Frozen Flounderings in the Borders

It was cold…not my fault though, not this time.

That nice Mr Pieman issued an invitation to a rather select bunch of his buddies to join him on a pre-TGO Challenge wander around the Borders of Scotchlandshire. I’m not on this year’s Challenge, I had double-booked myself. I’d made an appointment with my mate Sean the barber before realising in coincided with the Challenge. Anyroadup, I’m really pleased that this minor detail didn’t exclude me from Mike’s trip. I’ve done the TGO challenge before you know. Experienced is what I am, oh yes. I’m not a leg-end, but I’m experienced. No doubt about it.

Lots of invitations had been sent out – and many accepted. As time went on some had to cancel and by the time Mike booked the campsite only six camping spots had needed to be reserved at the site in LAUDER. No need to shout….I’m not deaf.

Worse was to come, when it came to the crunch only four were able to attend. A shame that so many had dropped out – but stuff happens.

In the interests of security and safety, I travelled up to LAUDER (shhhh…) in the company of Judith (larboard gunner, keeper of the grog, navigator, etc etc) and Alan (rear gunner, engineer, curry and ale expert and appointed courier of Sheila’s rather excellent cakes).

Essential supplies (pies) were taken on board at Langholm…a serious expedition such as this needed a supply of good quality pies to ensure it’s success.

Tents were erected, 6 metres apart (Health & Safety you know), at the LAUDER campsite (no noise after 11pm if you don’t mind). Was six metres enough? There was snoring – or it could just have been nocturnal moans from Kylie.

Friday night was cold (-7degC), I awoke around 2am feeling decidedly cold. I put on my down gillet (Peter Storm, £20 from Millet’s) and that really helped – still bloody cold though. When I woke up in the morning it was snowing INSIDE the tent – condensation had frozen on the inner tent and decided it would be a real wheeze to shower me with ice crystals. What joy.

A decent breakfast was called for  - the cafe at the local leisure centre provided the necessary as we waited for our tents to defrost.

  My slighty frozen Hilleberg Akto

At 10.30am we were promptly away by around mid-day. 2 hours later, suffering exhaustion, dehydration, hunger etc etc, the Pie Supply was broken into. The sun shone brightly and warmly as we demolished our pies, drank tea (or coffee in Alan’s case) and wondered where the hell we were.

We’d had This Plan see, Plan A we called it. Plan A was replaced by Plan B (or it may have been Plan A rev2) because Alan had wisely checked out the conditions on the ground using t’interweb…and conditions weren’t too sparkling. The only problem we had was that the revised route was kept a closely-guarded secret…only Mike knew where we were going. Something about kippers I think.

In the absence of a photo of kippers, this picture of logs will have to do. 

Ground conditions varied from tussocky, boggy moorland to deep snow and snowdrifts. This all made for slow progress. Heaven knows how we’d have managed without sustenance from The Pies.

Mike, leading from the rear

Determined to keep us in the dark, Mike studies a map of Wales.

Trundling on a slightly more Easterly direction (always a good direction), a couple of interesting-looking cairn-type thingies appeared in the distance. These were the Twin Laws:

One of these structures incorporated a hollow, in which was a biscuit tin containing a log-book and a bag of sweeties. Whilst Mike attacked the sweeties, I just made an entry in the log-book. I need to look after my figure. It needs some severe looking after.

More deep snow followed, much floundering was floundered:

 Flounderinging….not

I’m not sure what time we found a suitable pitch but it was certainly getting cold. In fact we reckon it dropped to –3degC that night, cold enough for me to need to be well wrapped-up in my sleeping bag that night.

Catering on this trip was a little different from my previous backpacking trips. Normally I take my home-dehydrated meals, this time I took ‘off the shelf’ dried foods – stuff from Morrisons, Tesco etc. It didn’t work out too well. It was heavy, bulky….and not particularly tasty. Some of the commercial stuff I took was good: Heinz Cream of Tomato Soup (seductively yummy), sachets of Tuna, Savoury Rice (only okay-ish). Perhaps I’ve been spoilt in the past, but this packet stuff just doesn’t do it for me. It may just need more experimentation or maybe I just chose the wrong stuff, I don’t know. For now I’ll be sticking with my home-grown stuff.

 View from my tent at the first wild-camp spot.

Our pitch was close to a wind-farm service track. During the evening a few vehicles headed up (or down) the track – presumably having fettled a wind-turbine or two. We didn’t see them again until the following morning.

After breakfast we were away by around 9am, following the well-surfaced track. The area had certainly seen some heavy snow:

The sunshine of the previous day had gone, replaced by gloomy murk. By now we had sort-of caught on to the fact that we could just possibly be on Plan C. Or Plan D. We still weren’t sure where we were….so we blindly wandered off into into the distance, trusting in the Pieman:

Turns out we were following Kipper Street The Herring Road, an old route that was used in the 18th and 19th centuries when the herring industry was strong.  Not sure if that was just the smell though. It was used by folk bringing salted herring for winter use and also by fishwives carrying huge creels of herring from Dunbar to the markets in Lauder. Oh, and it was used by the Pieman and his daughter, Becky. But that was only a few years ago. They weren’t shifting fish though. And Mike & Becky were going the other way….the same way we were going.

It’s probably a long time since a herring has passed by this way. I was only carrying tuna.

Mike navigating using the kipper method

Alan and Judith not floundering

Today’s route was short, maybe 8 or 9 miles, so there was no need to rush. We met up with a couple of walkers who stopped to chat, and a family out for a Sunday walk, all very jolly.

Passing close by some remote farm buildings I spotted a rather cool way of getting around the snow-covered hills and moorland:

I want one! 

Our intended pitch for the night was a sheep-fold, previously used by Mike & Becky. And sheep of course. When we rolled up the ground was just too boggy to camp, fortunately there was good ground very close by. By around 3pm our tents were up, water collected, and we all retired to our shelters. It was too cold to stand around chatting outside. (Mostly) observing the 6 metre rule (Health & Safety you know) meant talking between tents was difficult. Funny how the snoring carried though….   
We were stuck in our tents for a long time, I was glad to have my Roberts 925 radio, it helped pass the hours. This radio is a cracking piece of kit – and at well under £20, a bargain. Although it only has earphone output (a loudspeaker version is available too) it’s brilliant for backpacking. It’s lightweight, has a long battery life (2 x AAA last a long time) – but most importantly, it covers the MW & LW AM as well as the FM broadcast band. In the more remote spots of the UK, FM is all but useless. Medium Wave, and in particular Long Wave, are far better. BBC Radio 4 on Long Wave is audible in most spots in the UK – although some remote, deep glens in Scotland can be a bit of a challenge!

When I eventually ‘turned in’ (I was in my sleeping bag all afternoon anyway!) at around 9pm it was obvious it wasn’t going to be quite as cold as the previous two nights. I awoke in the early hours to hear what I thought was light rain on the flysheet. I was a bit surprised to be met with this view when I unzipped the tent in the morning:
A breakfast of hot muesli (the only ‘home’ meals I’d brought with me) set me up for the day. We packed, and just after 9.15am we set off for the final leg of the trip to Dunbar, still following The Herring Road.
The going was still tough. The choice was generally either following snow-filled sunken paths or Land Rover tracks, or rough, tussocky and boggy ground. Fortunately Alan was in the lead and he blazed the trail perfectly. I felt a bit of a cheat, Alan did the hard stuff whilst those behind just followed in his footprints….what a star!

Then there were the wind-farms, loads of the damned things – they just seem to get everywhere. This particular wind-farm had around 80 turbines – all whizzing around, casting strobe-like shadows and making their intrusive ‘whooshing’ noises as the blades cut through the air.
Bogs and wind-farm tracks followed, the tracks made for good progress whilst the bogs did what bogs do best…..and hindered progress. You might think that all this whinging about the terrain was making for a miserable trip – nothing could be further from the truth. We were having a great time! A walk in poor conditions but in excellent company makes for a good trip – and this was a good trip.

This last day certainly exposed us to the deepest snow, we were regularly disappearing up to our wotsits in the white stuff. Energy sapping it may have been, but we were having fun. Honest. No, really. Well I was even if the others weren’t.

The coast soon came into view:

Dunbar in the distance

As we lost height, so the snow diminished. The terrain became gentler and we were soon walking through well tended farmland:

Our audience 

  Judith taking the opportunity to check her height

Spott – a bad place to be a witch.

The Witches Stone of Spott – site of a witch-burning in 1698

Tarmac all the way into…..

Whoo-hoo!

Next stop: the chippy for a very excellent (and not very healthy) lunch. Then shopping for essential supplies, including coal for the bothy fire. Becky’s Bothy proved to be the finest and most comfortable bothy I’ve ever stayed in….. it’s even more comfy than Ruigh Aiteachain, flush toilets too!

An excellent curry in downtown Dunbar followed – then we were back to the bothy for a wind-down and bed.

Ready to leave Becky’s Bothy before heading for home. 

This was a grand trip, just a shame that numbers attending were low. It would have been good to flounder with others. Having said that, our party of four was great – all good company, all competent (except me of course), just right in fact. We covered something like 29 miles – not a great deal normally, but in such snowy conditions it was quite enough.

Perhaps we can persuade Mike to do Plan A sometime – I’d be up for it. Perhaps those who weren’t able to join us this time round could come too.

I’m still not absolutely sure where we went, but this map looks convincing to me.

Thanks to Becky of Becky’s Bothy – a lifesaver! Also to Mike for snoring arranging the trip – and to Alan and Judith for putting up with my awful jokes. I had a great time!

Piccies here.

I had a quick furtle around t’web to try to find some info on The Herring Road and discovered this, posted by Mike – before he dropped his camera in the beck. The maps are good, at least I’ve got more of an idea where I’ve just been.

Other versions of this tale can be found here:

Northern Pies

Around the Hills

A Blog on the Landscape

Gear and maybe food details will follow in a subsequent post.