Sunset at Troon, South Ayrshire

I decided to unofficially call this lazy post  ... "The sun, two islands, two seats, an anchor and ... a bin" !

I was going to move on to the following day of the trip which I'm having difficulty editing and finding a title, but I almost forgot about the evening set and fourth post from one day.

After a busy day looking around Largs, Millport / bike ride of Cumbrae and a late afternoon look into the grounds of Kelburn Castle, I wanted to improve on my previous evenings sunset shots from Irvine.

One of the things about staying on the west coast of Scotland is the opportunity to photograph sunsets using a variety of Islands as a backdrop. Some of last years material from Oban was the inspiration for this.

The Isle of Arran seemed the obvious choice on the map for Ayrshire but one of the shots in the Irvine set where I was staying proved that it was not the ideal location. I opted to move down the coast a little to the town of Troon, famous for The Royal Troon golf course and a ferry port for Northern Ireland. It is less well known these days for the former shipbuilding of Paddle steamers, small naval vessels and Caledonian MacBrayne ferries. The company Ailsa Shipbuilding operated from 1885 to 2000. It is also less well known again that it was somewhere different for me to eat early evening dinner on this trip !!

Just to add a little detail here in case anyone wonders about two of the later images. All but two (image 2 & 3) of this set were photographed from Ballast Bank behind the harbour to the south. Although I have no specific information about the anchor, the bank was created from dumped ballast from incoming ships to protect the rather exposed Troon harbour in 1840 owned at the time by The Duke of Portland. The area in the past was notorious for shipwrecks and possibly the unknown anchor signifies that point. These days Ballast Bank seems to be a picnic park, late night romancing spot !! and provides a slightly elevated view towards the Isle of Arran.

An interesting park bench with ships wheel nodding more appropriately in the direction of the harbour rather than Arran.

As you can see Ballast Bank is a popular destination for car drivers to eat takeaway Fish and Chips.

It not only provides a view to the more obvious Isle of Arran but to the unique and distant smaller uninhabited granite rock bird sanctuary of Ailsa Craig.

That's enough talking on a post that was meant to let the photography speak !!