Walking in the Southern Uplands. Ronald Turnbull
of the Archbishop of St Andrews. Both sides believed that any cruelties were entirely justified as they had God entirely on their side, while their opponents belonged to Satan.
In 1688 James II (James VII of Scotland) was thrown out of England. The replacement joint monarchs, William and Mary of Orange, were moderate Protestants, and the Killing Times thus came to an end. The Covenanters were in effect the winners – the Church of Scotland is still Presbyterian. Accordingly, the Covenanting victims of the persecution became ‘martyrs’, whose stone memorials are in churchyards and on hillsides all over the Southern Uplands.
For further information on the covenanters see the website ‘jardine’s book of martyrs’ (http://drmarkjardine.wordpress.com).
When to go
Wee Queensberry (Walk 12) looking across Nithsdale to the Galloway Hills
With a maximum altitude of 843m and few fearsome cliffs to fall off, the Southern Uplands can be enjoyed at any time of the year. As on most UK hills, the very best months are usually April to June, when the air is cool and clear, and rainfall is lower than in other seasons.
In high summer, July and August, the hills are slightly busier, although even then they are far from crowded. The grassland is a duller green, and the air is warm and hazy. Long days allow you to imitate, if you wish, the tremendous hill crossings of the Border reivers, and quiet summer evenings can be every bit as lovely as the crispness of spring. Midges do haunt the wooded glens, with Glentrool below the Merrick and Kielder Forest in Northumberland being as afflicted as anywhere in the Scottish Highlands. However, open hill slopes and farmland glens are usually midge free.
Autumn weather can be tiresome, with occasional brisk, windswept hill days sparkling within weeks of grey rain like the hill lochs among the Galloway bog. As the range stretches from coast to coast, one end may well have better weather than the other. However, the lack of roads and through-routes doesn’t aid any last-minute shift from New Galloway to North Berwick.
Winter hill-walking here can be a special experience, with its huge and solitary empty spaces. But snow cover is unreliable. Some winters are almost snow free. Others fail to achieve any freeze–thaw cycle, with deep drifts that will rarely have been trodden down by any earlier walkers. In the occasional years when it comes into condition, the Grey Mare’s Tail (see Walk 21) has ice-climbers queuing into the night for its frozen splendours. The steep north and east faces of Merrick can be a crampon-wearer’s playground, with some actual winter climbs in the Black Gairy crags. But while revisiting the walks in this book, my best winter day just happened to be in the small-scale Pentlands (Walk 33).
The Mountain Weather Information Service provides daily forecasts for the Scottish, English and Welsh mountains. It happens to be based in Galloway’s Glenkens, so its specific ‘Southern Uplands’ forecast is no afterthought, but at least as carefully prepared as those for higher and busier bits of hill elsewhere. See www.mwis.org.uk.
Transport
The Southern Uplands are approached by way of Glasgow, Edinburgh or Carlisle. Air travellers could touch down at Glasgow and Edinburgh, as well as Prestwick or Newcastle. Within the area, the main transport hubs are Dumfries, Galashiels, Hawick and Berwick-upon-Tweed. Few local buses are helpful to hillwalkers; convenient car hire is at Carlisle, Dumfries and Berwick.
For general information on transport in Scotland, contact www.travelinescotland.com, 0871 200 2233. Details of local transport, by area, are given in Appendix B.
Rail
Both East Coast and West Coast main lines pass through the Southern Uplands, but their former stations among the hills have closed. Only the side line Dumfries–Glasgow has useful stations on it (for Section 2 of the guide). For more details contact www.scotrail.co.uk.
Bus and coach
The main towns have useful bus services (with long-distance routes to and from Newton Stewart). However, the minor A-roads and byways serving the hill-walker have infrequent buses or none at all. School bus services are absent at weekends and during school holidays. Main-road services stop at intermediate points only at the discretion of the driver.
This guide is designed to offer readers the area’s best walks. However, not all these are accessible by public transport. Bus services that might be useful to walkers generally include the 101/102 Edinburgh–Dumfries via Thornhill/Moffat, which gives access to many Southern Upland walks (Stagecoach West Scotland, 01292 613500). This and other services are listed by area in Appendix B.
Where a walk in this guide has useful, regular public transport to within a mile or so of the start, this is noted in the information box at the start of the walk. This applies to Walks 1–3, 11, 13, 14, 27–29, 31–34, 38 and 39.
Accommodation
The Borders Region is very well served with hotels and B&Bs, and they’ll be found in all the small towns throughout this book. ‘Country house hotels’, aimed at fishing and shooting enthusiasts, are particularly comfortable (and expensive!) and are used to muddy boots and dogs. B&Bs on existing long-distance paths (Southern Upland Way, St Cuthbert’s Way, Border Abbeys Way) are also walker-friendly and are listed on the paths’ websites and accommodation leaflets.
Hostels and bothies
The Scottish Youth Hostels Association (www.syha.org.uk) still runs a handful of hostels in the Borders; most are closed in winter. There are also a few independent hostels (www.hostel-scotland.co.uk). The area has many bothies – simple unlocked shelters with no facilities. They are occasionally unavailable during work parties or closed by vandalism; consult www.mountainbothies.org.uk.
Details of hostels and bothies in each area covered by the guide are given in Appendix B.
Tourist information and other facilities
For general information see www.visitscotland.com and www.discovertheborders.co.uk. Year-round information centres are located in Dumfries (01387 253862), Peebles (01721 723159) and at Princes Street, Edinburgh (0845 225 5121). Details of local tourist information contact points for each area covered by this guide are given in Appendix B.
The small towns of the area have been largely self-sufficient since the reiving times – they are well served with pubs, cafés, shops and petrol stations. A few parts of the area, such as the Galloway Hills, have no nearby town; for them, notes on local facilities are given in Appendix B.
Maps
The mapping in this guide is based on the Ordnance Survey’s Landranger series at 1:50,000. However, anyone walking in the hills needs to be able to see a larger area of land than the small extracts on these pages, so as to be aware of escape routes and neighbouring glens (in case you come down the wrong side of the hill). It is recommended that walkers take with them a paper map sheet (or electronic equivalent).
The 1:50,000 Landranger mapping covers the area of this guide on sheets 66 (Edinburgh), 67 (Duns), 72* (Upper Clyde), 73* (Peebles), 74* (Kelso), 76 (Girvan), 77* (Dalmellington), 78* (Nithsdale), 79* (Hawick), 80* (Cheviot Hills), 83 (Newton Stewart) and 84 (Dumfries), with the starred sheet numbers being more important.
The area is also covered on the OS Explorer maps at 1:25,000 scale. Their main advantage is in showing fences and walls, along with much extra detail in the valleys. Against this, they are bulkier than the Landranger maps and considerably less clear to read. Refer to the box at the start of individual