Last weekend we decided to test a one night stay away from a campsite and see what was feasible as lockdown started to ease a bit further. We had read that the 7 Stanes bike trails were open at Kirroughtree so we decided to go in that direction and enjoy the 28km of singletrack on offer.
We had an uneventful drive down early on Saturday morning and parked at Wild Goat car park in the hope of seeing the goats. We weren’t the only ones with that idea as whilst we were getting the bikes unpacked lots of cars pulled in and had a look. No one had any luck though as they were clearly hiding.
The trail was really fun although very slippery which was an odd sensation after all the sunny weather we had got used to. We certainly didn’t feel that we did our best riding today as we tried not to slide on the roots.
Later on whilst sitting in the afternoon sun and taking in the views, more people came to try and see the goats. It was amazing that as soon as food bags were shaken the goats started racing down the hill towards the visitors to get fed. Very funny sight.
We hadn’t met many people on the trail but in chatting to one guy we heard that the visitors centre at Kirroughtree was allowing self contained motorhomes or camping vans to stay the night. That was good news as the place we’d planned to stay was now signed clearly that overnight stays were no longer allowed. So we headed over there to see what was going on and were delighted to discover the Foresty Commission is trialling overnight stays in a number of their forests in Scotland for the remainder of 2020. We counted 11 motorhomes who stayed the night but there was lots of room to space out and it was a bonus to be able to cycle the trails from the van early the next morning. This change in policy would be really welcomed and we hope it is a successful trial so we dutifully completed the questionnaire.
Wee Van Tour 