We escaped Santa’s Moffat Grotto on Tuesday morning, three nights of flashing lights having been quite sufficient, thank you. We packed up before breakfast, having decided to go to the Moffat Mill for a cheap fry-up (£3 a head) to sustain us for the day. As we left the caravan site and rounded the corner it was clear that the buses were already arriving, even though it was not yet 10 am. But, wait a minute, there’s another bus, and another and…. yes, another two more and… still they kept on coming. As we walked towards the car park, bus after bus came in – all from the same company, it was a giant bus trip. Without exaggerating they were well into double figures.
We decided to skip breakfast and set off directly for Megget reservoir, where we packed slices of fruit cake and lumps of cheese and set off up a hill with Nell.
It was a blissfully quiet night.
On Wednesday morning we removed ourselves, leaving no trace of our presence. I wish that others would do the same. I had been appalled by the evidence of fires and, worse, it appeared that somebody had torn down young trees with which to make their fires. Why? I do not understand. If a body appreciates the environment sufficiently to want to escape there, why would they want to behave so badly once in that environment?
If you want to build a fire, by all means do so, but build it on the beach where it leaves no scars and please use only fallen wood. Do otherwise and you shame the whole community.