Their story, in their words…
As avid runners and outdoorsmen, we decided to attempt the great physical challenge of running the Annandale Way over the course of 3 days with nothing but the gear on our backs and high hopes. The actual challenge would occur over 5 days, to allow travel to and from our start and ending locations. The Annandale Way is a route following the river Annan from source to sea, covering a route of 90km and passing historic towns such as Lochmaben and Moffat.
Our plan was simple, make use of Scotland’s Right to Roam laws to camp overnight where and when it suited us, giving great flexibility. We would also buy food en route, since otherwise our load would be too great to cover as much ground. Little did we know that our carefree approach would come back to bite us, but that was only later.
We started by travelling up to Glasgow via coach, an exhausting 11 hour journey, only to find the youth hostel we booked required us to be 18 and have ID. Turned away, our quick thinking brought us to another youth hostel in Glasgow that accepted us despite the last minute communications and we had a warm bed for one last night.
Morning light upon us, we took a bus down to Moffat where we would begin our journey with the popular Devil’s Beef Tub circuit, a collection of hills that make up the source from which the Annan flows. Starting at midday, we made our first day successfully with little incident. Our pace was fast and the weather was forgiving, only getting slightly wet on the marshy ground of the hills. The views however made any inconvenience worth it, giving sights further down the dale. As the sun lowered, our pace slowed slightly as we made our way back to Moffat and then to Beattock where we set up camp for the night. The first day was a total of 25.8km with 567m of elevation, not a small amount but little compared to the next two days.
Day 2 of running began and we restocked water with a friendly mechanic close to our camping spot. Today we planned to make our way down to the historic town of Lochmaben, seat of the ‘de Brus’ family during the medieval period and home to a series of large lochs. The weather was initially overcast and wet, but improved as the day progressed. The scenery was also the most stunning of all our days, and we reflect upon Day 2 as the most successful. We ate chicken skewers in hot dog buns for dinner in Lochmaben before continuing down past Castle Loch to set up camp, reducing the load we would have to face the next day. Day 2 amounted to 31.1km and 385m ascent.
Day 3 was both the longest and hardest day of the three. The grass was dewy and so from an early stage we had soaking feet. It was also unhelpful that at kilometre 6 we entered a confusing forest upon a hill that we spent far too long in and added an extra kilometre to our journey before we escaped. The weather was also pretty poor, not wet but certainly cold and windy. We picked up our pace on the road sections but slowed during midday as our food supplies dwindled, failing to purchase enough the day before in Lochmaben. Therefore, despite the easy technicality of the last 10km along the river to Annan, it was slow and arduous. In the end however, we managed to reach Annan and celebrated with our first hot meal in days before setting down in a campsite. Day 3 reached 32.5 km and 396m ascent.
The day after, before the return home, we meandered down to the official end of the Annandale way at Solway Firth, a small and achievable 5km. The happiness and sense of achievement we felt upon finding the route marker, 94.5 km and 1362 m ascent later, was unlike any other we had felt before, and wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the Mark Evison Foundation, and we are extremely grateful and we hope to complete similar challenges in the future, with our experience in mind.
In conclusion, the experience for us was, however tiring, rewarding and gave us a strong sense of accomplishment. We can say without doubt that it was a successful trip even if we would change certain aspects in the future, such as better meal planning and pushing ourselves even more. The experience also taught us important skills for planning and confidence for both similar expeditions and improvising when something inevitably subverts expectations.
