We drove up by Moffat and along the lovely Moffatdale Road the A708 to a layby just past Dryhope. We were out for a wild camp on one of the hills above St Mary's Loch. We didn't use the Southern Upland Way path that was very close to the layby because the field it went through was full of cows with calves. To avoid them we walked west along the road for a few minutes then turned left down a lane and we joined the Southern Upland Way near to the loch. We walked lochside toward Tibbie Shiels. It was bright enough to start and we had some nice views.
St Mary's Loch
Autumn colours on the path
It was easy walking and very enjoyable.
We passed Bowerhope, a rather remote farm and a nice lady who kept us on the right track when we had been distracted by her farm dog who was making Squeaky feel slightly scared and we'd missed the gate we had to go through to keep on the SUW.
Looking back toward Bowerhope
Cleared forests along the banks of the loch
On the drive we'd noticed a lot of forestry work and the scars left behind by the felled trees.
More autumnal colours
At Tibbie Shiels we turned left up Captain's Road still on the SUW. Sadly it had started to drizzle a little which was forecast. We stopped near Craggy Sike for some lunch after getting some water for a brew. It started raining more heavily and clag started to descend.
Into the clag
Lunch over we carried on for a while until I spotted cows in the distance. They were on both sides of the path and there were a lot of them. We debated what we should do. Risk carrying on going through them but we would have no escape if they took a dislike to Squeaky, no fence nearby where they were, it was open moorland. Because we were getting pretty wet too we turned around and headed back toward Tibbie Shiels, caution won. We thought about following Crosscleuch Burn up the valley and onto the hills but we were getting fed up of the rain which was now even heavier. We ended up walking back to the car in the end and going home. We could have made do with a camp near the shore somewhere but there weren't that many places to pitch and those we saw were too visible for our liking.
Route map
The route was Dryhope Layby - St Mary's Loch - Bowerhope - Tibbie Shiels - Moory Sike - return same way. 9 miles and 341m of ascent. We were a bit disappointed not to get a camp out but the rain continued on and off as we drove home so we would have been soaked by the time we got the tent up and we would have been in clag. We'd enjoyed the walk up to Tibbie Shiels before the rain, we will be back, hopefully the cows will be on the other side of a fence!
