Clennoch

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Taylor
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Clennoch

Post by Taylor »

Took the kids to my parents for a few days and they were all doing my head in, so I packed up my bike with my kit that just happened to fall into the back of the car and went for a trip up in Galloway in search of bothies.

I'd set off late from Carlisle arriving in Moniaive just over an hour later and quickly set about as dusk was rapidly approaching.
Over the first hill and into Shinnel Glen and I found this sign by the road.
Image :grin: :grin:

Onwards and upwards the road changed to gravel as I entered the forest. By this point it was pretty much black out with only one faint light in the distance right in the direction of Polskeoch bothy. Plummeting down the forest track I came across a dark hulk of a building which I had a nosey around, this was in fact the bothy. Dark and empty. Checking the map it would appear that what I could see earlier was a farmhouse only a few hundred metres away from the bothy.
Polskeoch is quite a big single room with a sleeping platform that would accommodate about 6 sleeping bodies. No fireplace but dry.

Deeper into the forest, through a festering stream I found an old byway which was surprising dry considering the start of it was under water.
Popping out the forest onto a hillside and then onto the smoothest road I've ever used I made good speed until turning back uphill and into more forested land. Whilst climbing up the hill I'd decided to use a forest road marked on the map to connect over to another forest road.
Couldn't find it!!
After a couple of minutes scratching my head in the darkness I found a small brick bridge behind a bush.

AHH HAA found it.

Wish I hadn't!!

This led me up an overgrown tussock sh*tfest which ended up thigh deep in bog. :roll: Stu would have loved it. At one point my leg was mid thigh deep and didn't actually touch anything solid at the bottom.
After this joyful experience I had a nice push up some overly steep forest roads then a blast mostly downwards towards Clennoch bothy. Once I got in the vicinity of the bothy I realised that I couldn't actually see it. It was 11.15pm after all.
Pitch black and the bothy was a lovely shade of, you guessed it, black. It was only about 40 metres away!
Clennoch is a smashing small bothy in great condition and judging by the bothy book, it's not used very much.
Image
Again, this bothy, like the last, has no fire. Apparently the land owner won't allow them. The MO does seem to look after it well though and its not been abused like the others in Dumfries and Galloway.
Up and about at the crack of dawn I noticed a big mint plant growing by the front door so I had a cup of mint tea whilst packing up, think thats the first one I've ever had with real fresh mint leaves in.
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As you can see by this photo, the bothy isn't that easy to see in daylight.
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Back up the "blast" to the highest point there was a cracking cloud inversion in the next glen which made the ride back to the car quite stunning whilst dipping in and out of the cloud. The descent back to "civilisation" was blummin fast too.
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On arrival back at my parents house the kids were all over me like a rash so I took them to the cinema to watch "Minions" and promptly fell asleep.

Job Done.
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benp1
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Location: South Downs

Re: Clennoch

Post by benp1 »

Nice!
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Bearbonesnorm
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Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2011 8:53 pm
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Re: Clennoch

Post by Bearbonesnorm »

On arrival back at my parents house the kids were all over me like a rash so I took them to the cinema to watch "Minions" and promptly fell asleep.
I only discovered the other day that there's a Minion called Stuart :???:

Looks nice by the way ... finding new bothies is ace :-bd
May the bridges you burn light your way
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johnnystorm
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Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2012 9:55 pm
Location: Eastern (Anglia) Front

Re: Clennoch

Post by johnnystorm »

Sounds like a good dose of type two quickly recovered! :-bd
s8tannorm wrote: I only discovered the other day that there's a Minion called Stuart :???:
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Yeah I know, wrong number of eyes....

New bike helmet?
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