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For the past several years, Kev and I have always had a walking weekend with bothy night in the run up to Christmas. In November 2016 we had done a route in the Ettrick Hills followed by a raucous night in Over Phawhope while a few days before Christmas 2015 had seen us wash up in Burlewhag from where we did a route in the nearby Lowther Hills. Our 2017 outing had been pushed back to the first week of 2018 and in keeping with what seems to have become the tradition, we again ventured south. This time our bothy of choice was to be Brattleburn, a new one for Kev but one that I had previously patronised back in January 2015 as part of the Alan Bellis 60th birthday bash, when Graham Slater had slept through pretty much the entire event and I had spent the evening fitfully sleeping in an armchair by the fire which I carefully tended through to the next day.
I was off early for the scheduled 11am meet up at Kirkhope Cleuch on the west side of the Daer Reservoir. I was planning to get a little hill in before Kev and his brother-in-law Craig turned up. My targets were either Well Hill further down the Thornhill road or Hods Hill across the other side of the Daer dam. In the end, the foul weather put paid to the idea of the former and I only followed through with the latter plan because I was driving past it anyway and it was either that or sit for a couple of hours in the car and watch the rain on the windscreen. Might as well take advantage of the conditions to enjoy a good drenching!
I was up and down in an hour and a half, following the SUW, with little to show for my efforts other than the aforementioned drenching and another blue balloon on my subby map. That said, the photos turned out not too bad considering, especially as there probably isn't a great deal of note to see from this hill on a fine day anyway.
Back at Kirkhope Cleuch, I waited on the arrival of Kev and Craig, who duly pulled up about 11.30 and after a quick discussion, the main thrust of which seemed to be that we were all getting too old for this sort of sh*t, we decided to bail on Ballencleuch Law and Comb Law and head straight for Brattleburn where we settled in for eight hours or so of bothy gogglebox accompanied by toasties and lashings of shut up juice.
Start from where the dam wall disappears into the spooky fog!SUW signageCrossing the damSo there is something beyond the fog!The Daer waterworks and the nearby wind farm add a certain "Je ne sais quoi" to the walk!Looking back to the reservoir from the start of the climbFrom a bit higher - not looking too clever over our principal targets for later!The summit starting to come into some sort of focusBit clearer?Yours truly enjoying the panorama!The grossly overstated summit architecture!I'm never coming back to this neck of the woods at this time of year again!Daer reservoir coming back into viewThe dream is nearly over!Didn't take long to get the stove fired up in BrattleburnSteam rising!Toasty time!