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Well, the plan was Millfore anyway...
My uncle's 70th birthday was this week, so it seemed like an ideal time to go on our now-annual hillwalk somewhere in Galloway. After our straightforward Windy Standard walk two years ago, and a bit of a epic Corserine climb last year, I was looking for something in between this year. I've got four Fionas left in Galloway so, with the time window we had, Millfore seemed like the obvious choice.
We met just after 9am, so we had about seven hours to get there and back. To my surprise Google Maps and Bing were both saying the best route was down the Dalmellington road to St John's Town of Dalry, then round to the Black Loch car park. We were making good progress when we suddenly arrived in Patna to find the road...closed. Like, completely closed. The whole A713. With no diversion back at the start of the road at Ayr Hospital. It turns out they were resurfacing (fair enough, I'm not one of those people who screams at roadworks as if they've dug up the road out of boredom), but you need a signed diversion in advance, right? Especially if it's an A road cutting through a remote area and the backtracking's going to be huge. Maybe I missed the sign earlier - wouldn't put it past me tbf.
I've never seen this before, so at first I just sat in the middle of the road (I mean the car sat there, not me). Eventually we turned back up Stewart Place and round Hillside, but that junction was closed too. A quick check of the satnav (none of the satnavs / apps knew about this road closure btw...bit odd) said the only option was to head towards Kirkmichael then left on a shortcut, before heading down through Straiton on the hill road to Glen Trool. So off we went on windy roads (that seemed to basically go through a farm at one point), finally passing through Straiton and heading South over the shoulder of Shalloch on Minnoch, my first ever mountain in 2003. The road headed downhill towards the Nick of the Balloch junction, where we...... met another road closure.
And this one wasn't showing up on any live apps either......
It was obvious by now that Millfore wasn't happening. The gods had intervened, in their traditional god-like way, with lines of traffic cones forming a frontier across the Ayrshire / Galloway border. Shalloch on Minnoch had come up in conversation as we passed it a couple of minutes earlier, and it turned out it's the only one of the four Galloway (or Galloway-ish) Corbetts my uncle hadn't climbed. I'd climbed it twice already, and I'm *not* keen on repeat hills, but it was the only choice then. My uncle was fairly chuffed at this turn of events, as it was the biggest hill left in this part of the country, was ironically a shorter climb (c.385m start, yes please) and much less of a drive. We backtracked to a junction with a really short forest road (sans forest), where a couple of joggers had also parked, crossed our fingers that we weren't blocking the junction for any logging lorries etc. and headed off to find the stream crossing.
When you start halfway up a Corbett, the views open up pretty instantly.
The path was...wet. Really wet. There had been a fair bit of rain on Friday night (although not as much as this awful forecast is suggesting for tonight / tomorrow). But I knew the route well by now, so the path headed straight up over Cairnadloch towards Caerloch Dhu.
53 minutes after leaving, we were already at the Donald Top of Caerloch Dhu, and this was the only proper break we had on the way up (I've now idea how my uncle does this - if I'm still here at 70, and I can still walk, then that'll be two big bonuses).
The only steep part is the last push from Caerloch Dhu up to the trig point, although it's probably less of an effort than the bogfest earlier on.
2003 me.
2024 me. The trig point has worn even worse than me!
Just 1hr 28mins after leaving, we were standing on top of a Corbett. Well done to my uncle!
There are some huge boulders near the summit cairn (which has grown arms and legs since 2018, when I finally headed to the actual summit on a classic site visit), so we sat on one of them for lunch and peered into the wilderness between the Rhinns of Kells and Range of the Awful Hand. Mullwarchar might just be the most remote Donald? One day I'll make it there...hopefully.
Tried to get a glimpse of my hometown, but it was quite hazy yesterday. But Prestwick and Ayr are somewhere in there, way behind Straiton.
Well I know what that one is, at least.
My namesake always shows its face.
The road up here and the hillside always seem to have random Christmas trees dotted about the place. Could almost be tempted to nab one...
The sun was hiding for most of the walk, but for some reason I still got a bit sunburnt (thought I'd lost the suncream, but it was hiding in my car all along). The sun came out a fair bit later on though.
Oh this again.
It wasn't too bad actually, as there are enough solid stones that you can get across kinda quickly, at least with walking poles.
This is obviously a great service, and well done to them for doing it, but I like the juxtaposition of a sign that says, "Here's all the info you need to contact us" then right at the bottom, "Oh yeh no signal soz lol.
"
Electric Brae came up in conversation near the end, so I suggested going back via the Dunure road, but my uncle was feeling a bit ropey after the climb, so we went straight home. We did finally get a glimpse of Prestwick (well it was probably Troon actually), behind the monument at Straiton, right as we got back to the car.
Happy birthday to my uncle, and hopefully we'll try Millfore again another time. Maybe set off at 5am, and go via Girvan, Barrhill, Watford Gap Services, Schiphol, LAX and The Moon, and we might get there next time......?
