July BAM take 2

Bonus July Bivvy! The weather was looking good for Friday evening / night / Saturday morning and horrible for Saturday afternoon, so I figured a bivvy ride in the local woods would be a way of cashing in on this, as well as adding to my nights out tally. Thanks to my lame attempt on the Highland Trail I only bivvied once in May, instead of 5 times. I had a vague notion to hit 20 nights out this year so figured this one would at least be a start, although I doubt I'll hit this target. Any road, as soon as work on Friday was done, I was off. 2 hours later I'd climbed up to Coalcraigie Hill (alt 450m) and pitched up. A straightforward route and the trails were still pretty dry. The only annoyance was my usual route across Castlehill res dam was blocked by a site compound and a large scaffold. This does my nut in - it's a key route linking Glen Devon with the various forests off the Dunning road, and a core path to boot. But there had been no pre-warning, no diversion, no nothing. I will write to various people explaining my disappointment with their piss poor site management...

View back home. The views all around were fab, with the Forth and Tay Estuaries visible, the hills above Dundee (and Dundee itself,) Embra, the Pentlands and the Perthshire hills through which I'd cycled last weekend.

A fine evening followed. I had tea sat out before the dreaded midge turned up. So I retired to the Deschutes (inc. mesh inner for max luxury) and checked out the sunset. Beers helped...

A solid nights sleep followed with one loo break, fortunately largely midge free as the temps has dropped. Then at 7.30 I got going with breakfast. Annoyingly, a brief rain shower came through and oddly, despite a dry night, the Deschutes was soaked inside. 

A gloomy morning...

That said, by the time I got going, the cloud was breaking and there were hints of blue sky. Various trails followed, heading back west over the large climb over the pass by Greenlaw to avoid more shenanigans on the Castlehill res dam. The sun was beating down! Not what was in the forecast but I wasn't complaining.

Much greenery on the old ROW between Auchterarder and Glen Devon, thanks to a warm / wet / dry summer so far. This used to be a well used track which I suspect saw a fair bit of vehicular use for many years. But like a few others round here forestry has replaced farming and not even agricultural vehicles are using it so in places it was getting a bit overgrown.

Given the weather, with still no sign of rain, I threw in an extra loop over Seamab hill and got home just as the rain started.

I've a week off in August so hopefully something a bit more interesting, bivvy wise....