Friday 9th January 2026

Our first trip of the New Year came in the midst of a cold snap in Scotland, but it had been 4 weeks since our last trip and we were excited to get away.

We headed off up the M74/M73/M80 and towards Stirling again on our way to “The Woods Caravan Park” which isn’t too far from Witches Craig.

We had been to the same site in January 2023 and it was also in the middle of a cold snap…

We arrived just after 6pm, through several wintry showers and I picked up the fob and instructions and we wandered through the dark site, it was very icy and slippery.

We picked Pitch 6, and got out the levellers and power cable and put on the screen cover then slithered our way over to The Woodsman restaurant where we were warmly welcomed.

We ordered a bottle of red, and had Haggis and Cheese and oat cakes while Gayle opted for Lentil soul with celery and a gluten-free roll.

For the mains I had their black pudding chicken and it was great while Gayle had a burger, both mains were very tasty.

For me, Dessert was an apple pie with custard which was good and Gayle had a huge sorbet - after that we took care getting back to the van.

It was lovely and warm and we sat and watched an episode of “The Paper” and Nurse Jackie before retiring to bed.

Saturday 10th January 2026

Up at 5am to put the heating on and back to sleep ‘til 7.45 it was very cosy in the van, even with the 4.5tog quilts.

We had hot cross buns for breakfast, it was cold outside and the car park was still frozen so we had a seat while we decided what we wanted to do.

It was cold and bright so we we headed off towards the Gartmorn Dam Country Park via Sauchie and wandered round the dam, it rained lightly a couple of times but nothing too serious.

When we were here in January 2023 the small pond beside the dam was frozen solid and had lots of dead fish frozen into the ice…and it was frozen again and the same catastrophic loss of fish, it was starting to melt and there were a couple of fish still alive but it was again littered with dead fish and some quite sizable ones too…

This time the Cafe was open and it was not too busy when we got there, Gayle had a tuna cheese melt and I went for the Ham and cheese toastie which was great the Latte and Mocha was pretty nice too.

We headed back to the van with around 10miles on the clock and dinner was a bag of crisps and a couple of drinks.

We watched TV and relaxed ‘til time for bed.

Sunday 11th January 2026

We were woken to light rain, and the thaw was very much on, our pitch was flooded at the back, we had a light breakfast of porridge and and then packed everything up and headed home…the screen cover was soaking wet but we headed off and were home shortly after 10am!