Day 9 Moffat to St. Mary’s Loch

Click/tap on the image to get a map of the day’s walk

Had an excellent breakfast at the Annandale Arms Hotel, packed, loaded the car and got ready with almost dry boots for the 20 miles to St. Mary’s Loch.  Noelene dropped me back at Drumcrieff Bridge which both of us had trouble finding and I set off in pretty reasonable weather – certainly better than the two previous days. 

Most of today’s walk was along good forest trails and moorland paths so I moved a bit quicker than the previous day. I followed the quite pretty Cornal Burn through woodland for some time and then a steep climb and a long, long, more gentle descent following another delightful stream (Whithope Burn) to a road along which ran another pleasant stream – Ettrick Water.

Hartleap – the most wonderful B&B on the SUW.

I ascended open moorland – Ettrick Forest (though there were no trees) and a long downhill along a very rocky path to the car park between Loch of the Lowes and the southern end of St. Mary’s Loch where I met Noelene in good, nay warm, sunny and dry weather (!) for my ritual boot cleaning and the 8 mile drive to the isolated and wonderful Hartleap B&B. owned and run by Lyndsey and her husband.  They have just one guest room in their house but it comes with its own dining room, sitting room and conservatory.  Hartleap sits in its own beautiful (and productive) one acre garden and we were right royally looked after.  Lyndsey served us a delicious homemade pescatarian dinner with much of the produce from their own garden and beers and wine we supplied ourselves.

Wonderful grub at Hartleap B&B

After dinner we sat very comfortably in the lounge/conservatory relaxing and chatting, catching up on our day and talking to the ‘man of the house’ for a while.

Tomorrow was thankfully to be a shorter walk – 12 miles to Traquair.

Click HERE to download the .gpx file of today’s walk

Some Photos From Day 9