Blackmark Bushwhack and Aborted Glentrool Mission - 22/7/2007

Brian and I wanted to get the bikes out for the weekend and see how I fared with camping. Rather than commit to a wilderness trip, the plan was luxurious car camping. Rain had other plans. Saturday started out ok, but by midday, the heavens were trying to wash us away. As I gathered the last of our supplies for camping, Brian made other, non-camping accommodation plans. We spent the evening with Ron's parents in Moffat, where Brian finally fessed up to a liking of sherry. He kept drinking mine instead of his whisky.

The next morning, bright blue skies greeted us. We headed west past Dumfries to check out the plot of land that Brian was considering to buy and build a house. The spot where planning permission existed to build the house was among a plot of trees farther back from the pines and the overgrowth. We hiked, bushwhacked and squelched to get there. It took about 30mins. I left my camera in the car, so you'll have to trust me that it was pretty, remote and a bit midgy at times. We trekked back to the car by way of the burn at the property boundary.

Our choices of adventures were pretty big. I chose to head back toward Glentrool forest and St. John's Town of Dalry for a more wooded run than the wide open Southern Upland Way that ran past the property at Blackmark.

We set out on a more wooded section of the Southern Upland Way at Dalry heading west for the Glentrool forest loop. The big views loop at Glentrool is supposed to be 58km of fire roads. The Southern Upland Way shares some of the same trail in parts. The Southern Upland Way leading to Glentrool starts off with singletracky goodness but soon becomes grass with an indistinguishable path (except for the occasional waymark). The rocky sections interspersed with steep, grassy hills were too much for my unfit legs and still cranky low back. About half an hour into the ride/hike, I pushed the abort button. We bumped down the rocky bit next to the hydro station and cycled back to Dalry on the roads. Just as we entered the town, the skies opened up with the contents of the black clouds that had been looming for the past hour. Well timed! A juice in the pub sounded much better than getting doused in a downpour outside. When the rain let up, we headed for home.