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Took doggo for a walk and thought i would check out the cabins.
Christ it was grim. The winndust roads were a sloppy mess. No footpaths meant anyone walking from cabin to anywhere else had grey splashed shoes and trouser bottoms.
The cafe at 11am had one member of staff, she appeared to be having a hard time of it, she also appeared to be reception and customer complaints. The couple infront of me were kicking off about something that hadn't been fixed. That tipped the employee over the edge and after she dealt them she went to the toilets in tears. She never returned!
The cafe was filthy mainly from the trodden in road grim.
It felt like somewhere on its arse not somewhere thats just opened.
There's a cafe? At the old buzzards nest site?
Yep.
Has a weird Starbucks meets country kitchen vibe.
Its also the reception, weird campshop bit and apparently a rant space.
Don't bother, just head to peel of the glentress hotel.
The whole place was weird man.
I was in the new bar/cafe/shop/reception yesterday about 12pm
Loads of staff kicking about.
I'm looking forward to a mid ride pint on a hot summer day
BoardinBob
Full Member
I was in the new bar/cafe/shop/reception yesterday about 12pmLoads of staff kicking about.
I’m looking forward to a mid ride pint on a hot summer day
Interesting. the family behind me suggested ot it had kinda been like this all week.
I too was quite intrigued in a "destination" for dog walks on nice days.
The roads were straight up bad though. The dog looked like she had been grouted when i got her home.
I was thinking of starting a pop up car wash service by the barrier the week it first opened.
Some proper minging cars that looked like they'd just finished a rally parked outside the cabins.
The road was about three times muddier than any of the trails.
Friends stopped in the cafe for a snack a couple of weeks back and said the food was pretty good.
I walked past the cabins and the new cafe on Boxing Day but I was - in hindsight - coming down with Covid, so it was all a bit of a Somme-like fever dream. I barely made it back up the hill to Kingsmuir.
We were in before you today, do you have a grey dog, we passed someone on the forest road on the way to Thunderstruck etc. I thought the coffee was pretty decent but we asked for an egg roll and that was going to be too tricky. It was good being able to have a coffee mid ride without having to go to the bottom and probably meant we stayed out for longer. Didn't mind the look of the place but it's definitely going to be a bit clarty at this time of year. The trails are reasonably dry compared to the forest roads though so that was good. Talking to a friend after we had been to the cafe and she said they're struggling to get and keep staff and it looked like there was only two of them on when we were in. A dirty table was still to be cleared after we'd finished our drinks. We went into the old cafe at the end of the ride and it was very busy but menu wasn't very inspiring so we went to the riders retreat.
I have cycled and ran past the holiday cabins several times in December. All the cabins seem to have cars constantly parked outside which suggests that the cabins themselves are busy.
The cafe is ok, coffee is not bad. Poor choice of tray bakes though! They have fire pits outside which look cool.
But yeah the grey paste that has been used on the fireroads is horrendous. I wouldn't take the dogs for a walk on them.
And for me the Riders Retreat has gone downhill drastically. Pints are expensive and it's not very welcoming to sit in. Staff don't seem interested. I have been heading down to Durty Brewery in Inners as it is a far superior place to drink and relax.
I was with Steven today. That site just feels quite new and raw - roads will take a while to settle, some cabin plots need to grow over after the disruption. But I wouldn't call it grim apart from the actual weather at times. What they've done has changed the place dramatically and like we missed the original hub, no doubt we'll miss the free ride park and zoom out bust. I do find it odd that non-holidaying bikers and walkers can pass freely through the cabins area. Give the site and the company time for teething troubles and I'm sure it'll become the norm before to long.
Chilli at the riders retreat menu was very good, as said the Peel cafe wasn't too appealing.
Prophet2
Free Member
I have cycled and ran past the holiday cabins several times in December.
Wasn't you i passed on the up and iver path over from soonhope was it?
We were in before you today, do you have a grey dog,
Not usually :-)
The roads are horrific and there's still a lot of tidying to do after the building work. I've also heard that they are struggling to keep staff already. There's also been a few near misses with cabin dwellers walking dogs on bike trails.
Not only that but the road to Buzzards is supposed to have entry restricted to staff and residents using a barrier system. This is a strict planning condition put in to protect local business from competition. Forest Holidays have managed to skip this and are now trying to put in an amendment to planning to allow them to steal custom from the Peel and Rider's Retreat.
It just feels unfinished, like they had to open before doing the landscaping or something. I know the building scars will fade and the ground will green in, but there's loads of stuff like sectioned trees and rootballs still just lying where they fell. And yep the roads are made of grey porridge. Again maybe will wash/wear off with use, but it's not like it's been especially wet, the trails are ridiculously dry for december. If they do more ground work it'll probably be pretty nice by summer and really nice by the summer after that.
I'm not the target market but it feels really weird that the cabin site is so public, any time I've stayed in anything similiar it's had some privacy and seclusion. I mean, for myself I'd quite like it, gives the place a bit of life but if I'd booked a cabin in the woods I'd not expect a hundred bikes an hour riding up the driveway past me.
Been once - good food, passable to good coffee , good service , great place for a cafe plan to use it as much as possible - better than lower cafe by some way
The roads are really poor. Apparently most of the local taxis in Peebles are refusing to go up there which is causing an issue for those who want to head into town for food and drinks. That aside though, the Forest Holidays model is tested and successful, they will be fine and successful.
Apparently most of the local taxis in Peebles are refusing to go up there
If this weeks forecast weather happens, no one will be getting up there in anything. The access road is impassable in snow or ice
I dropped into Glentress from the north recently, and not having visited in a long while I was surprised by all the enormous cabins with people sitting outside in hot tubs! The clarty grey porridge roads are indeed awful.
Gotta say as soon as the snow came down it all looked lovely. I, er, slightly failed to end my ride before dark today and riding through with all the lights on in the forest looked so cosy, it'd have been great to be in one of the ones out near the edge and just finish a ride then sit with the heating on and the curtains open and watch the snow as the sun went down... Obviously helps that all the ground level wreckage is hidden under the snow! (the steel frame legs looked even weirder than usual, like some sort of steampunk baba yaga's house)
Despite predictions they also seem to have kept it completely open too, they had a tractor with a road brush doofer doing the key roads and as far as I could see everything else had been gritted, customer cars obviously still getting to the lodges though I'm sure access would have been pretty hairy at times. They'd left the upper car park pretty much untreated and that really showed how much had been done on the other roads. Though in fairness the main access road would have dodged most of the first fall, the snow line was randomly high at gt considering it's right down to the valley floor elsewhere (literally at the top of the Bitch there is 6 inches on the fire road and at the bottom there's just a dusting).
Obviously the buzzard's nest road used to close constantly but I reckon that was largely because there wasn't much need to keep it open for anything but emergency access.
(equally, the generators still hammering away
The steel legs are weird. Even in the shittest caravan park they tend to skirt round the base to hide it.
I am sure they are lovely inside post ride like you say. But some of them really are tightly packed for running around in your budgie smugglers to your hottub etc.
The dog looked like she had been grouted when i got her home.
Actual LOL, sorry.
I have been heading down to Durty Brewery in Inners as it is a far superior place to drink and relax.
Had a lovely plum porter in there a week or so ago. Barman always super friendly.
I have been heading down to Durty Brewery in Inners as it is a far superior place to drink and relax.
Had a lovely plum porter in there a week or so ago. Barman always super friendly.
Innerleithen is the place to stay then!
Despite predictions they also seem to have kept it completely open too, they had a tractor with a road brush doofer doing the key roads and as far as I could see everything else had been gritted,
They've go a group of these lodges in Delamere. A few weeks go during one of the big storms there were forest closed signs all over, but the lodges and café were still open - obviously income more important than safety. There's even a couple of the lodges have had trees fall on them! No way would I want to take responsibility for that decision if I was a Forestry Commission manager.
Yah windblow's a different thing, it's a basically unmitigatable risk... it'll be interesting to see how they deal with that. They're in a good section of the forest for it- not as exposed and it's largely big mature trees in good ground and not just shitty packed in swampy sitka, but they've taken enough trees out and created enough wind gaps etc thta it'll all be a bit weakened. FC are definitely risk-averse about it, and fair enough.
Also comes into "anything in a forest is one bad storm away from closure", it applies to huts as much as bike trails and even post-cleanup nobody's going to want to stay in a Forest Holiday Cabin that's on a windblown treeless hill like the green route now is.