Dusk

Nearing the end of our second walk of the day, this one in Mabie Forest, a terrific place with some of the tallest trees I’ve seen in Scotland. A few minutes later the clouds turned red and a few minutes after that it quickly started to get dark which wasn’t great because we still had a long way to navigate through the forest to reach our car! Happily we made it without mishap but nerves were frayed!
Our morning hike had been up Criffel, starting at Sweetheart Abbey, and it was one of those ‘eyes on the prize’ routes that just go 500m straight up and to hang with any namby-pamby, zig-zagging nonsense. We did pretty well but then, with not too far till the top, hit the ‘mountain path’ aka bog. With a choice between great views from the summit or dry, non-bogged feet we chose the latter and headed down. Still got good views though, the Extra is towards the Solway Firth.
By the way, don’t try looking for a lunch spot in Dumfries on a Monday.