Twenty years ago, I used regularly to cycle the cliff path round Balcary Heughs Today I decided to do it again - partly for old times' sake, partly to look at the site of a current planning application, of which more later...

It isn't the sanest cycle route in the world. Technically, the bits that a non-cyclist would think particularly lunatic are actually not that tricky - certainly not as tricky as plenty of purpose-designed mountain bike singletrack (apart from the fact that, if you fall off to the right, that's game over).

But other bits - where the path crosses the pebbled beach, for example, or the boulder field around the old mine workings, and where outcrops of rock cut across the path - are genuinely tricky, and while twenty years ago it was a matter of pride to ride every metre of it, today I walked quite a lot.

It was beautiful; it was refreshing; it blew the cobwebs away. But most of all it showed how the world changes.

When I was a wean, there were huts on Rascarrel shore. They were old then; as far as I know, they'd been there since time immemorial. Families from Dumfries or further afield customarily spend their summer holidays and weekends in their huts, and formed a tenuous part of the village community. For the privilege, they paid a ground rent to Rascarrel farm.

Last year, the farmer decided they weren't paying enough. He had all of them summarily evicted, their huts torn down and flattened. The courts supported him in that; it's his land. Now, the same farmer is applying for planning permission to erect new 'holiday chalets' where the old huts once stood.

And so, along the shore. At the far end of the bay, three neat, well cared for huts remain, presumably on Balcary land rather than Rascarrel. On this quiet spring weekend, two of them were occupied, their occupants causing nuisance to no-one.

And then through the gate and out onto the shore.

One of the things I love about the 'neglected' parts of Galloway are the wild plants. Along that corner of Rascarrel shore rugosa roses bloom in profusion later in summer. Today the blackthorn was showing it's tiny white blossoms on its bare black scaffold. Out on the shore itself I stopped by a boulder to photograph lichens:

And as I rode up onto the cliff, I found a gulley full of primroses - growing in a profusion I've rarely seen. A few bluebells were up, too, but not yet open - in a fortnight the woods will be full of them.

And so, onto the cliff top. There, to my surprise, I found a herd of cuddies grazing peacefully; when I stopped to take a picture of them they all crowded round, but I did manage to get a decent picture of one of them.

Again, when I was a child, puffins nested on the cliffs. Not a lot of them; older folk in the village said that once there'd been more. But I last saw a puffin there more than thirty years ago. Still, there have been fulmars in number, and a good little crowd of guillemots and razorbills.

But no longer. I saw rock doves, gulls, and jackdaws in good number. The fulmars are still there - a few, possibly fifty pairs - and it is wonderful to watch their mastery of the air, making the gulls seem clumsy and pedestrian by comparison. But I was seeking for awks, and for a long time thought they were all gone. And then at last, on the very last stack, I saw one solitary pair of razorbills, clinging on surprisingly close to some herring gull nests.

Down off the cliff, and round the point into the bay. The old lifeboat station was converted into a holiday home some ten years ago, and one of the conditions of planning consent was that there should be no permanent motor track to it. There is, of course, now. And across that track, at each end of it, is a gate with a notice saying 'private'.

Someone else who doesn't know he's in Scotland - or doesn't care.