Two Days of Walks

Dragging myself out of bed after ANOTHER horrible nights sleep we decided to go on the other side of town to take a walk above the Moffat Golf Course and on to Chapel Farm.  

"Moffat's Chapel Lane up to Chapel Farm is a deeply-incised 'hollow way', probably of mediaeval date. It probably began as a short cut from the growing village up from a fording or bridge point on the Annan at Moffat up onto the Roman Road. The Chapel at Chapel Farm survives only as a window and a wall that is the end-gable of a farm building, but it was once the chapel to a Hospital of the Knights Templar, tending wayfarers who needed medical care. Such Hospitals or 'Spitals' sometimes also served as inns, in common with other monastic institutions."     

There is your history lesson for the day!

Anyway, we headed south out of town and nipped up the hill toward the golf club turning off onto a path that had a "Moffat walks" tiny little sign but didn't look like a path.  Two steps in I stepped and my foot went right out from under me and I fell right in the mud!  Ker-splash!!  Ugh!!! Wellies don't quite have the gripping power of a hiking boot when walking up muddy paths.  Oh well, brush yourself off and get on with it!

When we got almost to the top of the path we saw this lovely tree:

 And the golf course to the right:

 and far off hills all around:

 We disturbed a female grouse along the path which took off and flew over a field of summer greens now withering away.  Suddenly two small deer stood up to see what had disturbed the grouse.  You can barely see one of the little ones watching us:

 Up and down along the path keeping the stone wall and field to our left....

  and the golf course to our right:

 until we got to the top and in the VERY far off distance you can see Auchen Castle

Another view of Auchen.  It's a lovely structure dating back to the 1200's!

 As we walk we see this structure.  Gordon and I thought it was an old bridge of some sort because there's supposedly a Roman Road up here though we couldn't find it.  As we approached we discovered it was a

 sod roof structure for storing grain I guess.

Can you see the water on the ground?  Again, all the fields are absolutely sodden from tons and tons of rain received in southern Scotland this year. However, the Highlands have had very little rain and have suspended the manufacturing of Whisky for lack of water!  What the heck?  Anyway, Gordon and I have spent most of our walks here trying to dodge just such pools of water however sometimes you just have to slog through it and hope you don't bury your boots too deeply!

 We discovered this weird white gel stuff along with some tiny black mucus that looked like roe.  Turns out the black "roe" are frog eggs!  Laying right out in the open.  Strange.

 Ah, notice something about this field of sheep?  That's Gordon and I standing up there.....the black sheep!

 As we rounded the top of the hill looking for Chapel Farm we have a terrific view across Moffat and up to the forest we hiked just a few days ago.

 And we decide not to cross this field instead choosing to view this nice fellow with his cheeky nose ring from the safety of our side of the stone wall!  Doesn't look too happy does he?

 Another view of Moffat from afar and now you can see our destination, Chapel Farm.  See the arched "window" just behind the stone wall?

 Here's a better view looking through the widow back up toward where we were standing.

 And the rear wall which is the end wall to the little white house behind it.  Notice the stoned in doorway.

 Once again, it's a shame more care isn't given to these old structures although when would you stop?  There are scores of ancient buildings sitting here and there throughout Scotland and I guess you just can't save them all.

 A different angle on the house and wall.

 It must have been a lovely old building.

 As we continue along we noticed a sheepdog in the upper field and we stopped to watch as, all by himself, he rounded up the herd and pushed them through a gate headed RIGHT FOR US!

I was not able to load these next two videos directly onto my Blog spot for some reason so you'll need to click the following links to see them.  They will take you to YouTube and you can view them there.  Since Gordon and I were so excitedly trying to get out of the herd's way, we didn't film the actually "running of the sheep" but met up with the farmer and owner of Chapel Hill Farm and had a great conversation about sheep and the industry and the little town of Moffat and friendly gossip.  His accent was pretty strong and I had a little trouble keeping hold on the conversation.  He had beautiful sky blue eyes and white hair and a friendly disposition.  Farm clothing and wellies topped his outfit and of course his sheep dogs.  4 of them but Don was the best of them.  One of them was a pregnant female due to give birth the next day.  He said she was not much help right now but liked to come along anyway.  This video is of the farmer calling Don up the field from running the herd by us.
 Don
 After the farmer retrieved Don he told us to wait right where we were and Don would bring another herd up from a different low field and we could watch him put several hundred females through a narrow gate.  Here's what we witnessed and it was really cool to watch:
Don-Don
I stood on the other side of the wall while Gordon got a pretty good angle with the camera.

 Sweet Don.

 That was the "capper" on our Wednesday walk.  We headed back down the hill toward the Old Edinburgh Road saying goodbye to the nice farmer and his pack of dogs.  Later we took a drive to Thornhill to pick up a skirt Maureen had put on hold.  It started out a bit rainy but by the time we turned off the busier road to Dumfries on the tiny barely 2-lane road to Thornhill, the sun had broken through and we had a pleasant drive.  Gordon had never been that way before and was impressed with the quaintness and charm of tiny Thornhill.  We purchased a nice bottle of wine and a special jar of Tracklements Onion Marmalade to put on our Cumberland sausage for dinner.  And we snooped through an antique store and found a little something for Charli as a thank you for taking care of our home while we are away.

The next day, Thursday, we decided to head up behind our cottage to Gallow Hill and out the back of the forest to a point high above the town to the north of Moffat.  On the first part of our hike we could look across the Old Edinburgh Road up the hill to the Chapel Hill Farm shown here in a kind of semi circle of trees.

 As you walk halfway around Gallow Hill to the backside there is a little kissing gate you enter and pass through.  As we stepped into a very large field chock full of sheep that we would need to cross we see a freshly killed carcass of a decent size Ewe!  What could kill an animal so large and strip it clean we wondered?  It was a fresh kill we could tell because the bones were still really pink and it made Gordon and I a little nervous about what is in that forest we've been walking for years!  Later we learned that there had been a BIG cat sighting not 15 miles from here!  The gal who saw it suggested it was as big as a deer with white fluff on each of it's ears.  Hmmmmmm

Picked pretty clean eh?  Eyeballs anyone?

Sorry 'bout that!  Anyway we crossed the field and looked back onto the Gallow Hill forest and the way we had ventured so far.

 And then climbed to this view of sun and clouds and rolling hills....

passed tiny red mushrooms, oh and some sort of animal poop.....

 And back down from the Moffat Well on Old Well Road with Gallow Hill and the forest to our right.

It was a great hike.  Two days of three hour hikes making it a pretty good workout going mostly up hill.  Our butts and thighs should be looking pretty good!

Last evening we had one of Isa's oldest and dearest friends, Katrina, over for dinner along with her significant other, John, and we prepared a nice meal of Skillet Gratinate of Zucchini and Chicken with red mashed potatoes; a salad of baby lettuces with red grapes and toasted slivered almonds and a starter of Julie's (at the deli) fresh made pate and homemade toasts from some interesting bread I had picked up at the local baker.  I had leftover pastry from my previous apple tart so I got some green apples and made another tart and we finished with a delicious Garston Blue Cheese.  Yummy.  It was very nice to see Katrina and meet John and catch up on old times.  She told many stories of Gordon's mum, Isa, and we laughed and reminisced.  5 hours later we snuggled into bed and I FINALLY had a good long nights sleep.

Today we are heading out for a drive and an exploration but we haven't decided where yet.  And later, Gordon has scheduled a massage for me locally so I'm looking forward to that.

The weekend weather is supposed to be lovely so we are hopeful of many more uphill adventures!