THE DUNGEON OF BUCHAN

The Concept.

The Dungeon of Buchan, the name reminded me vaguely of the lord of the rings, Gandalf, Mordor and all that jazz, I only ever got half way through that book.

I spied it on the way back from the Arrocar Alps in the Lowland Outcrops guide. We had a lot of time to kill on that particular drive back from Scotland, Karls car had broke down in Glasgow and we ended up waiting for it to be repaired in some Glasgow backstreet. I feared for Andy Railtons life then, he had gone for chips I pictured a scene, two hard Rab C Nesbit types next to a well spoken Englishman wearing red tights, you can imagine.

"Excellent Granite Crag", "Arduous Approach", "Mountain bike to bothy" this sounded like a right adventure.

The Journey.

So the usual suspects were rounded up, me, Karl, Jane, Mark and Justin and on the Friday night arranged to meet, I managed to blag the van and off we set. I was in the usual White Van Man mode so it wasn't long before we reached Penrith for lastys.

The beers flowed well, the barmaid was duly ogled and Jane even stole a beer glass imagine my surprise when pulling away from the pub the flash, flash of the old bill was in my mirrors, umm, the smell of beer, five people in a vehicle designed for three, stolen property on board, throw away the key I here you cry, but no, the likeable charm of you beloved narrator pulled through. I got out to meet the Constable.

"Have you been drinking sir??",

"Ho no not me Officer, I'm teetotal",...My grin was bigger than Tony Blair's.

"Oh, You’re not from round here are you"....clever lad, in a van marked CEF Burton-On-Trent. needless to say we got away cuff free and was safe to return to our journey to the Galloway hills.

The Crag.

Off we set on the bikes, even Mark, all with enormous rucsacs and within two hours were at the Backhill of Bush bothy, a very nice and tidy bothy I might add. And after a laze a bit of breakfast started our trek into the crag.

The walk in was wet forty five mins

Later we were sat at the foot of an amazing crag, Mark and myself set off up a 130 metre HVS while the others, climbing as a threesome climbed on the shorter 20 metre part of the crag.

The rock was great, as was the route, only flawed by a bit of heather pulling on the second pitch. We soon finished to join the others on the shorter crag which housed some great jamming.

Lost.

Soon it was time to leave Justin and Jane flew off but we had better ideas. You could see the fire breaks from where we stood and we spied a short cut.

An hour and a half later, getting dark, no idea where we were, the merits of not having any predatory animals in Scotland popped up in conversation. We finally reached the bothy, there was a work party there, but no Jane and Justin, they had got just as lost as us.

The meal was being finished off when the guitar came out, but to the great disappointment of the two Scottish lads our mind was blank of songs. "useless" was the term I think he used.

More Of The Same.

More of the same the next day, Minus Jane, she had gone to meet one of her mates. The two parties climbed side by side, Us on "The Colonels Corner", probably the classic of the crag, And Karl and Justin on "Heir Apparent". We shared belay points Soaking up the view and watching the two birds of prey dog fighting in the still quiet air. It was superb.

The next day we biked back to the van and on the way back stopped off at a place called Meikle Ross for some sea cliff climbing. The sound and smells of the sea were a big contrast to the quite of the previous days but it fittingly finished off a marvellous bank holiday the only thing left to do was drive back, which for some reason I had lots of volunteers for.

The End.

By the way, did I ever tell you that I once went without food for Twenty Four hours. Yes you heard me right, Twenty Four.