7. Exploring Dumfries & Galloway 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

For the past few years we have been saying that we would like to visit and explore parts of southern Scotland - but the draw of the mountainous north west has always won! Many people we know rave about southern Scotland’s Dumfries and Galloway region, and often suggest it might be somewhere we would enjoy 😉  Dave was also keen to try out some of the MTB tracks at the 7stanes bike parks in the region, so this area was very definitely on our radar 🤣 So having spent the new year in Cumbria we decided to take the opportunity to head north of the border for a few days of exploration in early January.

First stop was Dalbeattie, and one of the 7stanes bike parks. (Stane is the Scots word for stone, so each of the 7 bike parks has a unique stone with legendary history) Also took advantage of the option to park overnight there - an experiment they are trialling with campervans over the winter 👍

Despite there being a lovely Green route for me to potter around on, unfortunately there was a problem with the gears on my bike, so I left the biking to Dave 😢 Dave has been struggling with a very bad cough and cold for a while now, but somehow managed to muster up the energy to tackle a red route, so off he went 🤣 

So it was walking for me and Rubes - on one of the lovely trails through Dalbeattie Town Woods - which were absolutely stunning! Rubes, with her renewed energy levels (thyroxine medication 🤣) easily managed the 8km walk, and a few swims to go with it 🤣

Dalbeattie Town Forest

Beautiful winter colours

Having fun in the forest 🤣

Small lochan in the woods

Artwork in the woods

Showing off the Red trail 🤣

Made a detour to visit New Abbey (as recommended by Marie & Declan) - a beautiful quaint village with a “sweetheart” abbey. Sadly the Abbey was undergoing renovations, and the weather was awful, so we didn’t hang around too long, but definitely somewhere to come back to next time!

New Abbey through the mist

Having heard so much from Fiona and Andy over the years on the delights of Kirkcudbright (and the wonderful cookery school) we decided to head there for the night, to the fantastic community owned campsite right in the town centre. It was quite wet and going dark when we arrived, so pottering around the town the following morning was a wonderful surprise. Kirkcudbright , known as the Artists Town, has an interesting harbour, is full of interesting historical buildings, beautifully presented houses and cottages, an abundance of art and craft shops, and perhaps the most coffee shops we’ve ever seen in such a small area 🤣 The town had a vibrant, but laid back sort of feeling, and appeared to be thriving 👍

Kirkcudbright harbour 

Interesting window display- appears more progressive than back home 🤨

Very festive!

 MacLellan’s Castle in the centre of the town

As the weather brightened up we headed a couple of miles south to the Kirkcudbright  coast for a walk, starting at the beautiful Brighouse Bay. The walk took us around the adjacent headland, and again, Rubes was up for it and leading the way 😃  Headed back into Kircudbright afterwards for delicious coffee and cake - the perfect ending to the walk 👍

Brighouse Bay

Rubes gearing up for the walk 🤣

Great to be by the coast

Probably the best lemon cake I’ve ever had!

Decided to spend the night in kirkcudbright again, but this time parked up at the designated motorhome parking points by the swimming pool and harbour - another community initiative generating funds for the town. Electric hook up, water and waste facilities were all there, and £10 cheaper than the campsite, so for a quick overnighter this was perfect 😍 Really handy in the morning also for fresh bread from the bakers 🤣

For our final day we decided to explore a bit further west, and headed to the 7stanes bike park at Glentrool - but this time for a walk for all of us, rather than Dave biking (as still struggling with an awful cough 😞). Again, the weather wasn’t great, but at least it was dry! So we followed one of the way marked trails through the forest - was alerted to possible flooding and hence wading (wore wellies), but thankfully managed to get back to the van pretty dry 🤣 Views were lovely, and again, this is definitely somewhere to return in the future, for both walking and biking.

Dave leading the way!

Looking over towards Loch Trool

Loved the colours of the mosses and lichens 

Glad we didn’t need to cross this river!

Always a swimming opportunity 🤣

As the weather wasn’t great, and we did need to get home at a reasonable time the following day, we decided to set off after the walk and break the journey with an overnighter in Kirkby Lonsdale - an old favourite of ours - The Royal Barn (tap room) at KL Brewery 🤣 Beer and scrummy seemed like the perfect end to the day 👍

Scrummy pizza in The Royal Barn

So overall, and despite the rubbish weather, we totally loved our brief visit to this region - and were very pleasantly surprised 😮 Of course it doesn’t have the huge rugged mountains of the north west which is often the draw for us, but the scenery was lovely, the places we visited interesting, loads of historical sites, areas of natural beauty, and seemingly some fabulous food opportunities (although we didn’t take full advantage of that on this trip 😟). It seemed to have a good balance of welcoming visitors but at the same time not lost its authenticity to tourism. So we were really pleased that we had eventually prioritised visiting this region, albeit a flying visit, but we will definitely be back!