March 2013 Weekend Meet: A Galloway winter road trip!

Potential artic explorers Malcolm and Gordon set off from Grangemouth at 0930 am and had a quiet relaxing drive in dry conditions along the M9 , M876 , M80 , M73 and M74. We left the M74 at Beattock as the conditions were still dry and good and drove down the A701 towards Dumfries. About 8 miles from Dumfries we encountered our first snow - a little in the fields – BUT it had been blowing in the wind and had drifted on to the road quite badly but only for about 400m. Continued uneventfully to Dumfries.

OOPS –ROAD SIGN – A75 CLOSED. Had been for four hours.

Time for “shopping” and “coffee ,rolls and cake” in Dumfries.

ROAD OPEN – The accidents had been cleared and the drifts and stuck cars and lorries cleared. Still some snow on the road and some drifting but we made it to beyond Castle Douglas.BY mistake drove partly down the road to Kirkcudbright in deeper snow but returned to junction with A75 to assess how we would manage to drive up to the farm at Barncrosh ONLY 400m AWAY.

THE PHONE RANG – POWER CUTS AT THE FARM AND MORE BAD WEATHER FORECAST.

MESSAGE from Dougie

Phoned Nick to confirm.

Dougie and Marian not coming. Best if meet be rearranged.

Malcolm and I decided best if we return home.

Roads now much better as traffic was flowing freely and snowploughs were doubling up.

Stopped in Crawford for Beer , Coffee and Rolls.

A GREAT DAY ON THE HILLS - SORRY - A GREAT DAY ON THE ROADS IN THE CAR

AND THE COFFEE WAS GOOD - NICK. Home at 5 pm

LOOKING FORWARD TO THE REARRANGED MEETING AT BARNCROSH