September BAM

Bit of a late equalizer for me this month thanks to a couple of weekends socialising when I should have been out bivvying!

My parents were staying in a holiday cottage on the Solway coast near Dalbeattie for a week and they hinted that I might like to visit. I've done this a couple of times before (including doing my godawful traverse of the Southern Upland Way west of Moffat back in 2015) but this weekend I fancied something fairly straightforward. So the Straggler got chucked in the car after work and I cruised down to Moffat, arriving just as it got dark.

There is a great route over to Ae forest from Beatock, just down the road from Moffat. Its signed as NCN 10 so easy to follow. That said its better to turn off the signed route just over the high point and head down by the Ae water to the trail centre car park as this saves a bit more climbing and a chunk of kms. Its all forestry and wind farm but makes for easy riding with great views (in the daylight!). From Ae there are numerous options on and off road for rides of varying lengths into Galloway.

The evening was cool but dry with barely a breath of wind and light overcast hopefully meaning the frost of the last few mornings would be absent. I've had a few bivvy spot finding faffs on previous Bams this year so I'd done a fair bit of homework to scope out a good spot for this one. First choice was a clearing with a ruined house in it just beside the track down by the Ae water. In the dark it looked a bit boggy and damp so I carried on down to second choice, another clearing just off the main track along one of the trail centre routes. This was a peach -  a nice level spot by a wall covered in long but dry grass. Up went the tarp, then I was into the bivvy bag and relaxing with a drop of whisky and a read before turning it at 11.

I'd checked the midge forecast which indicated level 1 (i.e. none), but I was a bit paranoid going with the bivvy bag rather than the mesh tent. In the event there were a few floating around but they weren't interested in me so I had a comfy night with a solid 8 hours of sleep. It occurred to me that this was the last of the easy bivvies, with October, November and December likely to be a real challenge the way the weather is going....

Not a great selfie all in all, but my only proof of bivvy!

The spot, all ready to go.

Pedalling down to Ae I passed my third bivvy choice. This is marked on the map as a picnic area but its now not used and there are several level grassy areas that would be ideal pitching places. I picked up another forestry track north west of Ae village and had my first check - a load of windblow across the track thanks to storm Ali the other day. I couldn't be bothered trying to fight my way through this so back tracked and found another way round passing a couple of other good bivvy spots for future reference.

A minor navigational error took me to a fine view and my actual route went via one section of rather vague and boggy track. Short lived however and in future I'll follow the official core path route as this appears to be all on good fire road.

A short but fast descent took me out of the forest and then after a short hop on the A76 it was a series of back roads from Auldgirth to Dunscore, over a fine couple of climbs and a bit more trail to Kirkpatrick Durham, then an easy pedal in the stiffening breeze to Haugh of Urr and Dalbeattie. From there it was brief pedal on and off road to Rockcliffe where my folks were staying.

I had a pleasant afternoon and evening chatting, walking eating and drinking with a night of luxury in the spare room of their holiday cottage. Sunday dawned somewhat grey but the clouds were breaking when I eventually departed after a large and leisurely breakfast.

My route took me through Dalbeattie forest from Colvend to a series of more pleasant and largely traffic free back roads, before picking up NCN 7 west of Dumfries. This follows some pretty good cycleways through the north side of the town before turning north back up to Ae by yet another tiny wee road. I avoided the temptations of the Ae café and cracked on over the hill back to Moffat. Total distance for the weekend only 175k but very nice it was too.

Dumfries and Galloway is a great place for biking. As well as the various trail centres there is plenty of other biking to be done either via miles of forestry roads or a large network of single track roads with no traffic and great views. Just avoid the Southern Upland Way!

A fine viaduct over the river Nith in Dumfires which carries NCN 7.