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The Galloway dregs

Bam

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Myself and Smurf went down to Galloway forest as per the original plan, neither of us had been before so thought "sod it, why not". Smurf came round on thursday morning for our intended 2 nights down there and we loaded the car, we went in a lot heavier than we're used to, we're hill walkers so tend to err on the light weight side. Not this time. :) Matt had very generously offered up the location of a wee spot they'd scoped out when they were there and we found it pretty quickly, we had a wee recce about to look at other sites knowing that we had this in the back pocket. We found a site that we think they used and that Gizmo had used previously and had a drive around but ended up back at the original spot. It looked a popular spot, there was a small amount of detritus and quite a few trees had either been cut or pruned and there was a couple of old fire spots. Other than that it was a cracking site with a swift burn running about 20 metres away so fresh water wasn't an issue. We set up the tents and headed off on a hunt for wood, we'd brought in some charcoal, its always handy.

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As you can see we had good weather and we were right next to this part of the plantation that had been felled so there was quite a bit of wood, it was quite wet though and we brought a good load back. The charcoal was handy for drying out the foraged stuff, we piled it round and introduced it sparingly.

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We also liberated some logs that Matt and Neil left, cheers guys, I split them and used them as the base for the fire. Once we had it all sorted with plenty fuel drying, it was time for scran, I'd brought in the makings of a beef and ale stew and a paneer curry, we went for the steak and ale option and were happy to sit in our unusually comfy camping chairs at a full height table.... :) Unfortunately the pics are 'too large' but we were living large and the 'loud mouth soup' was flowing, BRAW !. We had a couple hours of chilling (so we put coats on) and talking crap while waiting for the main event.

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I'd under done the tatties a bit so I lost marks there but you could beat them to death with a spork and mash them so it wasn't a total lose, I'd say a 7.5 out of 10 and sadly Smurf had been up late the night before and by all accounts it was thirsty work so he got his fat one down about 9, I sat up for another couple hours fannying around drying more wood and rewarding myself with the occassional sip of rouge. I speared in about 11, and was loving my more luxurious set up, not only did I have my winter bag, I was rocking my softie suit as jim-jams... I even had a wool blanket under the air mat... I was proper toastie. Apart from getting spat out about 4 for a quick wizz, I had a great kip and didn't even start to wake up until after 7, the forecast bad weather had arrived, you could hear it beating down on the tent. We eventually stuck our head out about 9, I'd felt the need to empty myself again and found a wee spot that looked like it would support a tarp to make a passable admin area, we set to and set about a coffee and then some breakfast.

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Unfortunately the other phots are too large but we sat there as the weather slowly deteriorated, had the coffee and rolls, had another coffee, talked about adding other tarps to the area as the wind kept changing its mind and realised that we weren't going to be doing very much other than sitting in the admin area and then getting back on the sauce so we decided to pack up and head back home rather than just staying for the sake of it. We had one really good night and its a good spot, thanks again to Matt for being very forthcoming about it but it does look well used. Had the paneer for my scran tonight, albeit cooked on mains gas instead of an open fire, still, plenty more chances to get back out there and we've both said we'd be up for the more 'civilised' camping than our usual which is limited to what we can lug on our backs. Thanks to Paul too for taking the time to go over a number of options with us, it was all very helpful. Just need to plan our next exped, there was talk of Mark making it out soon I believe..........
 
Really nice view of the distant hills. Sometimes just hanging around when you know bad weather is forecast can spoil the whole trip, so good move on breaking camp a bit early.. :thumbsup:

Aye, we could of hung about for the sake of it, it was the original plan, we've known each other for years though and know each others stories so sitting in the cold and drinking is old hat. :lol:
 
Good stuff. Glad you guys got out and I enjoyed that write up.
That's the spot I thought Matt meant but he insists there's a better one '50 yrds further' but we know how bad his navigation is never-mind his directions lol
 
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