After taking the cats to the cattery on Monday morning, we waved off DD as she headed off to Centre Parcs, Sherwood Forest, and we set off north to Dumfries and Galloway, to a little village called Haugh of Urr near Dalbeattie. The cottage we were staying in was lovely....
.....down a single track road with no passing traffic, no street lights, hardly any noise at all, and also hardly any phone signal. So no blog updates until tonight. Once we got back to the cottage after being out during the day it was so difficult to find even a faint signal. Added to that was the fact that while we were out during the day we managed to go to places which were also out of phone signal! The joys of loving the great outdoors!
Tuesday we headed out towards New Galloway and then down towards Clatteringshaws Loch.
It's a lovely drive north along the side of Loch Ken and then down the A712. After a quick look in the visitor centre we continued along the A712 until we reached the sign for the Black Loch turning. We've parked here before a couple of years ago and it was such a lovely walk that we decided to do it again.
The walk itself is very straight forward and is a good track to walk on with some lovely views….
We were quite happily walking along when we got to a sign stating no entry to unauthorised persons due to forestry work. So frustrating! We had to turn round and head back much earlier that we thought we'd have to. And then, as we started heading back, after having blue sky and nice white fluffy clouds, we watched as a hail shower moved towards us from almost nowhere!
The walk itself is very straight forward and is a good track to walk on with some lovely views….
We were quite happily walking along when we got to a sign stating no entry to unauthorised persons due to forestry work. So frustrating! We had to turn round and head back much earlier that we thought we'd have to. And then, as we started heading back, after having blue sky and nice white fluffy clouds, we watched as a hail shower moved towards us from almost nowhere!
The result was a speckled Oscar!!
And then the sun came out again, and we sat and had lunch …..
And then another brief hail shower! Very bizarre weather.
We still managed to do about 6 miles despite having our walk cut short, and we headed back to the cottage via a detour along Raiders Road, a 10 mile forest drive in the Galloway Forest Park……..
………stopping off for a nice hot cup of tea and piece of cake about half way along……
.....with a few visitors while we were sat down.....
And then another slight detour to catch sight of the red kites that are in the area - fabulous to watch hovering in the sky.
Wednesday was our Loch Trool day. Originally we'd planned to stay overnight in the van overlooking Loch Trool as it's such a lovely place. But, in hindsight, with the weather being so cold at night, we wouldn't have had the wild camp even if we'd had the van - too cold for me! So, we parked up and set off on our trek in to the unknown. We've done part of the walk before, but we carried on beyond the Loch Trool circuit path, and on towards Loch Dee on the cycle path.
The views were amazing …..
…made better with the fabulous weather for most of the walk……
Wednesday was our Loch Trool day. Originally we'd planned to stay overnight in the van overlooking Loch Trool as it's such a lovely place. But, in hindsight, with the weather being so cold at night, we wouldn't have had the wild camp even if we'd had the van - too cold for me! So, we parked up and set off on our trek in to the unknown. We've done part of the walk before, but we carried on beyond the Loch Trool circuit path, and on towards Loch Dee on the cycle path.
The views were amazing …..
…made better with the fabulous weather for most of the walk……
…and just as we thought we would have to stop and consider turning round, we saw this ……
.. and decided to stop and have lunch.
It started to turn really cold so we headed back the way we'd come once we'd eaten.
And finally back at the car after an amazing 10 mile walk. We did a bit of shopping in Newton Stewart and then decided that instead of cooking we both fancied some fish and chips. We found a really good chippy in Castle Douglas and parked up looking out over Carlingwark Loch, a place we visited many years ago…
Then yesterday we set off to head north to another forest drive - Carrick Forest Drive - about 6 miles in length from end to end. We headed towards Carsphairn, intending to drive to Dalmellington, then across to Straiton before going south and the turning for the forest drive. Unfortunately the weather wasn't on our side at all. Not long after we'd set off it starting with a bit of sleet. Then, a few miles north of the turning for New Galloway it turned to snow, which quickly started settling on the road, so we ended up pulling off the road and turning round!! Snow at the end of April!
So, not having a plan B in place as we weren't expecting to be snowed off, we decided to just drive round different places - first to Kircudbright where we stayed in a hotel when it was the millennium (no snow the further south we went!).......
…and then to Dalbeattie where we found a lovely forest walk ….
………and finally back to the cottage and time to pack before heading home today.
It might only have been four nights and three full days away, but it has been a fabulous short break (and I even managed to do a bit of whittling while we were away ....... !)
#scotland #walking
