Saturday 2nd July
Cairnsmore of Carsphairn is highly recognizable from the roadside and a frequent visitor to beautiful Dumfries & Galloway I always viewed it as a marker that I was on my way, leaving Ayrshire behind and chances were Connie would throw up in about 10 minutes time and the deep hope that nobody had fed her Wotsits (honestly, the same layby every time). Guess what? There's a cache up there!
Cairnsmore of Carsphairn Summit
The weather had been good so we decided that it was high time we claimed the Cairnsmore cache. We also decided that we were fed up of being viewed as lepers in the family and insisted Connie come with us....this she did grudgingly.
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| Ninja Biff - Armed and Dangerous |
As always we consulted
WalkHighlands, the cache description gave us a different route which also picked 'Donkey Pump' up enroute but after using a good few map routes of Walk Highlands we decided to stick with what we trust .....don't know if this was the best idea this time! Well it would have been if we'd followed it correctly.
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| En Garde Monsieur Biff! |
We parked at the Green Well of Scotland where there is ample parking and already occupied with many cars, that said we only encountered a few other walkers on our hike. Not wishing to appear anti-social, we like a lonely walk, many of the walks we have done have been really busy; Ben Lomond and Ben Nevis were like Sauchiehall Street on sale day.
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| Connie with Willieanna (yes that's the hills name!) behind. |
The walk starts off up a landrover track and follows the side of Polsue Burn till the track slowly and gently ascends. Baby Biff started 'gurning' about 15 minutes into the walk y'know the stuff 'Are we nearly there yet?' 'Which hill is it?' 'Can we stop for chocolate?' and ultimate mutiny 'I'm not moving till I get chocolate!'. It was slow going to say the least.
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| Baby Biff's mutiny (one of many) and wild wolves (geohounds). |
In her defense it was very warm and muggy but oh she was murder to listen to!
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| Mr & Mrs.Biff.....and ominous, black, thunder clouds..Eek! |
We followed the Landrover track, skirting round the lesser hills of WillieAnna and Dunool, till it ended and there was nothing for it but to cross the burn and take on the final steep ascent to the summit of Cairnsmore of Fleet.
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| Corserine & The Rhinns of Kells in the distance |
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| A rare moment of positivity! |
Mr.Biff wore the war wounds of this walk for a week, the midgies were hellish and appear to love his hot Southern blood, they have a bite at me but don't feast, I reckon my blood is far too chilly for them. I think it was
Dotscot (Queen of Medical trivia) who told me that they are attracted by the Carbon Dioxide that we exhale when we breathe. Now just how do we know this? What sad git has studied the habits of midgies, that's what I want to know! I imagine a wee, grizzly man sitting in a laboratory coughing into petri dishes full of midgies ..."Oh aye they like that!".
So I did my research:
What attracts mosquitoes and other biting insects to us?
Our breathing! The combination of carbon dioxide (CO2), moisture, and heat that results from exhaling attracts the female mosquitoes.
Octenol (1-octen-3-ol) is a naturally occurring by-product that comes from plants and some animals, such as cows, that ingest large amounts of vegetable matter. It is irresistible to midges who can detect minute fluctuations of CO2 and Octenol in their environment from 100 yards away.
http://www.midgetech.co.uk/how-it-works/faq.asp#q8
Dotscot (Queen of Medical trivia), full of this stuff, bloody full of it, she'd be top class in a pub quiz.
We hiked up the hill and it was a richt guid lung buster! We stopped halfway for a drink and a bit of sustenance but the midgie attach was just too intense!
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| How do we defeat the midgies?!!!!!! We don't...we just keep walking! |
The views were sensational, the Galloway hills are really special. Running parallel as we ascended was the long ridge of the Black Shoulder which is the alternative ascent to the summit of Cairnsmore of Carsphairn. We had seen people on this earlier and they passed us on the way down as we were still ploughing up hill. Baby Biff got her mountain goat legs at this point as she could see the end in sight and is after all a geocacher at heart and had to find it before Mr.Biff did.
Finally the hill plateaued and a flatter surface of rocky boulders led the way to the trig point and thankfully no more midgies! The views were amazing from here, panoramic views down over Galloway, over to Arran and the west, North with it's sea of wind turbines ( I've never really minded them, but I truly don't want to see anymore on Scotland's landscape).
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| PLANKING! |
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| Standing on Mr.Biff? |
First things first we find the cache...well baby Biff did, her highest cache yet! The trig has a nice shelter so we had lunch and signed the logbook. This is another seldom visited caches which is a shame because they are class.
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| Team Biffo at the Summit of Cairnsmore of Carsphairn |
We descended along the Black Shoulder which was a quick jaunt, the up over Dunool, this led to a very steep descent (screaming knees) to a steep ascent over Willieanna.
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| The Roman's couldn't have built it straighter, the white dots are sheep, this hill is bigger than it looks. |
Heading down Willieanna we could see the Landrover track and the path back to the car. It was a fair old walk all in all, a good four and a half hours but we did have a protesting 13 year old in tow. Cairnsmore of Carsphairn is no walk in the park, at 797m it is a fine Corbett and worthy of the effort. The walk is very straightforward and the views on a clear day, like we had, were awesome. Sadly Baby Biff has decided it is her first and last walk up a mountain so it will be her highest geocache. I have a suspicion that she will be a bit like her mum and have an urge to climb things once she gets older.
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| Hanging up her walking sticks |
