he previous evening, after we had rested and had a bath and a change of clothes, we felt much better and headed for the bar for a meal and some well-deserved drinks. The Mountain Lodge Hotel, as the establishment was rather grandly named, was a curious place. Set slightly above the village on a hill, it had once housed an outdoor centre and was sited where the Wanlockhead railway station had once been. It had the appearance of a collection of  dilapidated huts, rather like portakabins, with various pieces of railway memorabilia scattered around. We had been shown to our room by a large, rather hairy man who led us down corridors, which had a freshly painted smell and evidence of unfinished work such as electrical wiring protruding from the walls. We were therefore pleasantly surprised to discover that our room was very nice and had obviously been recently refurbished. Okay, so there were no doors on the wardrobe and a Transylvanian dislike of mirrors but it was otherwise very nice and came complete with tea and coffee making facilities. This may not seem like a great deal but when you’ve been drinking brown river water all day it is a luxury. The Transylvanian theme had continued in the bar, as we were the only people to take advantage of what it had to offer the entire evening. To be fair, the dinner was very good as was the breakfast the following morning but the feeling that the hotel was a doomed project turned out to be an accurate one as I have since learned that it has closed down.

Before leaving the village (pictured), we bought supplies in the local shop, and after Ian had dressed his blisters, we limped off up the hill out of the village toward the highest hill on the whole route, Lowther Hill. The surrounding scenery, although rounded and rather green, felt more like mountain country which technically at around 2,500ft, it is. We headed for the white ‘golf ball’ like structure of the radar station on the summit of the hill that seemed out of place as we stood at the highest point of the walk taking in the superb views. We then negotiated the ‘roller-coaster like’ succession of steep climbs and descents which followed as we enjoyed the fine, bright but chilly weather, broken only by one or two brief, fast moving showers. Once we had passed Lowther Hill, I had the curious sensation that we ‘done the hard bit’ as though, as we strolled across the broad grassy expanses, a psychological barrier had been crossed and that yesterdays trials and tribulations were the last attempts by the gods to stop us reaching our goal. The rest of the day passed fairly uneventfully and we just enjoyed the wonderful scenery as we watched the ‘golf ball’ receding into the distance. We skirted a difficult, muddy path around Daer Reservoir and took a last look back to Lowther Hill before entering woodland, and eventually arrived at the snugly sited Brattleburn Bothy (pictured), our destination for the day. The bothy was an attractive looking cottage situated in an idyllic spot by a river in a wooded dell. We entered the building and were pleased to find that it was uninhabited and boasted armchairs and a log burning stove. There were even some old copies of walking magazines left by previous occupants. We soon had the stove burning brightly and hung out our wet tents and clothes to dry then had a wonderfully peaceful evening eating, drinking, and chatting by the glow of the fire as the sun went down. As we nodded off for the night, I had for the second time that day, a feeling that we were going to complete the walk as planned, that we were halfway and now it was all downhill to the finish.