The day started sunny, but it soon started clouding over and with a forecast of sunshine and showers, the earlier I got going, the better.
I started from the parking area marked on the OS map, on the east side of the reservoir, and cycled off down the road. Down wasn’t an ideal starting gradient, so when, after 2km, I reached another parking area (marked as a picnic area, not a P on the map), I gave Mick a call and asked him to move, so as to make my return leg shorter and easier. I nearly waited for him to arrive, so I could get my forgotten earphones, but with the sky looking a bit ominous I decided I may later regret delaying myself by five minutes.
He arrived in the new parking spot just as I negotiated the gate part way up the forest track that was going to lead me some distance towards my hill.
There are no paths or tracks that lead out of this forest, but from aerial photos I was confident that I could find a way, and it proved to be easier than expected (in this case, by ‘easier’ I mean that I didn’t need to bash through densely planted conifers). I abandoned the bike by a couple of timber stacks, where forestry machines were parked up, and set off on the margin of a newly cleared area, keeping to the edge of the trees that are still standing, with its green, firm carpet.
Before I knew it, I was out of the top of the mature/felled trees, and into an area of young (maybe self-seeded) trees, dotted amongst the heather. Given the choice between making my way relatively easily along a drainage ditch or across the heather and young trees to the fence line, I opted for the former, until that became a bit tricky, whereupon I cut across, aiming for a stile I could see over the deer fence.
It wasn’t the friendliest stile, with the top rung on each side being uncomfortably far apart, and with no tall upright to hang onto, but I made it across, onto the ATV track the other side. The track petered into a trodden line, but it still gave easy going up to the summit. There I wandered around at some length and believe that I found the tussock that sits half a centimetre higher than the surrounding tussocks. From there, I could clearly see the other hills I visited in this area last year, and yesterday. I could also see quite a few localised showers around me, one of which had only just moved away from getting me slightly damp on my approach to the summit.
My return was more or less a retracing of my outward route – I was never far away from it, but from the knowledge gained on the outward leg, I varied it slightly on the way back.
The return bike ride only took me 12 minutes, and it was probably about half way through that it started raining. By the time I reached Bertie it was as heavy as that shower got, which wasn’t ideal timing to be taking half of the contents out of Bertie’s boot to put the bike back in. Everything got rather damp.
I’d wondered whether taking the bike was the best approach to this hill, versus walking up to Spot Height 503 on Milldewan Hill and approaching via the ridge. That would have given me pleasing views for an extended period, but given how heavy some of the showers were that passed through in the hour after I got back, from a comfort point of view, taking the faster option was a good choice.
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