. I am in Scotland after all.

Then I caught the bus to Dundrennan; the driver stopped practically outside the ruined abbey for me. Even without his help, I couldn’t have missed it since Dundrennan village is tiny. Twelfth century, Cistercian, probably founded by monks from Rievaulx Abbey (one of these days . . .), a mixture of Romanesque and Early English Gothic. The transepts dominate, but the paved chapter house is also impressive. It’s only just opened for the season and I was the sole visitor. The staff (volunteers?) were tidying the grounds – including one young woman who put me in mind of Psyche’s tasks as she seemed to pick over the gravel.

And then the walk back to Kirkcudbright without the aid of public footpath signposts and little yellow arrows. OMG! On the map I found a path leading in my direction, but there was a small gap with no paths and only (impassable?) field boundaries until another useful path. I didn’t know what to expect but I gave it a go; the paths were mostly tracks broad enough for vehicles and easy to spot, but the “gap” in my route was blocked by stone walls. I found a low point and got over it without dislodging anything, but it taught me that I’d rather not try this again.

It was a good walk, taking in lots of little sites in Gothic script on the OS map: a hut circle (?) a dun (?) and a “settlement”, which was now a mass of gorse bushes. Somewhere I disturbed a couple of pigs behind a fence: they ran towards me making noises like a Dr Who monster. I found the site of St Michael’s Church, with only the graveyard still there. The latest tombstone I saw was from the 1970s.

What I increasingly wanted to see however as I passed tantalisingly close to them was whatever was meant by “cup and ring marked rock”. Each time they seemed to be somewhere unreachable, but at High Banks (wonderful view) I persevered . . . and found some. (I realised afterwards that I’d seen a much simpler version on the main stone at Long Meg and her Daughters.) These were really quite something – and in a lovely location looking westwards over the estuary.

I suppose, all in all, it was quite a day of discovering human activity in the landscape – all the way from the abbey to settlements to rock art.