Drow 'n' Smirr

This walk started with blue sky and became gradually more overcast, but I managed to be off the hill before the heavens fully opened. The route was easy enough to follow. Firstly up the path towards Woodend Farmhouse, then up onto Woodend Craig. I stopped just a little further up from where this picture was taken to have a drink of water and it was so windy that my rucksack was blown away (I did catch it though).

Mike takes a dive on Cairnkinna

There were several tracks to follow, some probably sheep tracks but also some vehicle tracks. None seemed to go all the way and I would lose tracks for a while only to come accross others after a few minutes. The views of Scaur valley were pretty impressive.

There is a massive cairn at the summit of Cairnkinna. I decided to use the camera’s self timer to get a shot of myself at the cairn, but tripped just as the shutter fired.

Earthwork:fort with Merkland Hill, from Mote Hill

There is a fence to follow down over Mote Hill heading towards the remains of an earthwork at Druidhill Burn. There were also the remains of sheep, one whole skeleton and various scattered bones. Once off the hill there is a farm track back to the road.

The day started at Mabie forest car park. No one else had turned up. Then my phone rang. Everyone else was at Ae forest. Chinese whispers had corrupted my message. It was too late to join them at Ae so I drove up to Glenkiln to have a go at Bishop Forest hill.

This hill was in a book of walks I have had for 15 years or so. I have tried getting up it a couple of times when the boys were younger but could not find a path through the unpleasant tussucks and marshy ground. Same again this time, so I skirted round to the east about half way up and came across a faint track which would have been my way down according to the book. It was easy enough to follow it up to the top. My attempts to find a way down where I had expected to come up were unsuccessful (very wet ground) so I came back up and followed the track down.

Despite this being a small hill the views were good.

Retrospective:

I parked near the statue of John the Baptist in air guitar pose, then followed the path over the Marglolly burn towards Cornlee farmhouse turning up to the hill just before the pink farm. The first section was difficult. I stepped on some old wood which proved to have been rendered frictionless by moss and drizzle, and fell flat on my back. This must have made me stronger (since it didn’t kill me), but did not make me happier.

I imagine I had chosen the wrong path since I had to climb over two walls, one with barbed wire to get out onto the hillside. This lacked any easy path and the waterlogged ground was hard going. I eventually contoured to my left and found a faint quad bike track that I was able to follow most of the way to the top.