Ever since I was little, my parents have had a caravan on the south coast of Scotland and I couldn’t wait to show Andrew how beautiful it is up there. We decided to go up over the May Bank Holiday to spend a long weekend with my family and this is what we got up to.
Friday
It’s pretty tricky to actually get up to Dumfries and Galloway by train but fortunately my parents could pick us in in Carlisle and then drive the rest of the way. Otherwise, there are stations in Lockerbie and Dumfries that you can get to from London. Leaving my bike locked up outside a London train station for a weekend definitely tested my nerves though! After a 6:30pm train, we arrived at the caravan near Gatehouse of Fleet at around 10pm, just as the starts started appearing, which are pretty incredible up there!
Saturday
One of my favourite hikes in the whole area is up in the Glentrool area, running around Loch Trool itself. On a nicer day, there’s also the Merrick hill climb which is the highest climb in the area and is stunning. Unfortunately, we had a more drizzly day though, so decided to stay around the loch in the hopes that we would actually see some views. If you want to do the trail, there’s info here, it’s waymarked all the way around with a car park at the start and a cafe just along the road which does really great cakes!
Sunday
On Sunday morning Andrew and I did my usual Sunday cycle I would do every morning growing up to collect the Sunday paper. We then went up to Cream O Galloway for a very necessary icecream, which is a great place to visit if you want to go for smaller walks or play in the adventure playground. When I was younger I would spend hours on the zip wires and in the mazes! We spent the rest of the day hanging out by the beach with a good old barbeque for dinner.
Monday
We didn’t want to get back to London too late so got a 3 o’clock train back from Carlisle, taking Andrew on the scenic route there from the caravan. Along the way we stopped for breakfast, with Andrew braving Scotland’s finest haggis and black pudding. We did have time to have a quick walk around Carlisle itself though before catching the train and it is a really pretty little town, with the tiniest little castle!
