Long way up, short way down. Total 2.6 miles with around 230m ascent.
It was 4pm by the time I set off for today's hill, although until around 3.55, there was no certainty that there was going to be a hill. We'd woken up in Hawick this morning to fog (the dripping from branches above Bertie's roof told me that even before I looked outside), which excused me nicely from an early start, then Mick expressed a preference to stay in Hawick a while and have a little wander around.
That we did, returning to Bertie around lunch time with three DVDs and two books, bought during a round of the many charity shops. We'd barely been in Bertie for two minutes when we were off out again. I'd found that there was a Wetherspoons in town and whilst their food is never going to get rave reviews, it's cheap, plentiful and highly calorific; moreover, they have good wifi and there were a few TV programmes I wanted to download.
In my state of post-lunch stuffedness, my first thought as Bertie was positioned in a pull-in alongside the Rankle Burn, below Cacra Hill, wasn't to nip up it this afternoon. But as I sat here over the next hour or so, I couldn't help but notice that it was a lovely day out and it would be a shame to waste it.
Mick declined to come with me and I dithered a while over whether to go straight up the side of the hill from Bertie (silly-steep for the first 100 metres from the road, but less than 0.5-mile distance) or whether to walk back along the road to a track that would lead me to an ATV track that would take me to within metres of the summit (at least three times further). I went for the further-but-easier option via the track in the end - a good choice if only because I saw an adder as big as I've ever seen basking itself on the tarmac on my way.
Just before the ridge, I lost patience with the ATV track, as it wiggled around, and just headed straight up. Then, having admired the view (so many lumps and bumps! So few signs of habitation!), I thought I may as well take a more direct route down. My knees wouldn't have thanked me for heading straight for Bertie, but a line slightly to the east looked feasible, with the added benefit of landing me next to a gate back onto the road.
A nice little hill, is my verdict. Mick may well go up there tomorrow whilst I take my bike out to visit a couple of other nearby tops.
It was 4pm by the time I set off for today's hill, although until around 3.55, there was no certainty that there was going to be a hill. We'd woken up in Hawick this morning to fog (the dripping from branches above Bertie's roof told me that even before I looked outside), which excused me nicely from an early start, then Mick expressed a preference to stay in Hawick a while and have a little wander around.
That we did, returning to Bertie around lunch time with three DVDs and two books, bought during a round of the many charity shops. We'd barely been in Bertie for two minutes when we were off out again. I'd found that there was a Wetherspoons in town and whilst their food is never going to get rave reviews, it's cheap, plentiful and highly calorific; moreover, they have good wifi and there were a few TV programmes I wanted to download.
In my state of post-lunch stuffedness, my first thought as Bertie was positioned in a pull-in alongside the Rankle Burn, below Cacra Hill, wasn't to nip up it this afternoon. But as I sat here over the next hour or so, I couldn't help but notice that it was a lovely day out and it would be a shame to waste it.
Mick declined to come with me and I dithered a while over whether to go straight up the side of the hill from Bertie (silly-steep for the first 100 metres from the road, but less than 0.5-mile distance) or whether to walk back along the road to a track that would lead me to an ATV track that would take me to within metres of the summit (at least three times further). I went for the further-but-easier option via the track in the end - a good choice if only because I saw an adder as big as I've ever seen basking itself on the tarmac on my way.
Just before the ridge, I lost patience with the ATV track, as it wiggled around, and just headed straight up. Then, having admired the view (so many lumps and bumps! So few signs of habitation!), I thought I may as well take a more direct route down. My knees wouldn't have thanked me for heading straight for Bertie, but a line slightly to the east looked feasible, with the added benefit of landing me next to a gate back onto the road.
Bertie, being a blot on the landscape
A nice little hill, is my verdict. Mick may well go up there tomorrow whilst I take my bike out to visit a couple of other nearby tops.
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