Wildcamping in galloway

[Fozz_forrester]

Hi, in the next few weeks im planing on spending a weekend in galloway forest park to take advantage of the large expanses of forest and hopefully to see the 'dark skys' however due to road closures I am struggling to find somewhere to ditch the cars for a couple of days. Ideally i'd like to camp on banks of loch macatterick however the closest car park is a 3 hour walk away which in the dark wont be much fun especially since im taking some absolubt novices with me.

Does any one have any advice or tips they could give us, or even a better site we could use, we want to use the banks of a loch, with lots of woodland (we are using hammocks) and we'd like to be well out of the way.

Thanks.

 

[craeg]

Good luck and I will look forward to seeing the photos

 

[Fozz_forrester]

thanks, im going to need it. finding some where reasonable to leave the cars is proving to be a real struggle.

 

[Barn Owl]

We use the old Caldons camp site at Glentrool.
There is a car park and the village is where the astronomy club set up scopes but I don't know if they have a calendar of any sort.

Others do use the car park but it's never a busy place at this time.
There's parking further along at Bruces Stane or back at the visitor centre.

 

[Jinsin456]

There is a spot you could leave the cars and be basically in macaterick. If you drive through straiton towards the Galloway forest and turn up at Stinchar bridge that will take you onto forest drive you stay on that road for a few miles and there is a fork on the road where you can turn up the hill towards tunskeen bothy, you will see a locked gate, or continue onto loch doon. You drive up a hill and there is a spot at the top of the hill, have seen a few people camping there it's mostly left in a dump in the summer but should be fine this time of year.

I took this picture from that spot on a walk last summer

This is from about halfway up the hill and the view is stunning. There are also quite a few stops along that road. You can also go via loch doon as there are loads of spots there and again some lovely.

Tunskeen bothy is worth a visit if you're up for a walk and especially if the weather is likely to turn, it's roughly 2.5 miles from the gate.

I'll post up anything else I can think of but I know that area fairly well if you have any questions.

 

[Barn Owl]

Spot on Scott.

 

[Jinsin456]

Meant to say the road to forest drive was closed on Friday so it's probably worth checking before you set off as I don't have a clue why it was closed could have been floods etc.

 

[Fozz_forrester]

That's excellent thanks. Unfortunately I've been informed that forest drive is closed right up until march due to logging. so its looking like the others that are with are just going to have to suck it up and endure the walk!

 

[Jinsin456]

That's excellent thanks. Unfortunately I've been informed that forest drive is closed right up until march due to logging. so its looking like the others that are with are just going to have to suck it up and endure the walk!

Thats news to me, if you park at loch doon castle you're about 6-7 miles from macaterick on foot or it you park at Stinchar bridge I think it's only about 3-4 miles away. There are plenty of spots along the way though that you could disappear into the woods and break the walk up over a few days if you're taking a lot of gear.

Caldons is a good site as Tom says, we have used that a good few times, if you keep going Bruce's stane is a good place to park if you fancy tackling the merrick or any other mountain on the range.

It really depends what you're after whether it be a static base camp, few miles a day or a good walk as these can all be easily achieved in that area.

 

[Barn Owl]

The roads are only closed to stop tourist cars getting in the way of operations.
If you park considerately there's usually no problem.

 

[Jinsin456]

The roads are only closed to stop tourist cars getting in the way of operations.
If you park considerately there's usually no problem.

There are signs up Tam, the red barrier ones, we were up there on Friday night and were actually going to go to the site I had the pic of but couldn't get up I thought it was temporary but using that road would involve moving signs.

 

[Fozz_forrester]

just checked all that out on the map, i think i'll revise our plan and park at stinchar bridge and camp near Loch skelloch instead as I'm not sure the others that im travelling with are ready for much walking yet.

This is also our first attempt at real wild camping so I'm pretty nervous about the whole trip and want it all to go to plan!

 

[Jinsin456]

Drop me a pm when you're heading up mate, I need to go back to Stinchar and get back my tree huggers I left there on Friday and we could maybe meet up for a brew, gives me an excuse to burn some diesel lol