Corserine - Photo Gallery

Whilst visiting Whithorn I decided to climb a wee Corbett in the Galloway hills and I picked Corserine for no other reason than it looked fairly accessible by road. Just north of St Johns Town of Dalry on the A713 is a turn off to the Forrest Estate, signposted as being Forrest Road, leading to the car park at Forrest Bridge. A welcoming place where if you don't get back to the car by 8pm you will be reported to the police, presumed missing.

The weather was warm enough to change into shorts, the midges enjoyed me for a short time until I was forced to cover my exposed skin in Avon SoSoft. I should know better than to just set off along the most obvious path leading out of the car park but in my enthusiasm to escape the midges I did. I was having a problem reconciling my direction of travel with the direction I should have been travelling when I reluctantly admitted to myself I was going in the wrong direction.

I had set off along Burnhead Road and arrived at Burnhead so the only way to get back on track was to go back to the car park and start again. I walked through the car park and looking for the way to Fore Bush and I gambled that the sign posted Fore Bush road might take me in the right direction. There is forest in every direction, it is every bit as confusing as mist except that you don't have a free choice in which direction you go.

Not surprisingly the Fore Bush road led to the house named Fore Bush, after crossing a couple of mouldy stiles I was truly in the middle of the forest and had to follow the track through the trees. After two miles wallking through the forest a signpost marked the way, I can't remember what it marked the way to but it seemed the right thing to do. The path is really a fire break between the trees and not really a footpath but at least the route is waymarked by red coloured posts.

The only thing I can see apart from trees is mist, it starts quite low down on the hills ahead. Eventually I came out of the forest and there was a fence with a stile, not the most robust stile I have ever met. At this point it started to rain and I put my jacket on as I surveyed the steep ground ahead. I decided that the best route would be to follow the fence leftwards and it looked like there was a grassy rake leading to North Gairy top.

There were some signs of wear but there really was no path alongside the fence, the ground was uneven and wet, the small gradient was really hard work. Eventually I reached a point where I decided I could cross over to my route upwards, the lush vegetation does not make a good path. The rake was steeper than it looked and it got steeper and rockier the higher I got. Grass gave way to grass between rocks, there was an amazing variety of vegetation and flowers between the rocks, the same as you usually see growing in stone walls.

The steep pathless climb eventually led me to North Gairy top, I was surprised that there was no mist but it was very windy, the substantial cairn just about gave me enough shelter. There was then an easy walk to North Gairy, don't ask me why the Top is below the summit, the ridge ahead is covered by mist.

After passing North Gairy there is an easy walk but no visibility, after a while I realised that there was higher ground on left. I had a look at map and worked out that I was heading towards Craigrine, which was not where I wanted to be. I retraced my steps for a short distance until I decided that I should aim for higher ground and I soon found a substantial cairn.

In very poor visibility on a hill that I didn't know I found a cairn, is this the summit? In a moment of clarity I realised that the map shows a triangulation column at the summit of Corserine and I set off along a faint path which seemed to be going in the right direction. The mist cleared as I found the trig point where I was hoping it would be and I even had a view to help me to find my way off the summit.

The map showed a ridge running southwards, the descent from Corserine was conveniently below the mist. Millfire is an undulating grassy ridge, I wouldn't have thought that such an unassuming ridge would be named. On the left was the bulk of Corserine, Milldown ahead was capped by mist with Loch Dungeon glistening at its foot.

The view to the right was a variety of hills and lochs with Loch Enoch and Dungeon Hill being the most identifiable landmarks. I had been alone for a long time when as I was climbing Milldown into the wind surrounded by mist and following a wall when I came across a party of ten walkers shortly before I reached a summit cairn.

I was fairly disoriented at this stage, it was misty and there were no landmarks apart from the wall and I was beginning to wonder how I was going to get down. It was about time that I looked at the map, I was not sure which summit I was at but another moment of clarity was required. The map shows a trig point at a wall junction on Meikle Millyea, so this must be Milldown because I have not gone past the group of lochans shown on the map.

I continued to follow the wall and after a descent I passed a group of lochans, the rain at this stage was stinging my face as it arrived on a horizontal trajectory. I started to climb again into the wind and I came to a wall junction and soon afterwards I found a trig point, this is Meikle Millyea.

So now I know where I am, it stopped raining as I started to follow the wall along the north east ridge to Meikle Lump and down to the forest fence. I started along the red route, the stile in the fence is on the green route, I followed a rough path which would have been a fire break before the trees were chopped down. I reached the forest road back and followed it back to the car park.

Andy Wallace 10th June 2004