#ohnick – I Why Why Why Why Wander

#ohnick – I Why Why Why Why Wander

I love a hill, me.  Show me an incline and I'll be keen to climb up it.  I've talked about this and my general love of a good walk before, from chasing sunsets and hiking to castle ruins, to nearly falling off a vertical drop at Arthur's Seat.  Since moving to Edinburgh, I've visited Arthur's Seat a fair few times, as you can see:

It's not just Arthur's Seat I've climbed though.  If you look out of the city, in the distance you can see some hills.  These are the Pentland Hills, or simply the Pentlands.  Here in the picture below, you can see them centre-right: look for the white streaks going up one of them, which is actually an artificial ski slope.

In case you're struggling:

To reach the ski slope without a car, and not wanting to do a 90-minute-plus-long walk from the city, you can take a bus to Hillend car park, at which point you can do the sensible thing and take a long but relatively easy walk along some hills until you do a steeper incline to reach Allermuir Hill, or you can take a steep walk up to a mound before walking along to Caerketton Hill.

     In my defence, I did not know there was an easier option the first time I visited it, so up the steep path I went at a fair pace: too fast, it turned out; fast enough to feel like I wanted to vomit when I reached the top of Caerketton Hill.  There is a cairn sitting there (you come across them a lot on the hills), which is great for a rest and if you've a patient and photogenic bird close by.

The view is lovely...

... but at this point, Allermuir Hill and its trig point is teasing you: a couple of hills away, but tantalisingly close! It would have been rude not to, especially when you've company...

Following this, I decided to go for broke and carried on walking along the hills.  I had a vague finishing point in mind (the Pentland Hills Regional Park) so I headed in that direction, coming across the Castlelaw Hill Fort along the way.  It is beautifully just there.  No fanfare or huge arrows pointing to it if you approach from the direction I did.  It nests beneath the grass and you can just wander inside, which, naturally, I did.

From there, it was just a relatively quick walk to the Regional Park, by Glencorse Reservoir and via a nice woodland walk, where I ate an extremely overpriced and soggy meal and then found out the buses were nearly all cancelled, chancing upon one at the last minute (fortunate, as the next one following was due in about three hours' time. They have since tweaked the timetable thankfully).

Though Arthur's Seat will always be my one true love here in Scotland then, the Pentlands come a close second.  I only visited them twice in my first year here in Edinburgh, my second time only venturing as far as Allermuir Hill at which point I found the easier path down.  But why mention this now?

     Because today is the first day is four months that I am home alone, as my girlfriend has whizzed off to France to see her family, and so it felt as good a day as any to visit the Pentlands again.  She's not big on hills, see, and I was feeling a bit lonely, so off I went to wander a bit.

I went straight to the Regional Park this time, my vague plan being to visit the Hill Fort again, write a couple of postcards if the weather held, and then maybe push on to and up Allermuir Hill before heading home.

     You know these blog posts by now though.  You know that didn't happen.  Not one postcard was written.

     The trouble started when I walked down a different path to the last time I was here, turning left instead of right and so bypassing the forest.  I could easily have turned back, but then I saw it: a hill, tantalisingly there, begging to be climbed up, and with (if I was lucky) a cairn to greet me at the top.  I started my ascent, slowly, to the one that was teasing me in the distance.  It turns out that relatively slow for me is still quicker than some as I overtook a few people on my way, and it turns out also that it's a pretty steep and tough climb, albeit worthwhile.  The sun was shining, the going was soft but not too soft, and before too long I made it to the top.  I later found out that this was Turnhouse Hill.

"Yes! A cairn!" I cried into the wind, and placed the alligators, my constant companions, down for an obligatory photo.

(If you were wondering what the grey item Mossy, on the furthest point right, is holding beneath his paw, that's his toy cuddly water vole. So, now you know.)

The wind was nippy this high up and I should have stopped there and headed back down... but then I saw it.  A second hill, and oh! So close and so gorgeous and so tall: how could I not? It's the bump on the right in this picture, taken a little walk down from Turnhouse Hill.  As I said, close by and tempting.  I started the walk over and up to it, passing a very muddy gate on the way.

Though steep, it's not quite as bad as the walk up to Turnhouse Hill, and definitely not as bad as the one up to Caerketton Hill, and I'd regained my pace and energy again after a short rest.  A few people were behind and ahead of me, and when I reached the summit there were several people there as well: it was easy to see why.  It was utterly and completely gorgeous (the view, not my face) and there was a huge cairn! Bliss.

     I took a few photos and then I sat down and just drank in the view for a long while.

It was also extremely windy as you can see (and hear if the video works for you) as well.

I tried at this point to find out where I was as there were no signs about that I could see.  Google Maps proved to be no help:

But thankfully, Pokémon Go came to my rescue (I always knew catching them all would work out for the best):

I was sitting on Carnethy Hill, and thanks to the wind growing increasingly cold, to the point where my hands turned red.  This was when I made good on my plan to wander back down... which in hindsight was the worst decision I could have made.  I had been tempted to go on as there was a really nice looking peak very close by, but I decided it was for the best to back off in case I got carried away and ended up in the middle of nowhere.  More fool me as I found out later that the hill I could see so near to me was Scald Law, the highest hill in the Pentlands.  So near, yet so far! I'll definitely return at some point and tackle it.  I'll try and not look so awkward in my photographs though.  Pity the passer by who took this one.

The walk down from the summit was, predictably, a bit wobbly due to the steepness of the hill.  A family were just ahead of me and more than once one of the children slipped and had to be helped up.  I eventually reached the bottom but rather than climb back up Turnhouse Hill, I followed a wire fence down to a small road and part of the Glencose Resevoir, where I rested for a bit.  Turns out the bit I rested in was wet with mud from the night before, but you can't win them all.  The sun was out again and I had only lost my footing and slightly turned my ankle once on the way down to it, so all was good.

Rather wonderfully, the walk to the main reservoir was absolutely silent save for birdsong and my own footsteps and breathing.  My legs were aching slightly and the backs of my knees bit, but it had been a lovely walk and worth it.

     And then I reached the hill path that leads you to Castlelaw Hill Fort.

     "Well," I said to myself, "since I'm here..."

The Fort is close by a military training ground.  I've never seen anyone there, but there are signs warning you not to trespass and what looks like a firing range in the distance (which I keep meaning to photograph but keep forgetting to! Someone has tried to oblige here).  There are warnings that red flags up indicate training is in session, but I've never seen any of those either.  I did see a few red ribbons tied up and blowing in the wind, but no action seemed to be taking place and a handful of red lights were not switched on.  A load of people passed my way as I wandered back and none of them seemed to take in the ribbons, so perhaps they're just for decoration.

     Anyways, I've mentioned the Fort already so let's skip past all that.  Here, have some sheep.

That one is grazing on the top of the Fort, which is currently closed due to Coronavirus.

     This was another opportunity for me to turn around and go back home.  I did not avail myself of it though, as by then I think I was just resigned to going to the trig point on Allermuir Hill.  It felt fated to be.  So, aching knees and legs along for the ride, I climbed up and up and up.  I saw a thistle, proof that I was in Scotland...

... and I saw evidence of rain from the night before.

I turned round just before the final climb up to Allermuir Hill and could see where I had just been, atop Carnethy Hill, in the distance.

A bit unclear?

Still unclear?

You know the routine now: hill, photos, rest time.

That's Arthur's Seat in the distance, by the way.

I then decided to followed the wire fence seen in the photo below down to the bottom of the hill, instead of the 'easy' path I'd discovered before.  This was a Mistake (the capital M is justified).

The hill soon gave way to increasingly wild grass, thistles (ouch) and one section that was near-vertical, very wet and very muddy.  I had to take it extremely slowly, crouched on my hands and bottom, to stop myself falling forward and down, breaking a bone, or sliding down, which would have been equally painful.  There's a reason pathways exist, though there were signs someone else had either climbed up or down this way in the form of small footholds.  Glad I'm not the only idiot around these parts.

     More thistles and wild grass later, I finally found an actual pathway near some stones.  Tired by then, and pricked along my legs by thistles, I was happy when the path led to the nearby golf course and a babbling brook I'd seen before with one of my crocodiles and, eventually, to a street and a bus home where a bath and a rest awaited me.

So, what have we learned? That I don't know when to quit? That I cannot resist a good hill? That my knees and legs are going to scream at me tomorrow?
     All of these things and more besides.  But I know also that next time I decide to ramble on the Pentlands (and ramble about it on on my blog), I'll make the same mistakes all over again.  I am consistent, if nothing else.