Spango! and a scrap with the elements

Today's bag was the very lovely "Spango" - a cracking little grassy hummock in the middle of nowhere. In fact, its the middle of nowhere feel about these hills which is so enjoyable. I approached this one "from the back", so my impression that nobody ever climbs it was all the more thingy...

Anyway, its got Hares. Loads of Hares - running about being daft. In fact, I swear that one hare ran up behind another and touched it whilst announcing "Spango!" - at which point the chaser became the chased.

Spango could also be a Japanese TV game show involving people being made to eat worms whilst being dressed in diminutive underwear with little silver stars on them . Spango pants, in fact...

Anyway, after this conquest, I determined to walk to Wanlockhead for a pint of beer.

Head down into the fierce headwind for five miles and go for the Southern Upland Way. This was important.

The pub doesnt open on Mondays and Tuesdays does it? Story of my life, that is. And me fragged from the wind. The museum tea room sold me an egg butty and a scone and lots of tea. But no beer. grrrrrr....

And so, I climbed hill number seven - Green Hill just above Wanlockhead. The descent is just fab. A romp. A dance. A skip and a hop.

I'd chosen a camping spot deep in the little valley of Glendyne Burn. The valley is crossways to the headwind, so it should be sheltered. This was my thinking.

I descended and put up the tent. Not much soil. Tent pegs difficult to get in to any depth. It was calm, though. I had my tea and finished the final double scotch in my cycling bottle. The wind was getting a bit frisky. I dozed off. It went dark. the frisky wind waited for me to get into a proper sleep before unleashing and proper madness. About sunset(ish) it started raining, heavily and enthusiastically. The tent walls started dancing around. I chided it...

Half ten, pitch black, something had collapsed. I went out into the gale and replaced the pegs. I searched for big rocks to weigh them down. Everything was tight again. Midnight. Something else had collapsed. The tent heaved and flattened. Out again. More rocks. More poking the bloody pegs into stone. I got soaked.

At 3:00 an after more collapses and even the odd rock and peg pinging off into the night, the water was in the tent and I decided to pack whatever I could and sit in my full waterproofs till daylight. I couldn't get away from this spot in the dark. The beck was roaring nearby.

I seem to have got all the pegging points sorted but there was some danger of the pole breaking.

I could hear each big gust thundering and roaring up the valley before the tent pole lurched and flattened, and all the time the rain was like a hose.

A long night.

At six, I shoved the tent into a bag and abandoned the spot in a blizzard of huge snowflakes.

The route involved climbing back up the hill and contouring for a mile or so of steep hillside, then another couple of miles of flooded moor to the lanes into Sanquhar.

"No day fer walkin'" Said an old chap outside Nisa. "Are ye goin' East tae west or West tae East"

"I'm going home".

I must try to learn not to camp in wind tunnels

Another 28 km by the way....

Day Bagging Trip to the Lowther Hills

Bruno searching for the trig point
Model of Schiehallion

This is much too far to drive for a day's bagging. I'd designed myself a 23 km circular walk starting in the middle of Mennock Pass and going around by Cairn Hill, East Mount Lowther and Green Hill. The first and the last of these three being the ones I wanted to bag.

But, as Dave Burns once said, "The michty plons ae mice an men aft invalve nice cheese". His brother may have used this phrase for another, similar one, in one of his pomes, or so it's said. Anyway, the point is, I got up late.

So, after a two and a half hour drive during which I overtook six tractors and sat at four sets of roadworks, I duly arrived very very shortly before noon - much too late to do the walk I'd planned and get home before the hoodies start to congregate around the garden gate.

So I replanned and made a short walk which bagged the very lovely Auchensow Hill plus Cairn Hill in walk one, and another even shorter one starting at Wanlockhead for the bagging of Green Hill in walk two.

It all went spiffingly spiffing. Auchensow Hill is a little gem of a round, grassy thing with very steep sides, and this was followed by a magnificent bit of fellwalking on a dryish, grassy moor to the even lovelier Cairn Hill - all of 449 metres high. The cairn is a bit pathetic for an ancient cairn, but I expect that when its a bit less dull and misty than it was today, there would be a fab view all around. A nice little ridge took me back to the valley and an estate road.

Some men were playing with their JCBs on the road and had completely blocked it and , basically dug it up. The driver stopped his machine for me and swung it around so I could get past. As I scrambled past, though, I happened to grasp the rock which they'd cut through - and put a big, bloody hole in my finger as a result. It'll probably have to be amputated, or at least there'll be a green line running up my arm tommorrow, and when it reaches my heart......

After this, I had a drive up to Wanlockhead and parked in a sort of devastated area.... (lots of devastated areas in Wanlockhead) - and had a poke around some lead mines and then steeply up on to Green Hill - at 588 metres, the summit of my explorations that day. This was a very short up and down sort of thing. Not good views, although a ridge running South and South-West from the top looked very attractive. Too late, though - I had to go home.

8 Miles and 2300 feet of climbing - which is a reasonable amount for 8 miles, I would have thought.

This would be an excellent area for anybody who wanted to do a short backpacking/wild camping trip - say, for TGO Challenge training (hmmm... rubs chin thoughtfully ....)

Welcome to my pie

This is the first time I've tried to do anything like this. I expect that I'll probably forget whatever it is I've called the blog. I won't really have anything to blog about till tommorrow because tommorrow, me and superdawg are off to Wanlockhead to bag a couple of Marilyns.

I've got me turkey and a banana and some choccy bars and cake and I'll be off early in the morning.

In the meantime, here's a picture of superdawg (bruno) being excited about something.

It seems to be de rigeur amongst the bloggers who's blogs I read, to mention the TGO Challenge.

Well, I'm not going to do that....

Other than to mention that I've just applied to take part in the 2009 event. If I'm accepted, - and I manage to finish, this would be my ninth.

But I'm not going to talk about that.

I've got an outline route as well... not that I'm bothered. I mean, if I dont get on, I'll just do something else. And sulk.