I mounted at the Water of Ken and had a monstrouse bad road to the Brig of Dee, and from thence to Minygaff. All the way is either full of precipices or rocks. The pass called the Sadle Loup is here about 4 miles from Minygaff. Nothing in the Alps is worse.
To every choice there is a purpose. But such purposes can slip one’s mind. We had paused our planned walks along the Eden Way for the winter, choosing instead to walk on firm ground such as forestry tracks. This section of the Old Edinburgh Road, between Clatteringshaws and Black Loch, has the OS map symbol for “other road track or path, unfenced” and though much of it is freshly surfaced forestry track suitable for heavy vehicles, the first 200m from the loch is unmaintained overgrown and in places waterlogged, while the track beyond an old quarry below Brockloch Hill is trying to pass itself off as a waterway. Had I remembered the purpose of choosing Forestry tracks for our Winter walks I might not have ventured onto the wilder sections until the winter wetness had passed.
There must be a great many Old Edinburgh Roads. This one joined Edinburgh, the country’s secular capital, to Whithorn, its religious heart and was a route for pilgrims. James IV* travelled it several times. As times changed, the route would become the main coach road to the harbour of Portpatrick. The railways, and then our modern roads have replaced it, but its route is still shown on the OS maps between the Water of Ken and the Cree. The Forestry have built some of their tracks along it and Sustrans seem to have quietly adopted some of it into National Cycleway no. 7. I say quietly adopted, because the section we walked from the the Tonderghie Burn to Auchenleck it is marked on the OS map as a cycle route, has cycle route 7 signs every few hundred metres but isn’t on the Sustrans website. It is now a forestry track, recently resurfaced. It had been topped with sea shells when I walked it a few years ago but now has a surface of bluish grey gravel. There had been quite a lot of felling hereabouts so presumably this was for the benefit of logging trucks. But at least it lends itself to dry feet on a walk through a pretty boggy landscape.
It was a windy day. The forecast had wind speeds of 40-47 mph, but I suspect we missed the worst of it. But there were fallen trees. Some had been toppled roots and all, others snapped mid trunk. The track was littered with twigs. But the wind still howled in the tree tops and we watched in amazement as wind blown trees lifted the ground opening a deep gash. It wasn’t too difficult walking, though occasional gusts would catch us at times.
We walked in typical Galloway greyness but with sunlight shining ahead of us, on Loch Grannoch, and behind us, onto Meikle Millyea. There were a great many old log stacks that look to have lain there for years, but no single logs to sit on. We did eventually find a rock beside the track beneath Craigwhinnie. We had been walking for 4.5 miles so it served well as a seat for lunch. The wind was never far away though. It snatched away Audrey’s coffee and sent my seat flying into the bog (though I was able to retrieve it with dry feet).
Our route had been from the car park at the Clatteringshaws end of the Raiders’ Road, across the newer auld brig and then along the forestry tracks used by the number 7 national cycleway. The road had climbed a little over the rise of Knocknevis passing within 200m of Loch Gower, but that was hidden in the forestry. The terrain beside the track was either mature forest, new growth, the morass of felled forest or marshy. The forest plantations were often dense with growth or with fallen trees. I can’t say there was anywhere that offered particularly inviting off track walking options. (Though I have climbed Fell of Fleet from this track). After lunch we turned about and walked back, into the wind.
You won’t find Pullaugh Glen named on a map, but the Pullaugh Burn runs through a wide valley in its short journey from Loch Grannoch to Black Water of Dee by the Queen’s Way, so it seems a good a name as any. And I don’t know how the Pullaugh Burn got its name. Its first syllable is common in the names of streams hereabouts, deriving from the Celtic pol meaning a pool, bog, mire or just water. The laugh though is lost. Perhaps it was a place of many pools pwllau, or somehow related to Kaugh Moss, across which it flows.
This was the last part of our January Railway Walk, another there and back outing since unnecessary car sharing is still frowned upon. I’m not sure there is much I can write that I haven’t already written about this walk.
It was as you can see above, a grey day, too chilly to tarry at Skerrow for lunch, or coffee for that matter. I tried applying my new-found dry stone wall knowledge to those that we saw…Galloway Dyke style with double lower layers and single layers higher up. and light visible through the upper stones.
We did walk down to the boathouse at Loch Skerrow but I didn’t trust the floorboards not to cave in, so just peered round the door.
This completed our January walk along the old “Port Road” railway. It is 11 miles and an easy walk for one day though we walked it in in there-and-back sections. The path has been upgraded in the last few years. What was once overgrown and impassable, is now clear. What was often flooded is now resurfaced and raised. It is on the old railway except for a couple of diversions to avoid the viaducts over The Big Water and Little Water of Fleet. The only problem for a linear walk is that there is no public transport to Gatehouse Station and it’s a long drive between the start and finish.
The stations at Mossdale and Rusko “Gatehouse Station” which are now cottages and the ruins of the station at Skerrow Halt and the now burnt fencing.
Gatehouse
Mossdale
Skerrow
The viaducts at Stroan Loch and Big Water of Fleet, what remains of that at Little Water of Fleet and the new Grobdale Burn Bridge.
Stroan Viaduct
What remains of LWoF
Big Water of Fleet Viaduct
Lochs Skerrow and Stroan. Black Water of Dee, the Fleets tributaries (Big and Small), the Airie Burn.
Loch Skerrow
Stroan Loch
The Druim Mor, the great ridge of the Clints of Dromore.
Clints of Dromore
The five chained artworks are nearby. “Ocean” hangs above the railway below the clints and “Heart” in the ruins of Little Cullendoch is just 20m off the trail. “Sceneshifter” sits a little further away, perhaps 200m, in the Big Water of Fleet. The last two, “Erratic” beneath Cairnsmore of Fleet, and “Hush” atop the Clints of Dromore are a little further away.
Ocean
Heart
Sceneshifter
Hush
Erratic
The “Galloway Dyke” dry stone walls and, if the season is with you, the hedgerows.
Winter’s winds chilled the air and days of rain had saturated the ground. 2o22 had arrived with an unwelcome plus-one, the Omicron Variant, so car sharing bit the dust. But we were not to be deterred. Setting our teeth, and stretching our nostrils wide, we held hard our breath, donned winter coats (human and dog alike) and set out for Skerrow Halt. Well, I set off intending to walk from the Big Water of Fleet to the Little Water of Fleet. But Audrey convinced me to go the extra mile. The phrase “extra mile” being figurative rather than literal, referring to the additional 4.07 miles required to visit Skerrow Halt.
Big Water of Fleet to Gatehouse Station (and back)
Good to be out and about. We had clear skies but it was bitterly cold. On a warmer day I might have walked up to the Rosnes Bench or continued along the road once we ran out of walkable railway track. As it was we walked along to Gatehouse Station (six miles north of Gatehouse of Fleet!) and moseyed back. (It was too cold for the dogs to stay out very long).
