out and about - 2016
17 August 2016 ............ Ardeer peninsula
Ardeer beach is quite long - some 3 or 4 kilometres - but when you are along it you don`t really realise that it is the southwest side of a peninsula - to the northeast of the peninsula the River Garnock has a wide tidal estuary that separates the peninsula from the rest of the world.
The peninsula has been heavily industrialised - I think there was quite a lot of explosive factories in amongst the industrialisation, though most of it has now gone, and I think that the whole peninsula is now a brown site redevelopment area.
Right along at the far end of the beach you are looking across the mouth of the River Garnock to Irvine, and in amongst the dunes there I found the Big Idea - the Big Idea was one of the many Millenium projects that happened around the country.
It was set up as an Inventor Centre rather than a Science Centre, however it wasn`t economically viable, and closed just three years later.
However it is an interesting building - it was designed to merge into the dunes - quite successfully -
A bit further round and you begin to see the large glass frontage -
It isn`t until you are right in front of it that you realise just how big it is. It is quite an achievement to design such a big building that it doesn`t really show except from the front.
It was connected to Irvine by a pedestrian bridge - this had to be an opening bridge to allow taller boats up into Irvine, but unusually, instead of opening upwards or swinging sideways, the bridge is telescopic, and the middle section slides over the nearer end of the bridge.
There seems to have been a whole series of plans to redevelop the Big Idea to get it back into use, but so far nothing has come to fruition.
The trouble is that the longer it goes on, the more expensive it becomes to redevelop - maybe something will happen to get it back into use.
I am not sure about the bridge - it was pulled in and out using large chains, but it looked to me as if quite a lot of the mechanism had gone.
I think it is always going to be difficult to redevelop without a decent public road to it - too much of the world doesn`t like the idea that they have to walk more than 10 metres from their car.
Anyway, this is looking beyond the bridge up towards Irvine - the tidal estuary of the River Garnock is the body of water heading off to the left.
Heading back now, and there is a lot of beach to cover to get back -
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