As usual I’m way behind on the blog, but thought – perhaps to transport myself back to the mountains and glens – that I may as well make a start on this year’s winter trip while I grieve our return. For the first time, Ryan and I had a full 14 days roaming Scotland in our van, which remains largely unconverted (although necessarily insulated). Now that we’re home it feels as if we’ve been rudely and abruptly awakened from a wonderful dream.

Saturday 3 February

We arrived at our first overnight stop in Galloway Forest Park, southeast Scotland, at 3am. The 300-mile, 9 hour drive up – punctuated by a single stop at the spectacular Tebay Services – went remarkably smoothly, save for some inevitable traffic near Birmingham, and gave me the opportunity to decide on our first destination based on the abysmal weather further north. We slept soundly and woke at the leisurely time of 10:30.

It felt so good to recommence my morning van routine: jetboil coffee, get dressed, eat cereal, make sandwiches, brush teeth, pack a rucksack and tell Ryan about the hiking plan I’d already connived. Thankfully I met no resistance – he was just as excited as I was to return to the hills. We’d never explored Galloway Forest Park before, and were keen to kick the trip off with a worthwhile reintroduction to Scotland. We were to hike up Merrick (843m), the highest summit in the southern uplands.

We had a lazy morning packing bags, chatting on the phone to Adam (Ryan’s brother, who was on his way back from a week in the Cairngorms) and enjoying the freedom of having no obligations and very few amenities in the back of the van, which contained a mattress, an awful lot of outdoor kit and no permanent fixtures. The hike looked easy, so there was no rush.

Back in Scotland: Bruce’s Stone

We’d stayed in Bruce’s Stone car park, so before we headed uphill we wandered over to see what the large, raised boulder overlooking Loch Trool was all about. Its inscription provides a summary:

In loyal remembrance of Robert the Bruce, King of Scots, whose victory in this glen over an English force in March 1307, opened the campaign of independence which he brought to a decisive close at Bannockburn on 24th June 1314.

This memorial reminded me of the utterly immersive atmosphere that seems to envelop Scotland. The rugged glens, dark lochs and unforgiving hills make its dramatic, bloody history so tangible that it sometimes feels as if a battle-waging clan of tartan-clad warriors could round a corner at any minute, rightfully raring to defend their wild lands against our English encroachment. Yet I can’t stay away – I’m completely besotted with the harsh, beautiful wilderness. As I looked down over the opaque water of Loch Trool, backed by rough hillsides and surrounded by pockets of mixed forest, I felt – even though I’d never visited this part of Scotland before – as if I’d come home.

Hike up Merrick

We tore ourselves away from the view and headed north up a narrow, rocky footpath at the end of the car park. It was a later start than usual – 1pm – but we weren’t concerned, as we had headtorches and the route looked straightforward. Merrick was signposted, so we didn’t have to do much navigation anyway.

Section 1: Buchan Burn to Culsharg Bothy

The first mile followed the rushing Buchan Burn up a steady gradient along a rocky, muddy path which required some careful foot placements to avoid the boggiest sections. We didn’t care – we were thrilled to plunge into the rugged landscape. It was difficult to believe that 24 hours beforehand I’d been sat at my desk in the south of England, which now seemed mind-numbingly dull. Perhaps that’s why the colours were so vivid, the textures so varied and the river so resounding in the otherwise absolute silence. The hillsides were a seemingly random blend of rough, golden grass, coppery bracken and clumpy, purple-brown heather, punctuated by lilac birches, deep green spruces and skeletal broadleaves. Thick mosses had beaten the grass to little hummocks along the path, and Buchan Waterfall sent white water cascading between lichen-spangled boulders down broad, narrow steps. I was at peace.

After half an hour we reached Culsharg bothy, a small building on the edge of a tall evergreen forest, which looked both cosy and desolate. It had stone walls, a neat slate roof, a central chimney, a flat, grassy area that looked like a little front garden, and two broken, ominously black windows. Inside were two rooms, each with a fireplace and chipboard ceiling, a rudimentary wooden bench and a heavily graffitied door. Overlooking the gentle valley of Buchan Burn, it would have made a lovely cottage.

Section 2: Benyellary

We hiked a short distance through the tall trees behind the bothy and emerged onto a track that led us up the steepening hillside. Dozens of clean-cut stumps either side of us suggested the recent felling of a large swathe of forest, now reminiscent of a forlorn, quiet graveyard, and the moss that had covered the floor beneath the trees had given way to short, green grass. The sun emerged, casting a soft glow over the textured landscape, and we crossed a deer fence to the relatively featureless southwest slope of the first summit, Benyellary. Its shapeless, moor-like flanks, carpeted by rough grass and heather, shone gold and red in the afternoon light and rippled in the strengthening breeze.

We continued upwards, neither of us admitting at the time that the combination of gradient and pace felt quite taxing despite the untechnical terrain. The path cut through the moor, then steepened and followed a drystone wall to the summit of Benyellary. As we climbed (feeling quite out of condition), we realised that the forecast hadn’t erred in predicting wind – it had just been buffeted away from the approach path by the surrounding hills, which no longer offered any protection. Thankfully it didn’t feel as strong as the forecast 30-40mph but was certainly noticeable. The top was marked by a cairn and the base of the cloud, which scuppered the view and just about warranted waterproof jackets, which we hastily pulled on – in between mouthfuls of cereal bar – while sheltering from the wind on the steep east side of the summit.

Section 3: Merrick

We descended the gently sloping north side of Benyellary and followed a drystone wall along the romantically named “Neive of the Spit”, which is presumably the un-dramatic col between the hills, whose summits are 2km apart. The map showed that the ground on our right dropped steeply away to the “Scars of Benyellary”, but we couldn’t see thanks to the cloud that we now occupied. After the col we began the gradual climb up foggy, boggy Merrick. Our view was divided horizontally into two halves, which dissolved into each other in the poor visibility: swathes of sandy, tufty grass and the dull grey interior of enveloping cloud.

Nevertheless, we remained delighted to be back in the hills. The dirt path to the summit was easy to follow, and after half an hour Merrick’s blurry trig point emerged into view. We took the obligatory summit photos, “rescued” a bamboo thermos that had been abandoned in a low stone shelter, decided against my half-formed plan of making the route circular – the return would have involved an inevitably boggy trek past several small lochs and across potentially uncrossable burns – and headed back the way we came.

Section 4: Return

Just as we began the descent, the rain came in. We debated whether the initially innocuous mizzle would turn into anything and agreed, from hard-won experience, that it was worth donning waterproof jackets. That was the correct decision, as minutes later we were drenched and slogging through an un-forecast, cold, wind-driven onslaught, grinning ear to ear. “At least we get to test our new kit”, we rationalised, which – thanks to Christmas and a work bonus – comprised Ryan’s boots, my waterproof jacket and both our rucksacks. We embraced the Scottish weather – there’s no point trying to resist it.

The hike continued in this way until we had retraced our steps back over Benyellary and down its moor-like western flank. There the wind abated, the rain eased and the colourful landscape came back into view, seeming even brighter and more contrasting beneath a bank of thick cloud. We wound down the hillside, past the stump graveyard, through the tall forest and along the vegetated, boggy, rocky Buchan Burn path, barely drying at all in the damp air and intermittent drizzle.

We got back to the van at 4:30pm just as a narrow band of glowing, deep orange light emerged beneath the now-lilac cloud above Loch Trool, marking the last of the daylight. It was as if the sun were teasing us, reminding us that it had been there all along. It was a lovely moment, and – looking over the vivid colours of the hill-backed, forest-ringed loch, soaking wet and starting to get cold – we felt truly re-initiated back into Scotland.

Evening

We spread our wet kit out in the front of the van as best we could, using a length of paracord to make a washing line between the two side windows, and settled in the back for the evening. Dry clothes felt amazing and the hot chocolate I made tasted out of this world. Ryan cooked a lovely pasta carbonara for dinner and we snuggled into the sleeping bag, making plans to head north the following day and – given the miserable forecast all over Scotland – visit the Hunterian museum in Glasgow on our way up to the Cairngorms.

We were home.