The Southern Upland Way: Scotland's Coast to Coast
Our journey from Sanquhar to Wanlockhead and the Lotus Lodge youth hostel
- Portpatrick to Castle Kennedy
- Castle Kennedy to Beehive Bothy
- Beehive Bothy to Bargrennan
- Bargrennan to White Laggan Bothy
- White Laggan Bothy to St John's Town of Dalry
- St John's Town of Dalry to Manquhill Hill
- Manquhill Hill to Sanquhar
- Sanquhar to Wanlockhead
- Wanlockhead to Brattleburn Bothy
- Brattleburn Bothy to Beattock
- Beattock to Over Phawhope Bothy
- Over Phawhope Bothy to St Mary's Loch
- St Mary's Loch to Traquair
- Traquair to Galashiels
- Galashiels to Lauder
- Lauder to the Lammermuirs
- Lammermuirs to Abbey St Bathans
- Abbey St Bathans to Cockburnspath
Saturday 7th April
Sanquhar campsite to Wanlockhead
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| Sanquhar campsite where we spent the night. | Heading out of Sanquhar |
We wake up at 8 o'clock and retrieve our camera battery from the campsite owner, Irene. They tell us that they hardly get any SUW traffic through the campsite, though they used to get a bit when the way was first opened. There is a push towards revamping the SUW; the main objective is to change the route to make it more interesting. There is talk of rerouting the way downriver past Drumlanrig castle. They tell us that they are lucky if they get one person passing through who's doing the SUW, and if they get two it is an occasion. They also have people arriving at the campsite totally exhausted from coming over the hills in one day and asking where the train station is because they've given up! For some reason a disproportionate number of people passing through have been Dutch, and it was a Dutch couple who were first to collect all the waymerks.
We head into town to visit the pharmacy, which show some sympathy at the condition of our sunburns. After picking up some meths for our stove, we head back to the bridge where we entered Sanquhar and take the proper route through by the riverside. Given its Easter we've taken the unusual challenge of carrying eggs with us and hope they are packed securely and don't smash. The SUW goes up a wynd and under a railway bridge as it leaves Sanquhar. A women with a black pit bull sitting on a bench tells us that we are to expect a very hot and sunny day tomorrow. The sun is definitely back today!
It's a steep climb out of Sanquhar through a sloping public park - we expect a lot of climbing today as our destination is Wanlockhead, Scotland's highest village.
We encounter a field of young male sheep - probably one year olds. As soon as we pass the first corner of the field, they all start baaing and rushing towards us. They're not shy of us, and may be expecting to get fed. When they realise we are not here to feed them, they lie down and bask in the sun. A few minutes later an attractive female farmer arrives at the corner of the field to feed them. We continue on towards the range of hills ahead known as the Lowthers, in the middle of which lies Wanlockhead.
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| The route out of Sanquhar climbs steeply up through a public park area before heading into sheep pasture. | Friendly year old sheep wait to be fed. |
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| We head on towards the Lowther Hills | The Black Loch which has the remains of a crannog on it. |
About 2km after leaving Sanquhar, we find a signposted side trip to a place of interest. It's a 400m walk to the black loch, so we decide that since it is a short day of walking today, we will take the trip to the Black Loch with a Crannog. On the way to the Black Loch we notice for the first time the giant golf ball like structure, which marks the top of Lowther Hill.
The Black Loch is just a wee thing, but is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), and has an island in the middle of it with archaeological remains - a crannog or lake dwelling. The path to and from the loch twists and turns to avoid the many marshy areas on route, like a maze through the marsh.
We rejoin the way, and on finding ourselves beside a water source, Loch burn (a small river, not a loch), we decide to cook up an early lunch of cheesy pasta and spam, followed by cream filled biscuits. Since Alan managed to scoff an entire packet of biscuits by himself the previous night, Jo chooses not to share the remaining packet and keeps them to herself. With Alan begging for something sweet, she trades some of them for foot massages.
Such a large meal combined with very hot sun sees us falling asleep for half an hour while our food digests. Jo once again uses her fleecy top as a make shift sunhat to provide some shade.
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| A line of trees catches Alan's eye | A lunch break finds Alan falling asleep in the hot mid-day sun |
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| A journey into the Western Lowther hills | We are surrounded by the constant twittering of nesting birds. |
We ascend through the Western Lowther hills, and are shocked to find a section of path which is fenced in on both sides - like someone's trying to contain a bunch of sheep so they walk in the right direction! We notice, like we've noticed many times, that on landscapes like this with long brown grasses, there seems to be a specific type of bird around us. It makes an intense twittering noise, which comes from all around us like they are nesting in the grass. They take off at extreme speeds and waver in height and fly along in a bobbing kind of motion. A large black coloured bird flies past us at close quarters, and we wonder if this is the black grouse we read about yesterday at the RSPB reserve before Sanquhar. It had gloss black plumage with white stripes down its back and feathers, and a bright red beak.
On reaching the top we descend into the valley of Cogshead by quite a deep ravine. It's quite a broad easy path surrounded by squiring and squeaking and chirping noises. This moor is alive with sound! Ahead the landscape is punctuated by a lot of temporary sheep pens shinning silver in the sun.
At the foot of the valley we join a track through a short section of forest plantation before emerging at the ruined cottage of Cogshead. It's a steep unpleasantly contoured valley at the bottom. After a quick look at the ruin, which looks rather dangerously derelict, we continue our climb up the valley side and over to Wanlockhead.
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| The base of Cogshead Valley is filled with a thin strip of plantation forest. | The old ruin at Cogshead is very derelict. |
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| If we can just get over the top of this valley its downhill all the way to Wanlockhead. | We're alone in this vast valley with only sheep for company |
Climbing over to Wanlockhead we glimpse once again the Lowther Hill golf ball, while behind us the view consists of a valley and the interlocking spurs of the hills. We head down the attractive ravine-side winding track to Wanlockhead.
Not far down the hill, and the view opens up superbly. We can see down to Wanlockhead and the broad looking valley it is nestled in, overshadowed by the hulk of Lowther Hill with its massive golf ball on top. In front of us lies the old gold mine, which changed to a lead mine when the gold ran out. The mine is the only reason Wanlockhead ever came into existence, Wanlockhead being a difficult to access small town in the midst of a range of hills.
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| The path joins a grassy track on the other side of the hill, which takes us down towards Wanlockhead. | Wanlockhead is now visible, with Lowther Hill behind, the summit marked by a large golf ball on the right. |
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| The hillside is scarred with barren land where nothing grows. This is because lead is so poisonous to life on earth that plants will not grow in an area contaminated by lead even after hundreds of years. | Some old stone walls mark out where the lead was worked. |
We join the wide stone track which appears to link Wanlockhead with the old mine. There is an attractive river running through to the right of us and patterned hills surround us. The hills are covered in heather which is managed for keeping the number of grouse on these hills as high as possible. The heather is periodically burnt in patches which gives the hills its patterned appearance. The burnt ground encourages new shoots of heather to grow (a food source for the grouse) while the mature heather provides shelter so the grouse can hide while nesting. As we follow the track, we pass a series of ruins on our left, which we think might have been a kiln or possibly some other mining related building. It's past a small row of colourful houses and a picturesque cemetery. There is a massive slag heap on the other side of the valley.
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| The cemetery houses several yew and Sycamore trees according to our tree and shrub leaflet. | A massive slag heap from the mine gives witness to the villages past. |
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| Wanlockhead is full of plenty of old historic buildings and ruins. | A viewpoint on the route of the SUW points out the miner's cottages and the old Wanlockhead beam engine. |
We enter the main part of Wanlockhead, and notice the area is surrounded by various garden paraphernalia. Its and attractive wee place set about a small glen with coniferous trees lining. We pass a viewpoint, a stone cairn with a drawing made by a John Clerk of Eldin in 1775 which shows the waterwheel pumping engines. There is also a plaque with a drawing showing all kinds of industrious activity.
The whole valley floor is littered with the remnants of the mining era. You can also see the places where things won't grow as a direct consequence of the lead mining. There are just so many sheds and pipes embedded in the ground, and bits and pieces like concrete bricks laid and bridges crossing the river this way and that, and benches. It's just a hodgepodge of different things, but still very attractive though. The place is carpeted in this fuzzy green grass giving the impression of a soft green carpet.
Contrary to our original plan to camp wild somewhere after Wanlockhead, we decide to head to the Lotus Hostel to see if they'll do us a deal to camp in their grounds for a reduced fee and use their showers. Jo really feels the need for a shower due to last night's campsite not having any showers open, and the plan for next night being to camp in a bothy. In addition to this we are concerned about filling up our water bladders in any rivers near here in case of lead contamination. They are a very friendly hostel, and only charge us £10 to camp on their back lawn, use the showers and use the cooking facilities. The showers are amazingly good power showers, and we give ourselves a thorough scrub. We use the kitchen facilities and fry ourselves up two burger and egg rolls each, surprised that our eggs have survived a day of walking without smashing. We both settle in for two cups of hot chocolate each for desert. The back yard is a bit of a slope, but inside the hostel is a lovely place, fully refurbished since it was owned by Scottish Youth Hostels. We are both now warm, clean, clean shaven, well fed, and feeling brilliant for the first time in a while. It's been an amazing day. We've got our good weather back, we've got a great place to stay, and we found the day's kist!
The Kist
On first seeing the ULTREIA sign, we keep our eyes peeled, but fail to turn up anything other than a rusty old toilet cistern. We back track, and finding and ULTREIA sign facing the other way, realise we were out of the active search area. We soon find the small barely noticeable kist which blends in so perfectly with the environment in a place you probably wouldn't look, that it's only distinguishing feature is an iron handle with which it opens.
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| The Wanlockhead Beam Engine | The Lotus Lodge Hostel in Wanlockhead |