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Walking The Awful Hand the other week, I'd expressed an interest in doing a traverse of the Rhinns of Kells. I'd not yet pored over the maps when Euan beat me to it and worked out a route based on Foggieclimber's 2012 WR here
https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=25713.
I had a quick glance at it and saw some hellish "energy-sapping" references
Nevertheless, undaunted, Euan was keen to give it a go, so I left the route-planning to him and agreed on a south to north version, leaving one borrowed car at the Green Well of Scotland and taking us both in the other car to Craigencallie House.
Booted up, full of freshness (and porridge), and accompanied by willow warblers, blackcaps, chaffinch etc, we set off, heading down to the Black Water of Dee and the quarry beyond.
006 Quarry ahead 
005 Willow warbler by
Emma Kendon, on Flickr
[Note: As it turned out, we ducked out after Meaul (our 7th top on the Rhinns), but the descent from there was so hellish and energy-sapping, it probably made no difference. Perhaps we could have gone on to Bow and Coran of Portmark as originally planned, and swapped our 4km of tussock-n-bog-roulette descent for Foggyclimber's "1.5km of knee to waist-high grass and tussocks". We'll never know...]
Anyway, all that's for later - right now, we thought we were doing the lot
So far, we'd just trundled down the forestry road track to the river, which we then crossed and walked up the right-hand side of the quarry into the trees. On our way to the quarry we met two fellas who were having a sit-down, and didn't see them again. All four of us enjoyed a flyby by a pair of Canada geese contouring through the glen, before we left the guys to their sit-down and carried on up to the quarry.
008 Looking west to Craiglee and Craignaw over River Dee 
010 Curleywee - Lamachan - Mulldonach from quarryAt the top of the quarry, we hit the boggy forestry section, which included ducking under an easy two-wire fence. I was cussing the ground beneath us a bit: it reminded me of the Ben Lui assault course approach from the Lochy side. Little did I know what fresh hell the day was to bring!
012 Boggy woodland below Darrou Orange-tip butterflies and the call of a cuckoo were keeping us company through this bit until we emerged above the treeline (at which point the cuckoo who was just above us somewhere flew off, unseen, to some lower plantation.)
014 Orangetip in the woods 
015 Violets in the woods Once out of the trees, we had a cracking view of the Minigaff hills and the track we'd branched off from continuing its way to Loch Dee.
016 Curleywee and Minigaff friends from higher upThe walk up Darrou was the first long slog of tussocky ground, typical of these underrated hills. Hard-going, but I was really enjoying the views of hills we'd walked recently, from this new, peaceful angle.
017 Merrick behind Criaglee and Craignaw 
020 Cairngarroch with Millfore behind over to Curleywee Once at the top of Darrou, Euan said he hoped that terrain was the worst of it, a reasonable hope since we were on one of the least popular of some already less than popular hills. It
wasn't the worst of it though - that came later.
For now, it was just a few hundred metres more of the same, up to Little Millyea and Meikle Millyea. Making our lives easier were little yellow flags to help guide a good route and avoid losing unnecessary height.
021 Onward to the Millyeas with Millfire beyond 
027 Following the fell-runner flags 
022 South to distant Cairnsmore of Fleet again 
024 Loch Dee from up Little Millyea 
025 Clatteringshaws Loch from up Little Millyea The little yellow flags didn't bother with Little Millyea's summit cairn, but we did - top no.2 - and then we happily rejoined them for a well-thought-out route up to Meikle Millyea, past the usual erratics and some impressive unusual ones as well.
028 Cairn on Little Millyea 
031 The giants lectern - my name for itRising up to the top of Meikle Millyea, top 3, (while pondering on
mony a mickle making a muckle, a quandary I didn't sort out til this morning, affirming it really does make no sense), we had our first view over to the next few targets. And they looked further and bigger than we'd anticipated. (Basically, we'd been telling ourselves that was the hard work done and now it was a relatively easy meander up and down the range - which terrain-wise, it was. Ascent-wise, though, one of us was feeling a bunch of aches and pains, and beginning to think that maybe he'd route-planned more than he could chew...)
A wheatear posed to soften the blow...
037 Milldown - Corserine and wheatear 
038 Wheatear - Corserine behind 
039 Wheatear and fly ... and for now it was just a pleasure to be up here where neither of us had walked before.
Two years ago, I'd never thought I'd be spending so much time in the Galloway hills, but I'm really thrilled to have them on the (extended) doorstep. The views go without saying (on a clear day of course), but on top of that, I'm enjoying the discovery of getting to know the area from all its different angles, loving the lack of hoards, paths and - after Quinag, for all its beauty - road-racket. There was just birdsong up here. Lovely.
If these were in the Lakes, there'd be paths, people and litter. No litter here, no road sounds, just peace. (i.e. you can clearly hear your body falling apart
)
041 Me at Meikle Millyea trig - Milldown and Corserine beyond Just two folk appeared, having walked up from Forrest Lodge, the more usual route up, and they went straight down again. A good leg-stretch on a beautiful morning. We headed on down to the Lochans of Auchniebut, and then up to Milldown, our 4th top.
042 Lochans of Auchniebut between Millyeas and Milldown (looking back to Meikle Millyea).
Down near the lochans, we met the fifth of seven people we'd meet today, a lass with a fantastic long rainbow-dyed plait walking up on her own. I wondered where she'd come up from - perhaps also from Forrest Lodge - but she was walking as though she wanted to press on, so we swapped cheery greetings and pressed on too.
043 Milldown summit looking to CorserineThe eye-candy was still over to our west. Must come up here again in snowier times, I think,
046 Dungeon Hills with Awful Hand beyond As we carried on from Milldown to Millfire, which I'm not counting as a top, the views to the east were getting better and better too.
047 Lochs Harrow - Minnoch- Dungeon towards Forrest LodgeBut you still can't really take your eyes off the ranges to the west.
048 Dungeon Hills and Awful Hand pano 
049 Euan with Awful Hand and Dungeon ranges At the Millfire cairn, Loch Dungeon came into its own. I think the memorial stone to 17-year-old shepherd Ralph Forlow, who lost his life in a blizzard in 1954, is too much under us to be in view from here.
051 Loch Dungeon from Millfire Its carved words read:
Gie him his place
Amang the great
The men o war
Or kirk or state,
An add this message
Chiselled deep
The guid herd died
To save his sheepA notable phenomenon of the area that I've yet to find successfully are rocking stones (though more prevalent in Ayrshire than in Galloway, I think). I've found some, but they don't rock any more, if they ever did. Here I found what I considered the opposite of a rocking stone, one that is balanced at both ends instead of in the middle.
053 The opposite of a rocking stone Leaving Milldown and Millfire behind us, next was the slog up to Corserine's top - easy terrain
.
055 Trudge up Corserine - Cairnsmore of Fleet beyond And now we were getting high enough for a view of Loch Enoch.
056 Loch Enoch appears Coming up to Corserine (top 5) was so different to our ascents so far because of its broad, flatly rounded plateau summit, with the five arms coming off it, like a jelly-mould (to quote Euan). Easy to wander off the wrong arm (as nxmjm found here:
https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=31531).
Eventually the top of its trig pops up over the horizon (on a day with visibility!), and the exceptionally pappy top of Carlin's Cairn along with it.
058 Corserine summit and pappy Carlins Cairn Now I was on yet more familiar territory, looking down to the lochs I've got used to seeing from Shalloch on Minnoch.
061 Kirriereoch and SonM above Macaterick and Riecawr It was at this summit (top 6) that Euan decided he wanted to see if we could come down somewhere after Carlin's Cairn, and abandon the last few hills, so we decided we'd stop up at the huge cairn for a cuppa and consult the map.
062 Last Rhinns with Craigrine on right 
065 North to Craigrine from Carlins Cairn Well, it wasn't going to be easy, and ringing in Euan's head was Foggyclimber's report of paths on the OS maps not existing in reality at the north end. So whatever we did was going to be challenging. We opted for walking up and over Meaul and following the wall down from there, knowing full well the ground would probably be a b*****d. But every choice was a b*****d, so you just have to pick one and go for it
The wander down from Carlin's Cairn I really enjoyed, because at last I was seeing the views that were wrapped in clag last time we were up, and the view down to Loch Doon was particularly lovely.
It was also getting hot every time the breeze dropped, so there was much on-ing and off-ing of sleeves, dunking a buff in any available water, staying hydrated and batting away the odd midge.
068 Loch Doon from Carlins Cairn descent I was on the look out for goats, but there weren't any, and still my eyes kept being drawn towards Loch Enoch, its run-out burn now catching the light.
069 Pulskaig Burn from Loch Enoch - Mullwharchar to right Meaul is a delightful spot in its own right, and another hill I've not been up before.
Looking back to the south:
074 Craigrine and Carlins Cairn from Meaul trig And to the north:
076 Loch Doon and Coran of Portmark from Meaul
077 Meaul trig and Loch Doon And as we headed down, we could see our wall, the thin black line falling off the saddle to the right:
079 Our wall on bealachAs we approached the wall, we had a view down the Garryhorn Burn towards Cairnsmore of Carsphairn beyond, my reference point for where the car was (as that's where we'd parked to walk up there a few months ago).
080 Between Bow and Cairnsgarroch to C of Carsphairn There was a lot of tussocky downhill between us and it!
After a while, wall turned briefly to fence, and I looked back up the burn. We were in full tussock - where every step is on to a round lump about the size of the ball of your foot, covered in hairy grass so you can't quite negotiate its top.
081 Looking back up the Garryhorn Burn As we descended, the wall/fence and the burn snaked back and forth across one another (and in fact from the sounds, somehow the wall seemed to be built
on the burn). That meant we had a few little crossings to make, which meant stepping from one tussock, over the burn and trying to land square on another tussock on the other side, hence my terming it tussock-n-bog-roulette. "Energy-sapping", yep.
082 Tussocky hell down the Garryhorn Burn 
083 Several burn crossings 
084 Us making slow progress down Like a sort of mirage in the desert, the Woodhead lead mines (with tracks, tracks...) lay ahead. And they did that thing of not really getting closer without a load more punishment first.
085 Woodhead lead mine remains and C of Carsphairn 
086 Oh goodie - a footbridge Like a slap round the wotsits, the footbridge, cheerily marked on the map and bold as brass before us, had nary a slat. I wandered past it to some stepping stones of sorts. I think by this point Euan just stomped through the water
As we came across some little trees, probably willow, I asked him if he knew what they were. Back came an uncharacteristic, "Right now, I don't really care"
so I shut up and wondered things to myself.
087 Drinker moth caterpillar maybe When at last the tracks were just up a bit to our left, I suggested we go and meet them, by clambering over a wall, and they were bliss.
088 Over wall to the mines track On another day, we'd have explored the lead mine remains and what's left of the cottages, and school the owner built for the workers. Today though, our energy tussock-sapped, we just walked through, aiming mainly not to fall down any holes
and taking in each ruined remain as we passed from the track.
090 Lead ore smelting works buildings 
091 Chimney from lead mine closed 1873 And finally we reached Garryhorn Farm, and its little road up to the Green Well bridge, past fields of curlew - making alarm calls at a fox which looked as though it was after their eggs - and a few curious tups.
094 Broken tups hornPS. The cuckoo from the morning was waiting for us on a fencepost as we drove, happy and sated, to Craigencallie House
