Day 12 - Moffat, the windy city

6th May 2009
Bloody hell! What a kicking today!
After gentle start to the day up & down Cairnsmore of Carsphairn (without having to kill the farmer) in 90 minutes and a relaxed breakfast, just as the rain came on once again, we set of for the 50 miler to Moffat. Things went swimmingly, literaly. Rain with extra rain took us to Moniaive for lunch for 1 o'clock, and the 15 min break developed into an hour, plus by the time I lost Brenda (following her sat nag) and found her again another half hour had vanished, leaving us now pushed for time!
Fortunately a reasonable tail wind took us via all the wee tiny back roads avoiding Dumfries and eventually to Moffat on the horrendously busy A701 in virtually continual rain.
A very brief interlude gave false hope of a dry run in the very low clouds over Hart Fell, White Coomb and possibly Broad Law if light allowed.
In fact the moment I set off from the van up Hang Gill someone pulled out Heavens bath plug and the whole bloody lot went down my neck!
Along the ridge to HF was reasonable plodding with good trods to follow the obvious route, but in 100yd visability. However half way across to White Coomb, on a very dodgy compass, things changed dramatically.
The first thing was a temp drop of about 10 degrees, then the heavy rain became cats, dogs, sheep, elephants, woolly mammoths, and the wind gained speed from very difficult to absolutely horrific.
All feeling in fingers and face vanished. It was clearly a survival job and I had to get off the hill asap after an epic struggle to touch White Coomb. I got bowled over once in the wind and went deaf in my left ear with rain drops hitting my hood like bullets.
As I dropped below the cloud level my heart sank into my boots when intially could see no trace of the road or van at the Megget Stone! But a bit lower and hurray! the van was just round the corner - Brenda trying to protect it from the the dangers of tipping in the wind!
The next hour I would rather forget. When I got to the van I started to shake voilently and was slow to remove my sopping garments with frozen hands and the dream of a hot shower was shattered when it turned out the water heater had not operated properly - so got a surprise cold shower! I was so cold Brenda had to help dress me and I climbed into a sleeping bag for about 30 mins with tea to come back to life.
Broad Law is now for tomorrow and the 100 miler may well have to split.
The last 3 of days atrocious weather has battered me and I need to step back a bit and hope the weather improves.
A very late evening visit to Dick & Jean Wall in Tweedsmuir finished the day on a much brighter note - thank you both for your hospitality.