Darvel - Sir Alexander Fleming Walk

This is a 8.5 mile (13.6 km) Q shaped walk of approximately 4 hour duration starting at the Ranoldcoup Road car park in Darvel.  It is a themed walk with short talks on Sir Alexander Fleming and the story of penicillin at the beginning, middle and near the end of the walk.  After, the short talk about Fleming’s early life, we begin by walking through Darvel in the direction of Priestland and then turning left up the hill past the path to Loudoun Hill and up past the cemetery.  We continue uphill (not steep, but a fair distance) along the road to reach a junction with the track to Lochfield Farm, where Fleming was born in 1881.  We will continue along the fairly rough track to reach the farm, which is now luxury cottages.  Lunch will be outside the farm, next to the plaque commemorating Fleming, with the second short talk about penicillin.  After lunch, we will retrace our steps back to the road and turn right to continue our walk through the countryside and back into Darvel.  The second half of the walk has a steep uphill and downhill part and then is downhill back to the town.  In the town, we will stop in the main square at the statue to Fleming for the final short talk and then it is a very short walk back to the car park.  The walk is all on pavement or Tarmac country roads, except for the track up to Lochfield Farm, which is muddy and has three cattle grids that need to be crossed carefully.  The total ascent is 777 ft (237 m), but as noted above, it is up and down hill and not flat.