Saturday 11 June 2022

Eskdalemuir Forest Bothy Trip.

                                                    ALL PHOTOS CLICK FULL SCREEN.

 A recent trip saw four old pals from our hill-walking/ mountaineering club get together for a bothy weekend in the Southern Uplands of Scotland. As you can see here in these photos  the landscape of the Southern Uplands can often be beautiful- vistas full of rolling downs, wide horizon views, and a sense of empty remoteness. In fact, given the ever increasing popularity of the Scottish Highlands.... the Southern Uplands/Border Region/Northumbia is often quieter with less walkers/ explorers than the north half of Scotland. And that suits us.

 Sheep and cattle country down here. The weather is generally better down here as well so a fruitful combination for all of us, as in Gavin, John, Alex and myself being free to journey together coupled with a dry weekend which was a much anticipated bonus. Years ago and pre-pandemic we used to go into half a dozen or so bothies every winter just for a cheap weekend away but if anyone had a cold in a bothy or climbing hut you usually caught it a day or two later after a night confined in a shared sleeping room with the infected person. That was why for the last couple of years of Covid 19 I was in no rush to suggest another one. At our age though... around 55 to 67 years of age (over the four of us) there's no guarantee it will not be our last bothy as a group. On some occasions the elastic nature of time seems to drag out towards an eternity of waiting, especially if you are waiting for some specific date to occur... still a few years away in the future... at other times decades can drop away in a flash... obscure childhood memories of caravan holidays down the Clyde Coast as a youngster or other adventures undertaken then popping up... not thought about for over 50 years yet fresh, vivid and exciting nonetheless, appearing apparently from nowhere in a flash of sudden imagery recall.... or past alpine walking holidays triggered by a random photograph, short video clip, film, or object, remembered in perfect detail as if they happened to you yesterday..... as they usually only occurred once a year in different locations so no repetition to dull the clarity of the experience. During various lock-downs the mind looking inwards occasionally for some mental stimulation. Like a prisoner confined in a cell might do. Then... suddenly...without much warning... you are old.... and almost past it! A life lived.  And you wonder how that happened... where all the time escaped....and you miss that youthful zest for adventure... and that boundless energy that went with it... and that freedom.


 I've still got a little of it left of course... but you are more acutely aware with each passing year of the increased possibility that it could just vanish overnight, without any warning. Each new year staying healthy and fit is an increasingly precious blessing rather than a taken for granted natural order/gift. So it was with a sense of the passing of time, the greying of hair and changing facial features in my friends and myself, plus previous remembered decades of outdoor meetings... that we got together. No longer as strongly connected as we once were in our hill-walking prime/youth with weekly meetings occurring but still tenuously linked by some thin, tightly stretched, invisible umbilical, if only through past shared memories of enjoyable hill-walking days out together many years ago. John, myself and Gavin in one car... Alex arriving solo later on. This is the road, above, into the bothy.

 Before we got to the bothy though we had a puncture. I've been noticing this spring and summer, even in Glasgow, that winter potholes have not been fixed this year and are still there six months later. This was also true of the B roads leading into the bothy between the towns of Lockerbie and Langholm. Being a stranger on these roads we managed to hit one with ragged edges that ripped a front tyre. So we had to wait for a repair or replacement. It was news to me, (as I've always bought cheap older models) that many new cars do not have a spare wheel on board. So we didn't have one with us. Maybe modern car owners do not know how to change one although this was not true in our case.

 Two hours later we got it fixed when a repair van turned up and by this time Alex had arrived. A lot of Southern Upland bothy trips involve a few miles of walking through pine plantation forests or a bothy buried in the middle of dense sitka spruce woodlands at the end of a gloomy track. None of us had been into this particular bothy before so we were delighted to find it was a pleasant and wide open walk travelling gently uphill through a beautiful and summer rich sunlit green valley. Green was the general theme hereabouts.

 

Rush hour traffic in the Southern Uplands. And it was only a one hour walk in to the cottage. Ya beauty!

 

A cracker of a bothy walk on a good track (cars not allowed here, numerous wooden gates) made even better by being done in daylight. Normal bothy walks in the past have involved driving rain, snow storms, gale force winds... on one occasion wading up and down through knee deep streams along thickly wooded ravines for a few km as it was the only viable place to march up with trees covering the slopes either side except in the stream bed itself. A real novelty. Or all of these features combined at once... usually completed in total darkness.... with head torches. The last bothy trip I was on I fell through a frozen swamp in the dark into unseen waist deep chilly water and mud then had to crawl out and walk soaked in winter temperatures for another few miles on my own to reach the bothy using a feeble head torch barely above glow worm illumination. This time I came fully prepared... with a new torch... new compass.. new map. So, of course...I did not need it.  

 

 

Meet the neighbours. A lot of young lambs around.

 

Walking towards the edge of the Eskdalemuir Forest in the distance.

 


A closer view of my companions. As a keen photographer you are either at the back or in front of any subjects in question. A hobby/ obsession that suits my semi- loner mentality I suppose. Anyway, three is company, four is a crowd is the rule on tracks like these as someone always has to drop behind due to lack of room to walk four in a line. That's my excuse anyway as I dislike tagging along at the back, a few feet behind, getting snatches but not all of any conversation. However, three years of a global pandemic, various lock-downs and total isolation from any outdoor or other clubs that I'd normally be in showed me that meeting other humans is vitally important if you want to retain some semblance of sanity. I've also seen first hand in my local area how quickly many single older people, deprived of company and any social interaction for the last three years, during Covid 19, disappeared fairly rapidly down the rabbit hole... either into dementia, depression, or just a lack of hope that things would improve before they got too old to enjoy them. Clubs do fill that void for those without close family, friendly neighbours, or even friends.

 Reaching the bothy on the edge but not within the vast Eskdalemuir plantation. We all agreed it was a cracker. 5 out of 5 and also picked because it had three separate rooms (two with fires, one without) hopefully meaning we wouldn't have to share sleeping accommodation if anyone else was in. 

 

 This proved to be the case as a much younger group of university aged hillwalkers/ bothy visitors from Edinburgh were already inside, using the larger, better equipped, room with a wood burning stove. We veteran bothy folk were happy with that however as I much prefer an open fire, seen here, as entertainment watching the embers grow, change and shift in the grate never fails to delight. A simple but deeply satisfying pastime that must somehow tap straight into our primeval million year old ancestor past as humans living in caves, in woodland realms, or cottage cluster as I never tire of staring into the flames and shadow images created on the walls by firelight and flickering candles in a darkened room. Bothy view with a torch on above. We always carry in coal, kindling and firelighters these days- makes it far easier and worth the extra weight. Means a good fire in under ten minutes every time as local dry wood the right size without sawing is not always available.

 

Bothy view with only fire and candles. Normally it is not as dark as this in a bothy but the fire was almost out at the end of the night when I took this before going to sleep. We did socialize with our younger friends next door outside the bothy while still daylight and looked in at their part of the building when we arrived but could still maintain a safe distance. Being young and fit they might not even be aware of any covid symptoms at all so two separate rooms proved the safer sleeping option for everyone as well as being less crowded.  

 

Shabby chic in action. Morning sunlight and a typical scene of bothy life on the Sunday around 8:00am. Two zombies in repose. One sleeping high- one low. The room in daylight. Even a bothy bookcase with several decent books including an illustrated recipe cooking book 'The Joy of Pasta.' I added a couple of my own, both well known crime procedurals by best selling authors. From my own reading experience around 90 percent of books tend to be crime fiction of some description so there's plenty to go around.

 

 

View of bothy from the compostable toilet. A new green addition added since my last bothy trips a few years ago. Would not like to be around to move it when the hole filled up with human waste though. Grass eaters leave much nicer, sweeter smelling deposits than carnivores. I wonder if that's also true for vegans and vegetarians? Not something I've ever thought about before... until now. 

If vegans or vegetarians did not produce little round rabbit or sheep droppings every day I'd be very disappointed. A volunteer is definitely worth ten paid people in this instance.

 


The scenic walk out.

 The 'silence of the lambs'. Hopefully, there might even be a next time into a bothy... but at our age...and our infrequency of trips together as a unit of four... you never know. 


 Returning to the normal world again. A good weekend away.



17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Loved your blog and as usual your photos were magic. I'm sure and hopeful you'll be with us for quite some time yet Bob with your wonderful stories and recollection of your childhood memories.

Kay G. said...

Oh, how wonderful! I do envy your long walks there and I so agree about not liking huge crowds but a BIT of company is just the thing!
I had to look up "bothy" You probably have most likely used that word many times on your blog before but since my brain is a sieve these days....
Great photos as always! I do miss seeing sheep. We just don't have them in the south here in the USA.

Carol said...

Yep ours smell sweeter but they're not little round bobbles like sheep and rabbits! ;-)

Very jealous of the bothy trip (but not the puncture) - I'd like to start bothying again another year. That one looks a cracker so it's been added to my list. You do right keeping your distance indoors from the big group though.

Hope Alex is well - I still think he should have come on my compleation to Ben Lui.

Anabel Marsh said...

Your thoughts on ageing definitely chimed with me. As a vegetarian, I can tell you that your other theory is mince!

blueskyscotland said...

Cheers Anon,
this post by accident turned out almost like a meditation on life and what its purpose is. When I was in my twenties I had thoughts, like most people, what am I doing here? what is the meaning of life for the next five decades? do I want an alternative lifestyle or a be a 40 plus year wage slave? etc... then you get caught up in work,relationships,the whirl of the big city and its myriad attractions and you forget about it simply by being occupied. Then as you get to the autumn/winter of life and things slow down again the big question surfaces again. " What the **** was it all about anyway?" although the greatest minds in history haven't solved it either and came up with religion and God- neither of which I believe in deep down :o)

blueskyscotland said...

Cheers Kay,
yes, lambs are really cute. Adult sheep not so cute apart from Herdwicks who always manage to look cute from cradle to grave which is probably why Beatrix Potter liked them so much. A real life cuddly toy with a smiling woolly face. Maybe that proves there is a divine guiding hand at work after all.

blueskyscotland said...

Cheers Carol,
Yep, we picked that one from the MBA bothy list and it is a belter. My favourite Southern Uplands bothy along with K.B. which is only one main room so we avoided that for now. Alex is still bagging his apparently endless list of hills. I've got to admire his dedication to one thing as I've always been a butterfly in my hobbies. I like to have a go at everything. If I had a large amount of cash it would be exploring UK and European cities, towns and parks. None of that up and down mountain stuff for me anymore.

blueskyscotland said...

Hi Anabel,
I recently noticed you had been on the Glasgowpunter site about forgotten railway tunnels and ghost stations. Excellent article that inspired me so all I have to do now is muster up the courage for a visit as that's one part of Glasgow I've never been and never knew was possible to explore.

Carol said...

Can we have a link to Annabel's article above please - it sounds interesting...

And you should have got Alex to write your post for you this time - it's supposed to be his blog too and he was there!

blueskyscotland said...

It's not her blog. type in Glasgowpunterblogspot then look at his popular posts. 'Old railway tunnels and ghost stations' within. I was there today though and the tunnel entrances are securely blocked up again. Alex has no interest in the blog... or females telling him what to do.

David M. Gascoigne, said...

I must confess that I have never pondered the scatology of vegans and vegetarians, but perhaps a whole new field of scientific inquiry has been planted in my mind!

Carol said...

it would have been you telling him what to do (and, last time I saw, I thought you were male!)

blueskyscotland said...

Hi David,
I try to be creative.

blueskyscotland said...

I must be male as I don't always get the last word in.

Carol said...

you're just comment-hunting with that one ;-)

CoyoteKiva.org said...

Och, Bob, you cannot be talking like that about being too old and time taking you into the Kingdom of Memory, as if you will soon be sitting in that inglenook in your rocker with fragments of life falling from your hands. None of us have much time even when we're young, as we could be snuffed by anything, as my wee 5-year-old nephew had been, and my 21-year-old niece had been, and 48 of my friends and family have been (tis bad luck to be my friend!). So tis the best thing to ALWAYS live each day as if it were your first... or last. That's how I try to live: life is an adventure! That said, I thoroughly enjoyed this post and your post-COVID dreams turned into a reality. You're a delightful writer! My wee sis and I (both auld hags) have been traveling the country for nearly a year now, with no home to return to. I took us off the cliff in a moment of wanderlust and haven't landed yet. It is as you conveyed: do it now before I'm too decrepit for such an extended adventure. I don't regret the unrooted feeling. It gives one a sense of belonging to the cosmos instead of to one street or neighbourhood. Bothy camping is like that, yes? Ivor's Bothy is waiting for my return... will you be there again before you are too old? Thanks for another lovely post!

blueskyscotland said...

It was more a realistic assessment of the facts. Can't remember how long it's been since the four of us went anywhere together but it must be four or five years at least so the chances of that same four being available and willing to go away again seemed like a realistically slim possibility given time passing and the age of the participants.