Halloween

Halloween preparations are well under way and our first Halloween event, Lantern Making, starts today at 2pm. Come along to Kirroughtree visitor centre and make your very own pumpkin lantern to take home. Its a drop in session 2pm - 6pm. £3 per lantern. But hurry once they are gone, they are gone!

Then come back on Saturday night (30th October) for our main Halloween event. The evening starts at 6pm and includes a lantern parade competition at 6.15pm prompt, story telling, spooky puppet making, games, and not to forget the spooky walks through the woods!! The evening is then finished with a great firework display.
£4 adults £2.50 children £12 family ticket (2 adults and 2 children).
Sorry, strictly no dogs allowed.

Hope to see you there!

Yogi

Autumn colours!

Many areas in the Galloway Forest Park are starting to look truly stunning as the leaves of braodleaves and larch start to die back and produce some amazing colour.

We had a frosty morning a couple of days ago and I think that has really fired the trees into action. From my observations the silver birch seemed to turn first in many areas and the beech trees shortly followed. The oaks are starting to change and I think give it a few more days and by mid next week we will have a great colour show!

So if you have the weekend off then get those walking boots out and shuffle them through piles of dead leaves on a woodland path near you. If you do, lets us know which wood in the park you visited and what you enjoyed most about your autumn walk.

Happy Autumn everyone!

Yogi

Roaring Stags at the Deer Range

The fight for alpha male is almost up at the Red Deer Range and it would appear that Cameron had a tough battle on his hands this year with a younger male called Angus.

At one point it looked like the 10 year old Cameron was going to lose all of his collected hinds to a stag half his age and fierce fighting took place between the stags for over a week. With some battles lasting 20 minutes at a time the all important fight for top slot really takes its toll on each of the stags.

The stags eat very little during this time as they are far more concerned and preoccupied with constantly rounding up their hinds making sure they don't wander off or worse still another stag doesn't lure them away!

Angus did well and showed he is a fit and strong young male. Cameron may have won the hinds this year but I think he has a real challenger to be wary of for next.

Here are some pictures taken yesterday of Cameron and some of his hinds.

Yogi

Trail diversions at Glentrool, coming up.

Just to let you know that there will be a scheduled harvesting operation site due to start on
Thursday 21st October for a period of 8 weeks. All trails starting from the visitor centre will be effected, as too will the blue bike trail. Diversions will be in place.

So if you are planning to visit us a Glentrool in the next few weeks please consider this when planning your day.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and hope to have the trails back to normal asap.

Yogi

Morning Mist

We are now approaching the time when, following wet weather and a cool still night, the Forest Park is swathed in an early morning mist.

The rising sun creates some stunning landscapes when the light begins to shine through the mist, as per the photograph above.

With cones heavy on the trees, this is also a really good time to see Crossbills high in the canopy. Listen out for their high pitched calls as they move around in small groups feeding on the plentiful seeds.