Bog Myrtle & Peat

Get over the Merrick and down its back-side towards Kirriereoch and the bogs of Mullwarchar. It’s deep country out there on the border with Ayrshire; cool and spectacular in the mid-winter sun. We’re not allowed to talk about the eagles which live nearby, but suffice it to say that heavy birds make for mighty viewing above the glacial dregs and the tumbling downs of heather.

Here’s a Galloway heartland to blind the senses, and nothing short of a dreamscape to stand alongside (or above) more famous places in the Lake District or the Cairngorms. In fact, there’s additional joy to the feeling that it only belongs to yourself. As flurries of snow come tumbling down across the Firth of Clyde, you can creep in blissful isolation between the snoozing stags, following the footprints of foxes along the pristine silver-sand beaches of Loch Enoch and its outflow which drools to the Garpel Lane. It’s certainly true to say that this place has lost ground over the last twenty years; the birds and wildlife are harder to find than ever before – but this only adds to a feeling that you’re all alone out there, and it’s something like a dumbstruck, paralysing fear to realise that while many people “escape to nature” for an illusion of solitude, here’s enough of the real thing to drown yourself many times over.

There is no easy way to make sense of the Galloway Hills. When you look in from busier parts of eastern Galloway, the impression’s underwhelming. There are so many rising, unremarkable shapes of terrain in the foreground that the real gems are hidden from view. The same is true from the south and the west – the best you’ll see is Cairnsmore or the Minigaff Hills, but nothing like the main event. 

I’ll concede that there are glimpses of grandeur from the Carsphairn road, and the edge of excitement when you head down from Girvan – but that’s a long way off, and you’d never look in from the outside and say “wow – now there’s a place to explore”. Even when you’ve decided to drive into the heart of this landscape, the best bits have a habit of lying awkwardly away from the road. From the carparks at Glentrool, there’s little more than a feeling of depth and antiquity – an early-evening dimness and a wealth of heavy oak trees. It’s fine, but there’s nothing to suggest that spectacular scenes lie just out of sight. 

You can’t even see the peak of the Merrick until you’ve walked towards it for an hour, and even more spectacular hills are only visible from the top.  To get to Mullwarchar, you’re obliged to make a three hour walk over rough mounds of tumbling moorland grass. There are no paths, and unless you have a fair understanding of the terrain, you’d soon be in trouble when the cloud comes down. But it’s fair to say that the Galloway Hills repay the investment of labour and determination – and there are weird, unearthly scenes in those glacial mountains which can outshine anything else you’ll find in the UK… or perhaps it only seems like that because you’ve sunk so much work into getting there that you’re floating on a cloud of endorphins and self-satisfaction. Either way, unless you’re determined to get in there and grab the place by its throat, you’re probably wondering what all the fuss is about.

Sometimes there is talk of bending Galloway to fit our expectations of natural beauty. There are moves to improve accessibility and encourage more people into the core of this place, and that would certainly help me to feel less like a loner howling at the moon in praise of a place that few people have ever seen. But almost of all this land is managed on our behalf by Forest and Land Scotland, the state-run body responsible for forestry operations. It suits them to keep visitors to a minimum, and while access is encouraged to the Merrick itself and to visitor centres and mountain bike tracks around the edge of the park, the unspoken message is generally “keep out”. 

Measure Galloway against the Lake District and most people would say there’s no comparison – but both are similarly beautiful (or would have been before the foresters came here). The difference is simply that while Galloway is rough and half-hidden, the Lakes are easily digestible. You can tell they’re going to be wonderful from miles away, and you can get into them through a series of pretty gateways and openings. Then as you drive through that landscape, scenery unfolds in neat and easy slides like a children’s book – the overall impression is wonderful from beginning to end. In Galloway, there’s an awful lot of not-very-much to get through, and unless you appreciate small details and a wetly atmospheric timbre of moss and ravens, most of this place has been folded up in the wrong order. The best bits are better than anywhere else, but they don’t shine unless you’ve devoted a full day’s walking to discover them.

We can’t reinvent Galloway to be more appealing, and we have to be realistic and concede that people like their beautiful places to be accessible by car. But in its roughness and its clunky refusal to be easy, Galloway reflects a certain character of landscape which has specific value of its own. Perhaps there’s a temptation to polish this place and nudge it towards the standard perception of “how we like our landscapes to reward us”, but when it comes to such an unusual place, surely it’s more important to celebrate the ways in which Galloway stands out?